ALEXANDRA HADDOW: NOT MY FINEST HOUR (FULL COMEDY SPECIAL)

Thank you so much Thank you so so much for coming to my show guys and some of you might be here because You see me before Some of you might be here because you read about the show you thought it sounded good and some of you might be here because I look like a slug on the poster, so Whatever your reason, thank you so much for coming Also, there might be some like history buffs in the audience that think because this show is called not my finest hour That there's a Churchill element Very much not the case This show is much more we will shag them on the beaches than fight them, you know Both valid No, it's called not my finest hour because I wrote it about something I did that was very wrong Okay, and I wrote this show for two reasons One of the reasons was that I felt like nobody ever just said sorry anymore, especially publicly right politicians Celebrities your most annoying friends on Instagram. Okay. Nobody is just saying do you know what I fucked up? I'm sorry Okay Celebrities are the worst aren't they for this? I feel like celebrity excuses for bad behavior are getting weirder and weirder My favorite one of recent times was Roseanne. Okay, I Know do we all remember Roseanne? from the 90s sitcom Roseanne, okay good Now a couple years ago Roseanne tweeted something Racist okay, there was no way around it. It was horrible And then a few days later when presumably she realized that this tweet would have financial implications for her she thought I better wish you an excuse as to why I've said it and Roseanne's excuse for tweeting something racist was that her sleeping pills Made her do it Chef's kiss. All right, you know, I mean not a great advert for the medication itself. Is it being as she was of course? awake when she tweeted it, so Not a great start for her what I absolutely love though about this culture is that no matter how insane the excuse There will always be fans of that person who defend their behavior and provide some kind of evidence, right? I was scrolling down Roseanne's tweet. Okay for the replies and I was half expecting someone to be like, um Can we all just leave Roseanne alone, please? Right some medications can cause Adverse personality side effects like I had an antihistamine last week and joined the Taliban. You know, I mean just like stay Stay vigilant, okay. I mean to be honest looking at some of the oldest and slightly bigoted members of my own family If any medication was gonna cause racism It would be Gavis gone, wouldn't it? Like It's like you're on that every day. What else can't you digest Susan, right? Absolutely insane Right and celebrity notes app apologies They are one of my favorite things of modern culture. Does anyone else love these? Yeah, okay, especially when you've been out the night before you've you've made an arse out of yourself You're a bit embarrassed about your behavior. You wake up. You're a bit hungover. You log on to Instagram and straight away Somebody's done something so bad that they've had to write about it over three pages in the notes app And post it to Instagram and you're like, I'm fine. You know, like you feel great. Don't you after that? Okay, my favorite ever Celebrity notes have apology comes from Ja Rule The references are nothing if not current guys, right But Ja Rule was the co-organizer of fire festival recently now Give me sure if you know fire festival Okay. Yeah, if you don't know it It was an a-list celebrity festival on a tropical island and they invited Celebrities and influencers and models to all have an amazing time and make all of us horrible muggles at home feel horrible And then they got there and they were having to fight over basic supplies like food and water and it was just amazing One of the best days of my life Ja Rule was a co-organizer and He issued his apology which read word-for-word. I am truly sorry as this is not my fault Just an instant 180 thank you Ja Just a side note my friend thought it was pronounced Ja Rule For quite a long time Also like people that we know, okay social media has made us talk and act in such weird ways there's always women on my social media timeline that are saying things like I'm done saying sorry I'm an unapologetic bitch I'm just watching it. Like I'm an apologetic bitch. Like I just I'm really sorry There's all this weird kind of therapy speak online now Which means we never have to take accountability for something that we did wrong We've all got a friend like this and if you haven't got one Mine is called Caitlin. Okay, and she will post every sort of six months She'll post something like this. The picture will be absolutely no relation to the caption whatsoever, right? It'll be her on a beach in Thailand looking incredible and the caption will say something like hey guys Sorry, I've been a bit quiet on here recently We've got two hundred and twelve followers Sorry, I've been a bit quiet on here recently, but I've been on a journey I've realized that I need to live my truth and I need to be more authentically me I've realized that for this year I'm just gonna be trusting my heart I've got my crystals I've done the work And I'm ready for you guys to just accept me for who I am And I'm looking at it being like