JACI'S BOX

Here we go again. Families, families, families. The Government’s Great British Summer Savings drive, aimed at . . . yes, families and kids. Whoopee! The country’s procreators par excellence will be able to enjoy cheaper children’s meals in restaurants, tickets to cinemas and theatres, and entry to a whole host of other attractions when, over the summer, VAT will temporarily be cut to help reduce…

The banana is sitting on my kitchen counter unit. I want to eat it. I love bananas. My dad loved bananas. I love them hot, cooked in sherry and topped with cream. I love them cold and sliced on corn flakes or hot breakfast oats. I love them mashed on toast with honey on the top. But today, all I’m doing is staring at the banana. I want it, but I just can’t move my backside to walk to where it’s…

Does No always mean No? No, it doesn’t – when it means Yes. This was a lesson I learnt the hard way as I again tried to navigate my way around a culture in which I can count the words I’ve managed to learn on well under two hands. Bulgaria uses the Cyrillic alphabet, which is a lot of very pretty shapes that look like a mixture of small houses and distorted ovaries, and I’m finding it something…

Tirana. The word sounded so exotic to me. I was seven years old and had been given my first encyclopaedia for Christmas. I have always had a penchant for learning lists – helped by having a phenomenal memory. Not photographic but not far off. I have also had a passion for history from an early age. My childhood ‘friend’ was called André and, although I had never visited France, I knew it was…

Will Dorit and Kyle cement their friendship? Will Dorit ever shut up long enough to find out? Will PK beat Mauricio to the title of Ozempic pin-up man of the year? Has everyone lost so much weight because Kathy stuffs her face with every available freebie before anyone else makes it down for dinner? Who are the deluded people buying (literally and metaphorically) Amanda’s bullshit? What has…

I can’t believe it’s seven years since my mother died. It never gets any easier. I dreamt about both my parents this week (Dad died in 1990) but they are never nice dreams – always lots of arguing and disagreements going on. It’s bizarre, because my dad wasn’t that kind of person. Mum had a temper and, especially towards the end of her life, was always worked up about something. Dad was…

Assisted dying is an expensive business. When 56-year-old, healthy Wendy Duffy travelled to the Swiss Clinic Pegasos, where she ended her life on Friday, she had saved up £10,000 for the final journey. I can’t imagine ever saving that amount of money for anything, let alone a one-way ticket to oblivion. At the moment, I couldn’t afford a rental car, garage and hosepipe to do the job. Heck, I…

TOY STORY – MY ACCIDENTAL LIFE AS A SEX TOY MULE Sex toys. Hold luggage. Just don’t. My day started innocently enough. I was taking three heavy suitcases of clothes back to Bulgaria, where I have applied for a visa. One condition is that you must have a property rental in place (in addition to a million other things) before they will consider you. So, having arrived initially with just a few…

Never lived with anyone. Never been married. No kids. Not gay. It’s the answer I give every taxi driver when he (it’s always a he) looks in the mirror and asks about my personal circumstances. It always begins with the marital question, and although the remainder of my answer is unsolicited, I know from experience which way it’s going, so I get it all out in one go to enjoy the remainder of the…

No presents at Christmas. No chocolate at Easter. It’s the big occasions that feel especially poignant since my mother died almost seven years ago. She’d been married on April 18th, which happened to be Easter Sunday in 1954 and, a devout Christian all her life, she commemorated the birth and death of Jesus with great intensity. Although I have no religious beliefs, I feel her passing more keenly…

Sometimes, I just wish the world would SHUT THE EFF UP! Today was one of those days. I woke at about 5.30am, as I tend to do these days, and spent 15 minutes trying to get back to sleep before yet again realising the pointlessness of it. The second my eyes are open, my brain leaps into action and nothing short of chloroform is going to knock me out. What shall I have for lunch? Will I remember to…

He’s the corpse that keeps on giving. Has there ever been a man who, in death, stirred up more problems for people than he did when alive? Jesus, maybe, albeit for very different reasons, and at least The Jesus Files (basically, the New Testament) were about telling people how to be nicer human beings. True, St Paul’s letters exposed a lot of bad behaviour among the Corinthians, Romans et al, but…

Come on. You have to pick a side. Either you’re #TeamVictoria or #Team Brooklyn. To me, it’s easy, because among the many verbal trinkets I remember from my Welsh youth, one in particular resonates at the moment: ‘A daughter is a daughter for all of her life, a son is a son until he takes him a wife.’ Prince Harry, Adam Peaty, Brooklyn Beckham – three men with one thing in common: the rejection…

Morning sickness. It’s a really horrible thing. I’ve never been pregnant, so I have no idea if what I’ve experienced regularly since I was a child is anything like that which afflicts women (no, I’m not going to say ‘pregnant people’ as I’ve noticed certain health sites have started calling them), but it’s very real. When I was in infants’ school, at around the age of seven I started fainting…

Morning sickness. It’s a really horrible thing. I’ve never been pregnant, so I have no idea if what I’ve experienced regularly since I was a child is anything like that which afflicts women (no, I’m not going to say ‘pregnant people’ as I’ve noticed certain health sites have started calling them), but it’s very real. When I was in infants’ school, at around the age of seven I started fainting…

What’s the biggest downside of having less money? No, it’s not that extra glass of wine you can no longer afford. It’s not having to downsize from a whole chicken to a couple of legs. It’s not changing from 2-ply to 1-ply toilet roll. No, it’s not being able to afford to get rid of the ads in TV apps. How my TV is still standing following every Domino’s pizza ad, I do not know. What does ‘Domino…

Sixty-seven. How did that happen? I veer between thinking what a complete mess I’ve made of my life and extreme gratitude for having come this far when so many haven’t. Family, close friends, people who go too soon through illness or accident, young kids bravely battling disease and leaving the world before their lives reach double figures . . . That’s what brings me up short when I descend into…