Black Folk Make Me Laugh, Especially My Family

I’m finally at home in Dublin after spending 24 hours with my fathers side of the family in The Midlands of the UK. His side run a pub which is apt considering what a bunch of pissheads they are and I spent the bulk of my time in the pub which wasn’t too dissimilar from my early childhood….

Within moments of arriving I found myself seated with my great uncle (he's in his 70s and has a better lovelife than most of my friends) and a couple of other guys. His son (my cousin) is a very famous ex footballer who turned up in the pub yesterday and you should have seen half the customers falling over themselves. Naturally this gave me a good giggle! As soon as my great uncle left, the guys started laying on the charm offensive as they asked me questions about my life in London. They were cracking up laughing as I regaled them with tales of dodgy men in bars and within a few minutes I was giving them relationship advice. One of them is actually an ex of my aunt and I suspected this as he described what he did for a living as it rang a vague bell. However, because he was laying on the charm offensive and angling for me to meet up with him in London, he pretended he barely knew her! He really flirted with me but it came to a halt when he got a menacing phonecall from my cousin who was upstairs, warning him not to push his luck. He quickly gave me a peck on the cheek and scuttled off.

I was chatted up by a guy on my last visit and he has been barred since then….

I have also demanded that my father starts doing speed dating to draw in a younger clientele, and this should only happen when I visit…

Both sides of my family are complete pisstakers and yesterday I observed a parade of bad wigs, bad weaves, dodgy fashions and old guys giving me winks. Sometimes when I check out black folk, it’s like no time has passed at all, because they are still sporting fashions and looks from the 80s, 70s, 60s, 50s and 40s and it’s not because Vogue has told them that these periods are back in fashion. I cried with laughter as my aunt gave me a running commentary and at one point the music dipped for a moment and I was heard letting out the biggest, dirtiest laugh.

There was the woman sitting across from me in an ill-placed wig sporting a flowery suit with the shoulder pads not quite resting on her shoulders. There was the barwoman who left with barely any hair on her head and strutted in proudly a few hours later with a blonde wig, also slightly out of place. There was Pimpin Ain’t Easy who was wearing a navy pin striped suit, two tone pointed shoes (cream and brown), a pink silk hankerchief with blue polka dots strategically hanging from the jacket pocket, a hat Justin Timberlake style, a cane, more jewellery than BA Baracus, plus a cigar which he had to be repeatedly told to put out or move to the smoking section. I think my father was trying to be macho each time he told him but I think he was a little scared and eventually gave up.

It was karaoke last night (a happy coincidence, hee hee) but I was sulking a bit because I only got one turn whilst the X Factor reject divas in the corner went up repeatedly. Some of them were really good but the bad hair, ginormous breasts and singing everything gospel style reminded me of being trapped in church when I was 5 with the bro and us thinking we were going to be crushed to death by a load of bad wigged, white tights and white high heels, big flower and fruit hat wearing church goers!

I got chatted up by a man that must be close to three times my age at the airport this morning and I had to resist the urge to tell him to F off and instead engrossed myself in sudoku and my iPod until he got the hint!

It’s good to be home. My ma is a more like her normal self which means that she’s being a right loony and has been watching too much Catherine Tate as she keeps saying, “Am I bothered?” to everything. The Bro effed and blighed all the way home as my mum kept crossing herself in the back over fears of him crashing her precious car (a BMW) even though he was driving perfectly fine. The 20 year old bro blanked me and ran out the house as soon as I arrived and the 16 year old one gave me a big hug and told my ma to stop nagging him. Family, ya gotta love ‘em!