Caitlin. I know that you shagged your boyfriend's brother at a wedding like Either just say nothing or like stop with all this weird pseudo therapy talk Okay So I thought I'll buck the trend and I will write something about I think the worst thing that I have ever done That I am willing to talk about On stage for money The worst thing that I think I've ever done is about ten years ago in my 20s I had a relationship with a guy who was 16 years older than me Yeah, I know and the reason that that was bad was because if his wife had found out ******* hell Would I have been in trouble I Had an affair. That's what I'm trying to say. I had an affair and as you can probably tell from that previous sentence, I was the single one and If you're gonna have an affair, my advice would be to be the single one. Okay, that's my insider tip from me to you All right, especially if I'm doing a show about it, okay Because if I was the married one and I'd done a whole show about having an affair You'd be like, oh my god, what cow? But if I pitch the next 45 minutes, right? You might come out of here like wasn't she brave, you know, so that's what That's what we're going for This so this happened about ten years ago I was working for a magazine at the time that was my old job and I met him at a party that the magazine was Throwing and magazines could throw parties back in those days because they had this mad thing called money by the way for any Gen Z in the room a magazine is sort of like like a website that you print off once a month, okay, and I had fancied this guy for a long time from afar. I knew who he was Because he was sort of famous Okay, he was a sports presenter, which is quite objectively a boring reason to be famous. Okay It was Gary Linacre. No, I'm joking. Oh I wish it was Gary Linacre. I wouldn't be here. I mean I did that once and a woman in the front row just went I was like calm down Janet. It's fine The leader of the free world is not wrong and you're fine No, it wasn't Gary Linacre. I can't tell you who it was for obvious reasons But to quell your curiosity what I want you to do is I want you to Picture a sports presenter in your minds right now. Don't say out loud, but just you're got him. Yeah whoever you're thinking of He was less famous than that, okay Right, but I still thought is extremely cool because he was kind of a generation above me Right, and they were sort of the last generation to be able to afford stuff. Do you know I mean like anything? Okay, so I was I was really really impressed by that and I didn't mean for it to become a thing Okay But I also did hook up with him that night at the party and the reason that me and all my friends that I worked With thought it would be okay Was because we assumed that him and his wife had an open relationship or some kind of open arrangement And we assumed that because it wasn't so much that he had a wandering. Eye. It was more like oh my god Is your eye? Okay, it keeps ******* other women. Do you know I mean like that kind of So naturally, you know, I thought that's probably what it is I'm not gonna ask but that's probably what it is. Okay, and I always used I was a picture editor at this magazine You know, you always just have to put pictures of him and like a launch of a car or watching the pages And I couldn't believe that he was chatting me up And the other reason I think I got into this was because I was craving some excitement right? I was 25 26 I'd been in London for like five years and I wanted all these like romantic trysts and sordid affairs and whirlwind Romances and so far all I've done was date a lot of men called Rob from Clapham, right? The birthplace of bottomless brunch and marrying someone you hate like I just It's just not for me right and Some of the guys were okay, but some of them weren't bad. I dated a guy who worked for the Green Party for a year Yeah, it would only have sex with the lights on the irony And he always insisted on wearing a single-use plastic as well. I mean Stick to the brand We're absolutely fine, you know someone some of my look back on with with mixed feelings, okay I had a boyfriend called Juan And Juan did something for me on Valentine's Day when we were together But no guy has ever done for me before or since right on the day of love itself Juan got deported Absolutely true You couldn't write it. I mean you could but it would be weird if you did And the thing is some of you were right to feel a bit weird when I said that right but that did happen however That is only half the story Okay Because my boyfriend did get sent away on Valentine's Day back to El Salvador But I had wanted to break up with him For some time But I'm British I'm very bad at confrontation So I thought well, I'm just gonna have to leave this up to fate or an increasingly fascist government to decide Whether or not we're gonna stay together And then one day Juan came back in from having the call and he said well, I can't believe it. They've not renewed my visa I've got to go in six weeks time And I was like, oh Who do you think Made the anonymous call Some of you very tense Don't worry. I didn't call immigration on my boyfriend. I Used a fake email address right is much more inconspicuous That's the thing and then as a rebound