Janey Godley - Frank Get the Door!: Ma feet are killing me

JANEY GODLEY , Scotlands international cultural phenomenon, has grown from successful stand-up comedian who has won comedy awards in the UK and New Zealand to Internet sensation and bestselling author. In 2016, she came to viral internet fame or infamy with her Trump is a C**t stunt at Turnberry Golf Course . She has had over million online hits for her iconic voiceover videos, while her weekly podcasts get over 40,000 hits worldwide.

A former Scotswoman of the Year nominee and a Scotsman newspaper columnist, Janey is a regular guest on the BBC radio series Just a Minute and Loose Ends and has recently been popping up on the television panel show Have I Got News For You .

Her short film The Last Mermaid , directed by Fi Kelley, won the Audience Award @BerlinShort and is winning awards at film festivals across the globe. With recent acting performances in multi-award winning movie Wild Rose , and in Traces (Alibi channel), and with brand new work writing and acting for the National Theatre of Scotland, Janey has only just started. You aint seen nothing yet! www.janeygodley.com

Shes a bold, take-no-prisoners type of comic, totally honest and hilarious with it EDINBURGH EVENING NEWS

Janey Godley is the most outspoken female stand-up in Britain DAILY TELEGRAPH

Clever, passionate and lyrical DAILY MIRROR

Many thanks for helping keep the nations spirits up. Im a big fan, and also love sausage dogs SHELAGH FRASER

Im an over-friendly cleaner who talks too much
JANEY GODLEY

By the same author:

Handstands in the Dark: A True Story of Growing Up and Survival (Ebury Press, 2006 )

ma feet are killin me

JANEY GODLEY

Throughout Lockdown, Janey Godley has commandeered the voices of the First Minister and her podium companions and kept all our spirits up in these dark times. Our thoughts are with all those who have been affected by the virus.

First published 2020

ISBN: 978-1-910022-21-4

The authors right to be identified as author of this book under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 has been asserted.

Transcribed and edited by Main Point Books, Edinburgh.

Typeset by Carrie Hutchison.

Illustrations Christina Connelly 2020

Text Janey Godley 2020

Contents

Janey Godley is a brilliant comedian in my view and her voiceovers are very very funny theyre very rude in terms of the language they use, so sometimes I dont feel able to retweet them but shes getting the key messages across very very powerfully if humour helps us to make people understand what they should be doing right now, then all well and good.

Nicola Sturgeon, Scotlands First Minister, interviewed on Original FM

Introduction

Who knew an innocuous, well remembered saying from my pub days, would be shouted out by an MP in the Houses of Parliament at the opening of the Queens Speech?

FRANK get the door! has become a national catchphrase and I for one am happy about that.

Images of tee shirts, mugs, car stickers and window posters all over the world have been sent to me on social media, and we sell our own Frank merch on my website, with a cut going to charity.

FRANK get the door! is what my voiceover has the Scottish First Minister saying in her daily briefings.

This book is so exciting for me, my everyday voiceovers and some smashing illustrations by Christina Connelly to boot. I hope you enjoy this wee tome. Now let me tell you about Frank.

Picture the scene, 1985 in a pub in the East End of Glasgow: Janey the barmaid stood pouring a pint of lager as yet another annoying drunk man had been told to get out. This man had threatened to pee the floor and told Janey she was a fat cow. Janey rolled her eyes so hard, her brain hurt but she licked the foamy beer off her fingers and shouted

Get out, youre barred!

The drunk man, stood like a sailor trying to stay stable on a listing boat on a high tide. He swayed forward, he grabbed the juke box, he swayed back and grabbed the peanut machine on the wall. He pulled his trousers up really high, much higher than any man should, possibly trapping and separating his knick-knacks. With a dancing gait, much like a pantomime milkmaid in full hip-swinging dance mode, he ran at the door, lifted up one wonky leg and kicked the door hard as hell.

The customers at the bar never even looked, they sighed and stared at each other as they knew the door was a pull-in not a kick-out, and soon that man would be bouncing backwards onto the tiles and they could take bets on his state of unconsciousness.

Such was life before we had iPhone cameras and Twitter. We laughed at things in real time.

It was at that moment the shout would go up FRANK, Get the Door! and out of the smoky corner near the plastic palm tree would emerge Frank.

Tall, Irish and a veteran of the Korean war, he wore a grey cardigan with leather elbow patches, freshly pressed black trousers and smart, polished shoes. His shirt and tie were always clean as was his thick white hair, combed back with pomade into a helmet. He always had a cowboy paperback book which never fell as he lifted up the drunks with one hand and opened the door inward with the other and threw them out onto the street, without missing a beat or a breath. He simply dusted down his book and went back to his beer in silence.

That was Frank.

Nobody knew his surname. He became known as FRANK Get the Door!, the same way Jimmy was called Jimmy Wheres Your Van?, as he once lost the works van. We did have a woman called Carol the Knicker Woman, as she used to show everyone her knickers she sold them from her handbag, they were new knickers, for five pairs.

Frank, was enigmatic and always present. Whenever I had a bad day, I knew Frank would be there in the background, keeping an eye on me. Most nights when I finished my shift, I would shout, FRANK, get the door! and he would hold it open for me and then skip onto the street and open the close door to my house, because I lived above the pub.

I left the pub in 1994 and I miss the customers, the funny people, Carol and her knickers and mostly Frank. He died in early 2000 , but I know somewhere in the spirit world there are ghosts trying to get from one place to the other and Frank is making sure all those doors are being looked after.

Janey Godley

September 2020

Note on dialect

The Lockdown voiceovers have been transcribed directly from Janey Godleys videos and the spellings reflect as closely as possible how the words are actually spoken, which accounts for minor variations.

If you should like to watch these videos you can go to Janeys website www.janeygodley.com or her YouTube channel and search for a specific video using its title as shown in the book.

Warning: this book contains strong language which may not be suitable for younger readers or those easily offended.

Voicing

Most of the sketches reproduced in this book voice the First Minister. Where there is interchange with others at the Lockdown podium, those voiced are indicated as follows:

FM : First Minister

DFM : Deputy First Minister

CMO : Chief Medical Officer

ICMO : Interim Chief Medical Officer

NCD : National Clinical Director

CNO : Chief Nursing Officer

CSH : Cabinet Secretary for Health and Sport

CCPS : Chief Constable of Police Scotland

GA : Government Advisor

Q : Questions from the press

None of the words attributed to the individuals referred to above were spoken out loud by those individuals. Any actions taken by readers of this book are taken entirely at their own risk.