Visiting from Venus the Podcast

Argos Before Amazon, there was a different sort of shopping phenomenon that took the UK by storm: Argos. In many ways, it was early Amazon — warehouse shopping at its absolute peak. It was the most exciting way to buy anything from toys to cheap jewellery. Rows of laminated catalogues were fixed to desks with small plastic boxes of tiny pencils that were also used when playing golf, and sheets of...

Sick day’s followed a very familiar routine. It would begin with a tummy ache, I do stand by the fact that I did, for most cases, have a genuine tummy ache – probably known nowadays as school anxiety, which also meant the minute I was given the all clear to stay at home it would subside. Luckily for me my dad would have left for work early leaving my Mum to deal with the pre-school chaos, a gentle...

I once spent an entire evening at a sheikh’s house folded into a box, because someone thought I was the entertainment. Fitting into places I don’t quite belong has always been one of my more reliable traits. When I was around 15, I had an English teacher, Miss Stanway—a very tall, slight woman who would hang off the doorframe, twisting her long beads around her fingers like Miss Hannigan. She woul...

Fiona was my best friend between the ages of seven and eleven, when I, a year older, hit the rocky road of senior school and we sadly drifted apart. Something I later learned would happen many times throughout life. It was not a failure of a friendship but rather the way the soul searches out what it needs (and sometimes very much does not): lessons in a different kind of love. Fiona was what I wo...

Three weeks before my birthday, the Family Circle book of birthday cakes would come out. I’d spend hours pouring over the pages to decide on that year’s masterpiece for my mum to recreate - a Barbie surrounded by a huge blue sponge cake dress, a whale with a carefully moulded marzipan tail, a hedgehog with hundreds of perfectly placed chocolate buttons. And later, a huge penis filled with marshmal...

My dad is a huge music lover. In our house it was more often music playing than the TV, and in my dad’s Mazda there was always a cassette tape on — unless the football results were being read out in that slow, monotone voice, or Simon Bates was delivering one of his devastating ‘Our Tune’ stories over the Romeo and Juliet love theme. If you grew up in the 90s you’ll know the feeling. Hearing that...

My mum had a recipe that, to me as a child, felt like the ultimate treat..Two thick slices of white farmhouse bread, topped with leftover shepherd’s pie, smothered in cheddar and grilled until the cheese bubbled and browned. It was then drowned in Worcestershire sauce and eaten on a lap tray while watching Coronation Street . Shepherd’s pie on toast. Absolute bliss. If you’d like to recreate it, t...

At thirteen I was paid £4.95 to deliver 247 newspapers. Each one earned me two pence. This was not the glamorous kind of paper round where you delivered the Sunday papers from the local newsagent and were rewarded with Christmas tips from loyal Daily Mail readers. No. This was the freebie paper. Every other week, 247 copies would be dumped in our garage on top of the chest freezer — which, by the...

Sleepovers are an integral part of growing up. They are also, in some ways, an integral part of being a grown-up — but that’s a different narrative and one for another time. The term sleepover started being thrown around at about ten. (Nowadays they seem to happen much younger, which I find slightly strange.) It felt like the first initiation. The first time you had the freedom not to go to bed an...

I failed my first driving test at 17. Three major faults: two red lights and driving in the wrong lane. Strangely, I don’t remember a single red light—maybe that’s the problem. On the plus side, no minors. At the time, I was about to move to work at Butlins in Minehead, so we decided to postpone the test until I was living there—a town with one roundabout, one set of lights, and mostly one-way str...

The local chip shop on a Friday night always has a queue. This is one queue I hope never disappears. I love queue-watching at a chippy early doors, around 6pm, before the pubs are kicking out and the vibe changes — a dad on the chip run with excited kids in tow, a tradesman, a small group of boys in hoodies and puffer jackets, and a knackered mum who’s escaped solo (that part is sometimes played b...

At the turn of the millennium, going out in Southampton meant you fit into one of a few boxes: Jumping Jaks, Icon, Diva or, if you were still at school, All Bar One on the high street. For a time, another bar opened huge, with a massive hot air balloon in the middle—and served cocktails that looked and tasted like milkshakes. At the other end of town, edging toward a cooler scene, Bedford Place wa...

It was the moment the police officer asked where my passport was — and I could instantly find it buried beneath a large pile of dirty washing — that I knew I would be okay. Three hours earlier, I’d received a frantic call from one of my housemates: we’d been burgled. I was at work, doing some admin at my desk when the call came through, mind you, this was where my housemates also worked. In fact,...

Hello — and welcome to Visiting from Venus. This is the audio version of this week’s essay, read by me. I hope you enjoy it One of the most delicious things in life is a slice of fresh white farmhouse bread with a thick layer of real butter and a good grinding of black pepper. The pepper is best if it’s fairly coarse, although I have lost a filling to an oversized piece before, totally worth it. W...

It was only when I went to the bathroom and noticed the entire wall covered in Sellotaped cut-outs of old word searches that I realised his love of words far surpassed mine. At the time, I was going through a rather fun phase of dating stand-up comedians — most of whom lived up to their reputation of being hilarious onstage and utterly depressed off it, apart from a few. One of whom I married; ano...

It was only this morning, as I walked into the changing room at my gym and saw a woman hopping around on one foot, desperately trying to pull one leg of her jeans up, that I thought: surely, by now, we all know you should never, ever wear jeans if you’re going swimming. I don’t mean wide-leg, barrel, or flared ones, of course. I mean the classic ’90s not-quite-skinny, not-quite-straight jean — the...

When I was seventeen, I was offered my first full-time job as a Butlins Redcoat. A dream come true. My dad drove me down in January for the audition, where I joined a very long queue of hopefuls that eventually led into a vast venue through a red corridor: red carpet, red velvet drapes, red walls adorned with gold-framed photos of famous Redcoats of the past. This, I believed, would be my ticket o...

I’ve spent most of my life believing the right lipstick might finally turn me into the person I thought I was meant to be. My lipstick journey has had many ups and downs. I actually started experimenting with lipstick without using lipstick at all—just a brown eyeliner and some Rimmel concealer. It was certainly a look and very much a thing in the 90s. I felt pretty confident in those early experi...