fling from Juan I dated an Australian guy called Matt right and after six weeks of us dating He said that his visa had run out and he had to go back to Australia But then I just saw him in London three months later I was like you can't just use the previous guy's excuse For a brief moment there I was Nigel Farage's dream woman, you know, let's just ******* foreigners out of the country, you know So essentially I was craving something exciting something wrong and it's a weird sort of facet of human existence that sometimes We merge those two things. Okay, we think that something wrong is Something exciting and like I say, I thought the age gap was really cool for one thing This sports presenter lived in zone one of London. I Know I thought that was just car dealerships and pretz now, okay All right I couldn't believe it and I also knew that he was in a different phase of life and that he had his shit together Because when I went round to his flat He didn't have his bike in the hallway What the **** I've hit the jackpot. Okay, I thought this is amazing But then certain things started to crop up that made the age gap a little bit awkward One time I was around at his flat and he put a pizza in the oven. Not me. I should clarify and After about 12 minutes he turned to me and he said does that smell ready to you I Said yeah, why why are you asking me and he said oh, I don't have a sense of smell And I said age 25. Oh my god. Is that because you're so old He was 42 He said no, it's not because I'm so old I've got a condition called anosmia It means I don't have a sense of smell. I've had it since birth And I said, all right, so it's like one of those Victorian childhood diseases that We can cure now, but back in your day, you know, it was a struggle Another time that really emphasized the age gap. I was round there again and His wife worked abroad a lot. By the way. She wasn't just there. I should stress and It was like a Sunday night and I was round his house and he said do you fancy a glass of wine? I said I do actually but it's raining. It's horrible outside. I can't be bothered schlepping to the shop. No, thanks I'm all right. Don't worry about it. And he said yeah, don't worry. I've just got wine in the house. What? Yeah, I've just got just some wine in I said what just like it's just there You haven't bought it for immediate consumption What just like surplus wine And he said yeah, what do you want red or white I was like red or white All right, James Bond So said oh, I'll have a glass of red please because I thought that sounded sophisticated, right? He brought me over this wine it was the nicest thing I had ever Tasted right and I was like, this isn't the cheapest wine from the nearest shop This is good stuff this has got grapes in it everything right and Then sort of the final nail in the coffin. I mean this was ten years ago. He's probably in one by now, but like The final sort of nail in the coffin right we were having this talk about losing our virginities and It's quite an intimate talk Isn't it with someone that you're you know in a sexual relationship with now or having a mediocre affair with a zed list sports presenter? You know either one and because you're talking about a time when you were sexually vulnerable to someone that you're now being sexual with right and He had quite a good story his was nice he was very fond of it He was getting all nostalgic and then he said oh god. Yeah, 1988. What a great year I was like, yes, it was because that was the year I was born. Okay So I thought maybe This isn't gonna last but I kept Doing it and one of the other reasons that I think I stayed in it for so long Was that I am from the complete opposite of zone one of London no bike in the hallway nice wine, right? I'm from a tiny little town in the Midlands called Corby. Does anyone know it? Yeah, usually I ask the audience how they know Corby, but there's a huge Corby contingent in tonight My two favorite ever answers from audiences when I've said does anyone know Corby is number one a guy said, yep I was supposed to play a football match there last year, but there was a burnout car on the pitch And my favorite ever answer I was doing a gig I said does anyone know Corby this guy really Enthusiastically put his hand up at the back and I was like, oh my god Are you from there mate? And he said no, but my best friend in jail was Briefly made me homesick Thing is in this country. We say that our national sport is football. It's not okay Our national sport in this country is being proud of being from a shit town. Okay We all absolutely love it We're there in the closing time of bars arguing with other people being like no, no, no No, my shit hometown is worse than your shit hometown and I will tell you why and Then you'll reel off a list of facts about why that is the case and that is exactly what I am gonna do now, right? Now we all know the rules of the game as well I can slug it off because I'm from there But if you do it, I will fight you after the show and we all know That's how it works, right the thing is even though people say bad things about Corby we have won quite a few awards over the years right in 2016 Corby won the most depressing place to live in the UK In 2017 we won debt capital