Bugger Blackpool

"Nobody deserves to die, in a little flat, alone, in a backstreet in Blackpool."

The above is a line I just heard in 999: What's Your Emergency?, which I'm watching as homework (homework is BACK). And I thought it was funny and a bit weird, I mean, why is it worse to die in Blackpool than say, Cornwall? And doesn't everyone die alone, supposedly?

My Grandma passed away today. My Dad's Mum with the super-white hair who fed us Mr Kipling French Fancies and liked crosswords and watching ice-skating and couldn't hear and was a proud atheist who once said to me, 'my religion is Nature.' And if you're going to be all silly and nihilistic about it then maybe 'everyone dies alone', but if anyone doesn't, then she didn't. For months my Dad's  brought her lunch every single day, and has barely left her side the last few days from what I can tell. The carers have been amazing, and her friends. I wish I'd seen her more recently, but I feel okay.

I was saying last night, to that kooky Turkish chap I know, that being very very old, i.e. mid-nineties like my Grandma was, might be a bit like being at the very end of a long, long, mega house party. This is an embarrassing analogy and clearly shows that youth is wasted on the young, but anyway, my point was, that at the end of the party, there's nowhere to go really - the party's not going to get better. You're tired and weak and not really enjoying yourself. Most of your pals have passed out upstairs. Staying awake is a huge effort. But you still don't want to go to sleep. Going to sleep means it's all over, and you were having such a lovely time.
And today is very sad, and I'm very sad, but I'm very pleased that my lovely Grandma knew when to leave the party.

On a lighter note - Speaking of parties and the subject of dignified passing, a big congratulations to the Terry Pratchett: Choosing to Die team (which includes ME, in the most minor way possible!) on winning the Best Documentary International EMMY last night! An Emmy! That's big league, Tez'n'co. Bet the bash was mega, too.

I've only been to one awards ceremony, where we also collected Best Doc for Choosing to Die, and which it has to be said was not quite the Emmys. It was called the Learning on Screen Awards, and this extremely unglamorous name combined with the fact that my company sent a Production Assistant (me), a Junior Coordinator and an Accountant to collect an award on behalf of Terry Pratchett should give an idea of quite how low-key it was.
 But I did not think it was going to be low-key. I thought ALL awards ceremonies, at least in medialand, had red carpets, evening gowns and melodramatic speeches. Thus I tottered up to the Southbank Centre in heels and a blue sequined dress I'd panic-purchased in my lunch hour, clutching a little humble speech about how thrilled we were and how sorry that Terry couldn't make it, and was extremely miffed to discover that nearly everyone was in jeans, and there was no red carpet and no one was expected to give a speech. So miffed in fact, that I got wasted on the cheap wine and made an inappropriately sexual joke to the scientist Robert Winston, who was presenting the awards. I shan't repeat it here.