HUBBY THINKS IT'S ALL BEYOND THE FRINGE

THE Fringe is just around the corner and no doubt Edinburgh is getting ready for the millions of tourists that will land in the ancient city during August. I am getting ready too. Though not everyone has complete faith in me!

"How on earth will you shut up to let people talk in your chat show?" my daughter Ashley asked me in all seriousness. "Mum, you don't even breathe during a conversation. You have gills at the back of your neck."

I knew what she was saying. I am known for talking too much and I have lined up some very interesting guests for Janey Godley's Chat Show at the Green Room, including Edwina Currie, Julian Clary, Tommy Sheridan and Karen Dunbar.

The issue is I am also doing a one woman comedy show called Janey Godley - Tell It Like It Is! up at the Pleasance, and in that show I do nothing but talk.

I will gaffer-tape my gob at 5pm for my chat show and then rip it off for 7pm for my comedy. It will be like having a split personality twice a day.

So I have been practising hard and doing a lot of nodding and making interested noises when people chat to me. My husband stared at me for ages in the middle of a conversation last week, waiting on me to talk over the top of him.

"Why are you being so quiet? It's making me scared. Are you OK?" he said as I nodded politely at his interesting comments.

"I am actually listening to you... Is that bad?" I asked.

"No, it's not bad but it's really unusual. I am used to you cutting off my sentences and adding your own version of what I am about to say whether I agree or not. I don't like this strange, quiet version of you," he added.

I am sure I will be fine and really can't wait to get going. The lead up to the Fringe is always nerve wracking and exciting.

Will the tickets sell? Will the guests show up? Will I get a flat in time?

I did my first preview of Janey Godley - Tell It Like It Is! last Thursday at the Arts Depot in North London and I was slightly shocked so see two very old posh English ladies sitting right in the front row. I am not saying my comedy is ageist, but they were rather 'tweedy' and both had wee mouths that were fashioned from the likes of vinegar drinkers or cats' backsides. I was curious as to why they chose not only to see me but to sit right in the front row.

It turned out they weren't there for me at all... they had come along to see Bonnie Langford's show which started much the same time as mine and in the same building.

I have never been mistaken for Bonnie Langford!

After a whole hour of trying to make the two vinegar ladies laugh, I almost screamed and screamed till I was "thick". If only my jokes had involved David Niven, they would have loved me.

I do realise, though, that I, too, am getting older and less bendy in all departments. My favourite sexual position now is... asleep.

And I now see bath handles as important accessories instead of strange toilet ornaments and may get a non-slip grip handle hammered into the tiles like my dad has, to help me drag my old body out of the water.

The cobbled Edinburgh streets are a constant source of pain and my right knee makes a noise like a squeaky door when I mount steps. I am definitely getting more middle-aged by the minute. Yet I am all excited about Edinburgh this year.

My husband has never been a big fan of festivals and this year our daughter will also be performing in a play called The Guid Sisters during the Fringe, so he will be stuck in the middle of two women who will perform daily, worry about their shows and talk constantly It will make his ears bleed, stress levels rise and give him sleepless nights.

He is a man of very few words and a limited range of emotions, whereas Ashley and I are manic, mental and usually mad. He eventually gives up trying to cook, clean and organise us and goes home to Glasgow leaving Ashley and I to survive on microwaved chips and milk.

He isn't the showbiz type and finds the whole whirlwind of reviews, ticket sales and press interviews alarming. "You don't need to go on stage do you?" he always asks.

My daughter and I just look at him with astonishment and laugh at his complete and utter misunderstanding of our world and say in unison: "Yes we do."

CAN THE PREFECT EVER BE PERFECT FOR US?

OUR PM - "Big Gordon the Warden" as I like to call him, because he looks like a big, grassing school monitor - has upset the Mancs with his apparently dampened attitude to the supercasino, in the pipeline since last year.

Mr Brown doesn't look like he would agree to anything that had the word "super" as a prefix. Some wholesome kite-flying chess clubs look more Mr Brown's type of thing, though how that's going to help Manchester out of its economic downturn I don't know.

Mind you, if he has started to rip up Tony Blair's decisions, maybe he will turn round and declare the invasion of Iraq illegal. Then I may start to like this grassing prefect.

I BET EVEN A PALACE CAN HOST A DOMESTIC ROW

THE BBC had to apologise to the Queen last week after they presented her as "huffy" in the trailer for a forthcoming documentary. The selective editing portrayed Our Big Liz as stomping out of a photography session in a tantrum and it was all untrue.

However, I am sure, on occasion, the Queen must get really annoyed and throw spectacular hissy fits.

There must be times when she really wants to have a big domestic - a fist-clenching, insult-trading, back-biting belter of a row with her husband, Prince "Malaprop" Philip.

I can just imagine her getting ready to go inspect a factory or a foreign country and taking Prince Phillip aside to tuck his shirt inside his woolly vest and saying: "If you open that big mouth of yours today and say anything that embarrasses me or my family, I will set the corgis on your face while you sleep."

There's nothing like a good fight to clear the air!

STAND-UP LEFT TO SIT DOWN WITH NO SEAT

MY CRAMPED train journey from Glasgow to London last Thursday was horrendous.

If GNER packed livestock like that there would be a national outcry. It got so crushed I almost needed a lubricant to get through the throng.

I decided to sit on the floor in the corridor, by the doors and toilets, just to get a bit of breathing space, but it became clear that some naughty person had been smoking.

"Can you watch for people smoking in that toilet?" the train manager asked me as I sat with knees up to my chin, my luggage around my legs and my bum on the damp carpet.

"Yes and whilst I am trying to stop my own luggage from crushing me, I will try to do a quick photo-fit sketch of anyone I suspect, coz I am that kind of customer! See if I catch a smoker, do I get a seat as a reward?" I asked with a smile.

Apparently not.