of the UK Yeah, I imagine that was all of us buying stuff. We couldn't afford to cheer ourselves the **** up from the year before right For a long long time when I was growing up there we had the highest rate of teen pregnancy in the country Yeah, but then in 2019 we lost out to Hull. So I know yeah, we'll get it back. Don't worry my friend's kids back home are really putting in a shift, so Fingers crossed But my favorite fact my absolute favorite facts about my hometown is that until 2009 Corby was the largest town in Europe without a train station Pretty jazzy Then in 2009 we got the aforementioned train station and it had thank you it had one train a day To London Nothing coming back. This is absolutely true There was no return journey That's how much we wanted to get the **** out of there, right Even the money-growing bastards at private rail were like and what time should we put the return on? Can I stop you there? No need on the way back the train just stopped at Kettering and then it was just like Every man for himself go for it, right? That was it. It's also it's quite a weird place to grow up because everybody in Corby is Scottish It's called little Scotland, right? And that's because there was a massive recruitment drive from the steelworks and there was mass unemployment in Scotland So everybody moved down and it's a town in the Midlands of England with a very Scottish culture All right. My dad is Scottish. My mum is English which in Corby makes me mixed-race. So it's quite exotic It's quite difficult growing up with a Scottish dad when you yourself are English Because he knows that he should love you But instinctively He wants to fight you. Do you know I mean that's That's very much the energy that I have grown up with and I'm so jealous of every other Nationality, okay, because it's never really been cool to be English. But at the moment, it's deeply uncool And I'm jealous of my dad even because as a Scottish guy He gets to be a nationalist and it's cool Even if you don't agree with them politically, you can at least see where they're coming from They want to be independent of Westminster. They want to govern themselves It's a noble political position to be in to be a Scottish nationalist if you're an English nationalist You're a nonce at a rally, aren't you? You're shagging a statue. You've got supervised access to your kids. Do you know what I mean? Like it's It's just not as horny, you know and By the way I'm so glad that we're filming this in Hackney and you guys laughed at that because I tried that joke out last night in Gravesend in Kent and It did not get the same reaction. I Didn't realize you could actually hear bulldog tattoos until I did that Police escort to the station never returned. Thank you. Goodbye Now the thing is my dad managed to get over his absolute, you know Visceral hatred of me and actually be a very encouraging very supportive dad who was constantly Screaming at me to get out of my hometown It's a weird working-class paradox, isn't it? They were constantly like be proud away from get out be proud away from but get out right all the time Shout about your roots, but never come back right all the time. That's the paradox We're always taught as a working-class person, right? I said my dad was really really supportive and wonderful and told me I could be whatever wanted to be but my aunt Susan My dad's sister Took the Scottish English hatred to the next level. Okay. She hates the English so much that when my mum Started to go into labor with me my aunt Susan tried to persuade her to drive up to Scotland and Over the border in labor So that I would be born in Scotland so that I would be Scottish When my mum I think quite reasonably Declined this offer My aunt Susan has treated me ever since like I made that decision in the womb. Okay? She absolutely hates me anytime. She can get a little snip at me. She's there All right, so it's really nice that I've kind of grown up with like a fight-or-flight response within my own family. Okay? But I did I took my dad's advice, right? I tried so hard at school. I was an absolute Nerd I was unbearable. I did everything Extracurricular that you could probably do I did four dance classes a week. My favorite film was Billy Elliot. Of course it was It's about a working-class guy that gets into the Royal Ballet moves down to London and I was like I'm gonna make it as a dancer. Okay, I'm Billy Elliot. I Went to athletics training. I was County Sprint champion. I excelled in all my subjects not science. I'm not a psychopath but like I Was a complete dork, okay English was my favorite subject at school All right, and cast your minds back to your English teachers some of the nicest people you will ever meet It felt like they did like a line of enthusiasm every morning, didn't it? Before they came into school They would say to me Alex. You're too keen. Okay, just back off. Okay, I would write things in my essays That would try and impress them that I thought were extremely poignant and had loads of gravitas I would always try and do like a callback at the end of the essay I once wrote that William Blake the poet was a freedom fighter for all of us And my last line of any essay would be something like and at the end of the day When