Lee-Ann's Spare Fridays episode 10

In which Lee-Ann gets blackmailed into helping Gina count birds and bugs

Series 2 episode 4 (episode 10 if we’re counting from the very beginning) of my audio sitcom Lee-Ann’s Spare Fridays is now available. If you haven’t listened yet, you can do so at Apple podcasts, Spotify, or in your browser without having to sign in to anything at https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/jysaville. And if you have listened, thank you — much appreciated and I hope you enjoyed it.

If you’ve never run across Lee-Ann’s Spare Fridays before and you’re wondering what I’m on about, let me briefly explain. Fortyish Lee-Ann has been moved on to a four-day week at work and wants to spend her Fridays with her portly black and white cat Lord Salisbury, or researching the history of the Yorkshire Dales village she moved to a few years ago to be near her baby niece. Unfortunately her interfering older sister Gina doesn’t think those are worthy pursuits and tries to divert her. Lee-Ann's Scottish neighbour Douglas isn't on anyone's side but his own. It's structured like a sitcom, but I write and perform it as a monologue from Lee-Ann's point of view.

Birdwatching

This episode was partly triggered by a conversation with a writer friend at the time of the RSPB Big Garden Birdwatch in January, and it’s pure coincidence that it ended up being ready immediately after I’d written two nature-related posts here on Substack. I wondered how Lee-Ann and Gina would end up birdwatching together, and remembering how much Gina wants to be on the parish council, and also that my local parish council put together a planning guide a few years ago that meant biodiversity had to be taken into account for new builds, I came up with the idea of Gina running the ‘before’ element of the biodiversity comparison even though she doesn’t really care.

I did briefly wonder if she was leading this survey so she knew exactly where all the wildlife in the village was and could therefore wipe it out more easily. However, my sister did not get where she is today without pretending to care about things, and indeed people, that she couldn't stand

Lee-Ann’s Spare Fridays episode 10 (series 2 episode 4)

So thanks to Lee Stuart Evans for sparking some inept bird-identifying thoughts triggered by his colour-blindness. There’s very little birdwatching in the final script but I did carry the mismatched colour idea over into flower identification as well.

Incidentally, Lee’s new comedy novel Pleasantly Disturbed is out in July from Scratching Shed but you can order it now at all the usual places such as Waterstones. Even if you don’t recognise his name you’ll probably have run across his comedy before as he’s written for all sorts of comedians and TV shows; as it says on his agent’s website ‘Lee was one of the writers of the I'm A Celebrity 'Evening, prime minister...' jokes, which were mentioned in the House of Commons and nominated for a BAFTA.’

Churchyards

I’m a big fan of churchyards — and churches, come to that, despite being an atheist. All that stone, representing so much labour in quarrying, carrying, carving. Such weight of history. And if you’re an obsessive amateur genealogist like me, there’s always the possibility that a gravestone will give you a hint or a link that you wouldn’t get from surviving documents. There are a surprising number of Marmadukes buried in Leathley, as I recall. I don’t think any of them were related to me, except by marriage.

As well as the dead though, there’s an abundance of life in graveyards: wildflowers, birds, insects, mosses and lichens. I even found specific webpages about what to find there, like these on moss and lichen:

• https://greenchristian.org.uk/can-you-recognise-these-three-common-churchyard-mosses/

• https://britishlichensociety.org.uk/conservation/churchyard/churchyard-lichens

Gina appeared at my elbow as I was peering at a gravestone trying to decipher a date, so I asked her if she knew what the moss was called…it was wall screw moss, though neither of us could see any resemblance to either cross-head or Philips

Lee-Ann’s Spare Fridays episode 10 (series 2 episode 4)

Titles

I almost called the episode Countdown to Extinction for the Megadeth reference¹ but it seemed too bleak, if sadly accurate in many cases. When I came to record it I realised I still hadn’t picked a title, I’d just written 4 or 5 weak possibilities at the top of the script. I read out the first one that caught my eye, thinking it would be easy to change later. Of course I didn’t, and Wings and stings it remains. It does have the benefit of telling you what you’re in for.

Incidentally, ‘bicarb for bees, vinegar for vasps’ is something I remember my GCSE chemistry teacher saying, but then I also remember her as having a fondness for wanging heavy wooden board rubbers at talkative pupils so there’s a distinct possibility that she was unhinged.

Feck, reck, gorm and ruth

I am no linguist, but I understand that word formations like reckless or unkempt that only exist in their negative (-less, un-, dis-) are called orphaned negatives. I do think it’s a shame that some words and phrases go out of favour, and Lee-Ann is the same sort of curious history buff that wonders how we got here. Plus she gets called feckless a lot and she’s probably sick of it.

There is an entertaining Susie Dent article about words such as gorm and ruth from The Guardian a couple of years ago: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/dec/26/respair-cacklefart-positive-words-english-language

Behind the scenes

The astute among you may have spotted that this episode is slightly delayed. I started writing it in early April after ditching the previously-written episode 10 in March.

---

---

It wasn’t ready to record by the end of April so I put it aside to concentrate properly on the performance at The Purple Room mid-May and — good grief, how is it June?!

I recorded it (in 35 minutes) on Wednesday night after work, thinking I’d get all the editing done on Friday and could release it sometime that day. I do like releasing episodes on Fridays, it seems neat. Inevitably something came up and I didn’t finish the editing until Saturday morning, but instead of waiting till next Friday to release it I figured it had been delayed long enough and probably nobody except me cares what day of the week it comes out on, so here it is.

If you look back at the quotes I used in the post in March, you’ll find both of them have been tweaked slightly and used again. I recycled a few hundred words of the previous script, which gave me a head start.

Gina said it was purely my fecklessness that was the problem, and if I wasn't so workshy and quick to throw the towel in, I would have had the whole graveyard surveyed by now.

Lee-Ann’s Spare Fridays episode 10 (series 2 episode 4)

Listen now

I’ll leave you with one last quote, and then if you haven’t already you can listen to the episode

Gina said no self-respecting adult would eat a biscuit shaped like a rhino. If you ask me, that's where most of the people Gina knows are going wrong.

Lee-Ann’s Spare Fridays episode 10 (series 2 episode 4)

1. I’ve already had one episode title (Festive Family Fun) sparked by Megadeth. They’re not even my favourite band.