The Street of Shame

So Fleet Street’s finest rolled into town and it’s fair to say I have not stopped laughing since they arrived, or since they left, at the ridiculous antics. Being former Sun journalists, albeit before mobile phones had even been invented lest anyone tars us with the same brush as the hacks who are currently hanging their heads in shame, we held our own Leveson inquiry chez moi, fuelled with Champagne rather than tap water. Forget phone hacking, you would be amazed at how many money grabbing family members sell their own celebrity sons and daughters, brothers and sisters down the river for a sheckle from Mr Murdoch and others.

Handyman said it was just like having his mates to stay, except mine are louder, drunker, more coarse and vulgar than any of his friends. Life chez Hockney has resumed to its normal, serene state...yoga in the sunshine, green tea, peace, cleanliness...and is all the more boring for it.

Here are the heavily edited highlights from the Street of Shame, which temporarily located to the sleepy rural backwater of Bar sur Loup for three nights only, not nearly long enough. Names have been changed to protect the guilty.


* Angela announcing to anyone in earshot that she 'doesn’t really drink anymore' and was 'really dreading that first glass of red wine as I just don’t fancy drinking.' Akin to the Pope saying he doesn’t really pray much these days. Then slamming her glass down on the kitchen bar empty with alarming regularity and feigning distress as I refilled it, only for it to be slugged with gusto.

* Clara guffing and burping like a navvy, blaming the dogs for any errant smell, refusing to move off the sofa, and cadging a refill off anyone who was on their way to the fridge, and showing no shame at requesting wine top ups from both the (underage) girls.

* Clara insisting on kissing me and Sazzle goodnight despite the fact we had been puking for hours in the hope she might catch food poisoning and proclaiming that it was 'unfair' that we were the lucky bitches with a bug while she was just going to have to keep all her calories and not dispel them down the toilet.

* Clara sitting on the stairwell on Sunday night while tending to the sick, and reassuring Iain that the only reason she wasn’t joining him downstairs was so she was on hand to change our sick buckets. She later confessed to one patient that she daren't go downstairs because her gastronomic wind was making even her feel sick.

* The girls eschewing the lovely French boulangeries and trying to sabotage my gluten free sugar free cupboards with a supermarket-bought preservative-filled E number savvy long-life chocolate cake while rebelliously proclaiming 'Long live Mr Kipling'. Even the sugar addicted junk food loving teens won’t go near it.

Three cheers for bad behaviour.