we really think about it Aren't we all William Shakespeare? No We are not okay, so I I tried to do everything by the rules I tried to do everything right I loved the rules I was absolutely shagging the rules and for a long time. That was the only thing I was shagging I couldn't lose my virginity in the teenage pregnancy capital of the country But eventually I did and I even lost my virginity in the correct way You know vaginally That's the only time that's ever gone off No, what I mean by that is I Got a boyfriend and he was a virgin as well And he was the same age as me and we were respectful Tick tick tick right did everything that you're supposed to do. My boyfriend's name was Dominic He was in my year at school and Dominic pursued me that is key to remember for the next three minutes of this Story, okay. Now we were going out for a couple of months and for Christmas Dominic bought me Tickets to go and see Billy Elliot the musical in London and stay at a five-star hotel in Kensington He was 17 He had a job on the trolleys at Morrison's Where was he getting this cash? To be honest, I think I was just mostly annoyed because it made the CD that I bought him look extra shit It's like you've really trumped me that okay, but the thing is I just couldn't believe it I was so excited because I knew that a hotel stay meant that I was gonna lose my virginity and Think back to when you were a teenager. That was your biggest fear, wasn't it that you were gonna die a virgin You'd be there like oh my god, it's gonna be me I'm gonna be the one out the friendship group. I'm gonna be the statistic. Okay They're gonna laugh at me when I get to heaven You know the club And then you look back at you like yeah, you were in year nine, of course, you didn't have any love interests Okay, it's all gonna be okay. Now. The thing is because me and Dominic were 17 year old virgins. We weren't mature We didn't have a chat about it. We didn't say you ready. Am I ready? I didn't do that at all we just communicated in a series of winks and nods right like so when we Go down to London that kind of thing Very very childish. I did however tell Absolutely everybody else Everybody at school people athletics people at dance class my friend's parents right pets. Okay Anybody that would listen I would try and shoehorn it into any Conversation possible. I'll be there in the lunch queue at school being like, oh, what have you got next double maths? Guess what? I'm having sex on the 27th of January. Can you believe it right? So excited My other top tip to you would be don't tell everybody you're gonna lose your virginity before you've lost your virginity When you're at school, but eventually the day rolled round and we went down to London on the train the one a day, right? And we went to watch Billy Elliot and it was amazing And then we came out and again without any chat We just sort of awkwardly went into one of those kiosks and silently bought a three-pack condoms Which can I just say three packs of condoms so expensive. You may as well just have the ******* kid. All right The CPT on those things it's insane, you know cost per thrust like Especially for a virginity loss So we bought them we got the tube to Kensington and we walked into this hotel we looked ludicrous We looked like we'd won a competition to be there. Okay Two 17 year old virgins from the Midlands awkwardly walking in but we went in we checked in we went up to the room and we had sex Didn't even hurt legend So proud of myself Just and just as an aside I'm speaking to mostly women in the room Do you remember reading those magazines like Miz and sugar and Cosmo if you're odd, right? And they had articles in them. That was like how to break in your own hymen So that sex doesn't hurt as much when you lose your virginity I mean how much money did they think teenagers had for horse riding lessons like Also even weirder when now you think back and realize it was a bunch of adults in a magazine office Being like shit. We've got half a page free here Steve. We need another hymen article stat Well, I know you did one last week Steve just pick a sport. Just get it in there. All right so strange I Even got on top on my first ever time having sex which is a bit like Doing your driving test on the motorway In that sure you can show off about it afterwards by the time you've got no ******* idea what you're doing, okay The thing is I didn't care about any of that had a really unhealthy attitude. I just couldn't believe it. I was like, yes I've lost my virginity. I Immediately became more smug. I shedded my nerd status right there and then okay now me and Dominic the next day We woke up. We got the train back to Kettering, obviously Our parents picked us up Separately and drove us home and I was just there being like I can't believe it. I had left Corby on the Saturday a girl And I had returned on the Sunday a girl who had briefly had shit sex once She's had this new air about me. I went home. I was sat there on the Sunday night watching antiques Roadshow eating my toasty toppers Looking around at my whole family like ******* virgins Mum and dad of virgins My little sister virgin Even the cat I was like, I know you're a virgin Colin. I've watched them cut it off R.i.p. Colin So I