Sharon Feinstein

The square I live in is full of murder.  In fact there’ve been two serious murders in the last few weeks and a lot of  constables walking around with truncheons. The first one took place just before the war and was so complicated they had to call in that world famous Belgian detective chubby chap, Monsieur Poirot. They also had to bring him all that lovely silverware, starched tablecloth and haute cuisine French food  to be able to think properly about the perpetrator of the crime.The second, more modern brutality has had  the handsome Matthew MacFadyen and Maxine Peake of Criminal Justice swarming all over it. And the film vans, catering, sound guys and techies of all sizes and description parking their big white vans end to end and stomping about with walkie talkies.I hope these films turn out to be watchable because their entourage and equipment have certainly swallowed up the residents’ parking places.It is rather fun, though, to know that all that blood and evidence is unfolding  on either side of my house, and no need to worry because  none of it is real. One is Agatha Christie’s, The Clocks, and the other is the latest series of Criminal Justice. BBC and ITV at opposite ends of the lovely Islington square I live in. Can’t wait to see it all on the box. That’s me  looking rather evil and waving in the background in the murder scene. But don’t tell David Suchet or he might be confused.

Last night I laughed more than I have for ages with Mikey from Liverpool telling me stories that could be straight out of a Victoria Wood sketch.
He described how his mum’s best friend,  Gladys, dropped dead out of the blue, while all her friends were on holiday in Bulgaria.
This  just wouldn’t do, so they put her in a fridge for two weeks, storage so to speak, until the girls had had a great holiday, and were ready to come home and face the body.
Can’t interrupt a good knees up in Bulgaria on an all-in package with the sun shining and Pinor Noir flowing.
No,  Gladys had to wait and wait she did, in the freezer, until the girls got home, did their hair and make up and went to pay their respects at the family home, while Gladys was laid out and dolled up, with full hair and make-up.
She’ll be buried on Mad Monday. Now that’s a thing. Liverpudlians, and that includes Stephen Gerrard’s family, the Paul McCartney’s and the Cilla Black clan, take time out on a Monday.
The week’s just started, I grant you that, but we all admit it has to be broken into gently and in Liverpool they do just that.
Come 1pm on Monday and work is over, the glad rags are out and everyone is at the pub.
Revellers move from pub to pub listening to their favourite live bands, drinking ale and having a laugh. And Gladys was buried on a Mad Monday because that’s the way she would have liked it. Guns blazing and music blaring.
Mikey told me the whole thing over 2 bottles of wine and the rest, and we laughed till the tears were streaming down our faces. I haven’t mentioned that he lost his own father just a few weeks ago and is dealing with all the gut wrenching grief that losing a parent brings. The shock of having no father anymore on this entire planet, ones own mortality, all the memories of when you were growing up and turned to your dad. Mikey has all that to deal with but last night he coped with it by laughing all night and you know what, that’s not a bad remedy. It’s a long rocky journey and he took a few steps last night.