Lights off, notebook open

Mum phoned yesterday. She's been asked to chair the Stretford luncheon club entertainment subcommittee and now she wants to book me for the Christmas slot. My mum. The woman who once told me I was funny in a voice she meant as a warning.

She said "they're asking after you, love" like she was passing me a parcel she'd found in a drawer and wasn't sure was mine.

I said mum, please, no. In a voice I didn't recognise, which is the worst sentence I can write about a phone call that lasted nine minutes.

Tomorrow I'll phone Fi and ask her to make our mum stop. Fi does this with a laugh and a cup of tea and mum hangs up feeling she's won. I'll use my sister as a bouncer against my own mother and I won't feel bad about it. Feeling bad would mean I have to actually do the gig.

That's the rank: I'd rather ring Fi than stand in a room of women my mum's age and do a set that's basically a postcard home. They'd want the Manchester lad who's done well. They'd want the version mum tells at the club, which is a bloke I haven't been introduced to.