just this I was the new me. Okay, I felt amazing I went into school on the Monday with all the confidence of the child of a famous actor Okay swaggered in I didn't pay attention in the first two lessons. I didn't need to I didn't have a hymen anymore I don't need a levels, right? It's a whole new world for me and then it gets to 11 a.m. We've got form time. I'm there with my friends I'm just about to tell the amazing story of how I'm a top shagger When Dominic comes over to me and he says really nervously Alex, can I am Can I just have a quick word with you outside? I'll be honest. I briefly panicked and thought he was gonna tell me he was pregnant, right? I'm not ready to be a dad But I was like, yeah, okay fine so we went out I went for a walk around the block at school and Dominic dumped me At school the day after I lost my virginity to him in front of everybody And you know what his excuse was He said that I was shit in bed I Know How bad do you have to be? To be the only person Someone has slept with the only time Someone has slept with anyone and still be bad in bed Is that even? Scientifically possible that's like saying you came last at a wank, you know, I mean it doesn't make sense Anyway, I dealt with it extremely maturely I burst into tears and I ran to go and find my best friend Catherine now Catherine was gonna lose her virginity the week after me. Okay. I was very much the first guy up over the top of the trenches She was going the week after all right. Now. This was back in the day when sending one text costs I think 18 pound 50 So I had just texted her on the Sunday saying deed is done. See you tomorrow morning On my virgin Alcatel. I was like this big So the last thing Catherine has heard from me is that text message and then the next thing she sees is Me running towards her at school in tears, and I can't help but think she must have looked at me and gone Fuck I knew I should have invested more in horse riding lessons It must be way worse than we thought But she consoled me she was really nice So my friends were great everybody rallied round but I was humiliated for the rest of the school year Everybody knew that I'd lost my virginity and been dumped the next day because I told them but the point is I Couldn't wait to get out of there I couldn't wait to go to university and leave and do something completely different and have nobody know that that happened to me And by the way, just for the purposes of this show I decided to look up Dominic now and find out what he's doing now at first I thought that was gonna be fruitless because he doesn't have social media red flag. I Briefly hoped that he was in jail, but apparently not but now I found out that Dominic sells NFTs and Lives on a boat a houseboat So it's interesting that after that whole story. He now identifies as a virgin, which is nice You know good for him And I think that story might somehow explain why eight years later I decided to just do the wrong thing because I'd done everything by the book I'd done everything that you were supposed to do and I'd still had it thrown back in my face So there I am at 25 into this affair. That's now six seven eight months long and I'm thinking I have to cut this off Right. I have to do something about this because I'm starting to have feelings from a bit I realized I wasn't dating anybody else and I thought no this has to end I'm gonna cut it off and that is exactly what I should have done What happened instead is that I realized I was pregnant, okay nobody panic Don't worry, this is all gonna be resolved. It's all it all ends Well, what I will say is that if you don't laugh in the next three minutes you hate women. Okay, so it's just Bear that in mind, okay Now I don't want to make any men in the room jealous But I think the reason that I realized something was up was just women's intuition. Okay Just being really in tune with our bodies women's intuition You know, like I'd had unprotected sex and my period was late like women's Women's intuition The thing is I wasn't really that bothered okay, because I'd taken the morning after pill So I thought that can sometimes mess the cycle That's probably what it is But I'll take a pregnancy test just in case just to be safe and because I wasn't that bothered I thought I'll pick it up on the way to going to meet my friends for dinner and me and my friends still do this Once a month we meet up at a bistro. We all have a lovely time. We have great food We catch up we get pissed and it's amazing time. You might know the bistro. It's called Toby Carvery If you don't know what Toby Carvery is it's 7.99 unlimited roast dinners That should be nationalized, shouldn't it? Okay an incredible place So I'm walking down the road and I nip into Tesco and I go to get some pregnancy tests obviously own brand. Okay 25 pounds for clear blue For that amount of money. I want the name of the father to flash up on the test So I got four pounds for two and I went got the tube and I got to Toby Carvery and I thought you know What just to put my mind at ease I'm gonna take them now Right, so I went into the toilet took the first one immediately came up positive. I Thought that could be a false positive. Don't panic took the next one positive and I loudly screamed **** And it is a testament to that establishment that nobody batted an eyelid That's what you're supposed to do in a Toby Carvery bathroom, right So I came out to my friends. I told them what happened. We were all in shock We're like, oh my god, what we're gonna do and everybody is different I'm not judging anybody for what they do at any point of their life But I was 25. I was having an affair with this married sort of famous guy I was living with like 18 other people in London. I was right at the start of my career. I thought it's not right It's not right. I can't do this at the moment So we tried to find out how I would go about Not having this baby and you would think that if you googled this an important thing That it would come up at the top of Google in bold, you know, like when you Google a celebrity's age, right? It's there instantly you don't have to sift through all the stuff This wasn't what happened at all. I got sent all around the houses I got told I had to go to a private clinic. I got told a and E I got told I had to have a referral it was more complex than trying to print something if you can believe right and Eventually, this woman was really helpful. And she said what you need is a referral from your GP receptionist and I was like Great the final bosses of unhelpfulness So I waited a day because obviously these things always happen on a Sunday so they have a full 24 hours of panic First thing Monday morning. I called up my GP receptionist. I said hi. I'm pregnant and I need not to be That's why I actually said and she said okay miss. I don't understand what you're saying. I'm just looking at your records here And your doctor is actually on annual leave for the next three weeks So do you want to wait till she gets back or do you want me to pop you on the emergency list? And I was like, oh, yeah famously these things aren't time-sensitive. Are they? Do you know what actually January is looking pretty clear for me, why don't we do it then? Of course, I want to be put on the emergency list and she was like, all right fine So she did that I went to the hospital. I had some tests done and they said don't worry You're really really early in the pregnancy. And I was like, oh first time I've ever been early for anything And they said because you're at this stage. All you need to do is take these two pills I said, okay, and they said but you can't take them here in the hospital Surrounded by qualified medical staff You have to take them at home with two witnesses their words In case anything goes wrong and I said, well, thank you. I feel reassured So I called up two of the Toby Carvery massive And I said a bit of a weird one. Do you want to come round and watch me not have a baby? And they said yep, absolutely fine. We've never seen that before. We'll be right there So they did that they came round I took the two pills and it was fine absolutely fine Suspiciously fine. I thought finally I found something I'm good at But I rang the clinic they said no, don't worry as long as something happened it's happening you okay, it's different for everybody I said, okay. Wow. Well, there we go And then a few days later after I'd been through this all on my own I met up with the sports presenter and we had a drink and he told me at that drink that him and his wife were getting divorced and He said that it hadn't been working for a long time. No shit And that he'd broken up with her and he was moved into a new place and I thought oh my god maybe Me going through this has made him realize He's got feelings for me. Maybe We're actually gonna be together maybe we're gonna be a real couple and if you're thinking that that's what happened That is not what happens That was the last time I ever saw the sports presenter He was really weird and Shifty with me afterwards and I just really awkward and kind of ignoring my texts and stuff and then six weeks later at the magazine I was working at I was doing the party pages and they asked me to put in a photo of him with his new Girlfriend and She was even younger than me. All right, and she was a model and look I Don't want to say that she was posh But when I had to caption the photo her surname went along and down The side of the page I Thought I can't believe this. I'm Humiliated again. I did everything right back in the day. I did everything wrong now and still I've ended up in the same position And ever since then for a long time I'd always dated the wrong men okay, and I think it's an issue to do with class in that I Don't have any no what I mean What I mean is I grew up where I did I was the first person in my family to go to university and now Ostensibly I live quite a middle-class life You know like I live in East London work in the arts. I've got a nose ring. I'm a twat basically Okay, like I've got a middle-class brain now my brain wants to date like the straight Stephen Fry Right. I wanna I want to travel the world. I'm gonna read every book go to every play I want to experience things. I never thought I would get the chance to experience growing up where I did So I've got a middle-class brain I've still got a working-class vagina. Okay They're not matching up and she's making the calls. Okay My brain my brain wants to date the straight Stephen Fry, but my vagina wants to **** a roofer called Gary With absolutely zero political awareness who thinks that just stop oil or a band They're just not matching up so what I'm trying to say is I'm sort of lefty and I'm liberal And I work in the arts for no money. I Like a bit of rough I'm woke broke and I want to be choked. That's the kind of perfect Summarizing of it. Okay, but for a long time. I was dating the wrong guys until recently. I got a new boyfriend Yeah, very exciting and it's going well, so I don't want to look directly at him, you know in case I ruin it And he looks amazing without his top on my new boyfriend by which I mean he's circumcised so it's very neat and He's a bit of a bit of a geezer right my new boyfriend he's he's from North London Okay, so we grew up in a totally different environment to me and I love hearing about the stories of his friends Okay, I love hearing about the nicknames of his pals Danny onions 90s Mike and my favorite nice one Tony Who are these men Criminals mostly but still I love hearing about them. I should stress by the way that my boyfriend himself isn't a criminal But he is a musician slash DJ so his only crime is being sort of like a walking red flag Yes, please But what I love about dating well I love about dating in 2024 is that nobody feels like if you're a if you're a guy you have to be hyper masculine all The time nobody feels like if you're a woman you have to be hyper feminine all the time You can take a little from column a little from column B be who you actually are That's exactly the way it should be So even though my new boyfriend's a bit of a lad bit of a man's man, he's also Bang into his horoscopes. Oh my god I've never seen anything like this before in my life. It's like listening to Danny Dyer telling you to charge your crystals by the moon And I said to him the other day I was like, oh, how's your night out last night, babe? He went. Yeah, I went down the crown at a couple of pints I Said oh, yeah, was it good? He said yeah, I bumped into Mickey the key I Was like, oh my god Mickey the key Who the **** is that? He said a geezer. I go up with on the Holloway Road He steals cars for a living So he steals cars for a living. He said yeah, and he's ******* good at it as well. Of course. He is typical Virgo Who are you So look after that happened to me ten years ago here I am ten years later And I still don't think that I want kids, but there is a new little baby in my family My little sister just had a baby Yeah She's not a virgin anymore Yeah, I'm a first-time auntie already got my figure back so I'm thrilled and My little niece right? She's absolutely amazing She's cute and chubby and gorgeous and wonderful But when my sister announced in front of the whole family that she was expecting she did it at this huge family reunion It was everyone was down from Scotland big party Right, and we were so excited because it was the first baby of that generation in the family on hearing the news My mom and dad ran out to get some booze, you know the natural choice for a newly pregnant woman fine and My little sister nipped upstairs to go to the loo and while they were out the room. I knew this was gonna happen because my aunt Susan Sat in the corner She pointed at me in front of everybody and she went oh dear and I said What? And she said Are you not a bit sad? I said No, why? and she said Your younger sister's the first one of you to get pregnant And I was like, she's just the first one keeping it, mate So I what I thought I would do to finish the night off is that I would read you guys my very own celebrity notes app apology To say sorry for all the bad shit. I've just talked about But from the magic of TV, I'll just go like this So I just want to say hey guys Thanks for coming with me on this journey As much as I am truly sorry for everything I've done I was thinking back on my 20s when I was writing this show and I was taking a lot of antihistamine. Okay, so I Can't really be blamed. I'd like to say sorry to my dad who was so Unrelentlessly supportive that I couldn't help but wonder what it might be like to throw it all away on some absolute wrong ends I'd like to say a thank you actually to to Dominic Who after describing me as shit in bed has spurred me on all these years later to become a hot six out of ten in the sack, so It's not all bad Also at the start of this show. I said that I wrote it for two reasons Number one was that nobody ever said sorry anymore The second reason was about six months ago through friends of friends I found out that the sports presenters wife had absolutely no idea about his meanderings They didn't have an open relationship at all and she had no clue what was going on behind her back She found a woman's purse in their flat and she kicked him out all those years ago. She divorced him She met a new guy now. She lives in France. She's got two kids, right? That's a nice ending to the story for her. And also crucially it wasn't my purse. Thank God. Okay, I Guess what I'm trying to say at the end of this show is that We all make mistakes. We all **** up. We all have we all will and we should say sorry But at the end of the day When we really think about it Aren't we all sometimes my aunt Susan an unapologetic bitch