It's My Twarty & I'll Cry (with laughter) If I Want To

Hello there fair readers of my blog. You are in for another treat from the legend that is Dame @WinceyWillis1 today as she has kindly let me host her latest blog, about her 1st Twitterversary and how she chose to celebrate it.

Enjoy

@Gazabell

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17^th August will never be the same again.

Obviously I have no recollection of my first birthday but I have of my first anniversary on twitter. Not for the entire time you understand, around 3.30am it gets a bit blurred.

I decided I wanted to celebrate with the people I have become closest to, who are also the most fun. The idea of a Twarty soon took over. I worked out how many I could accommodate, this was to be a 2 day event, and invited those who had helped me from the very beginning. Those who discreetly put me on the right path if I was committing a Twitter faux pas. Those who had made me welcome and accepted from the start.

I was told by non twitter friends that I was barking, inviting ‘strangers’ to stay. I had only met two of them before, but I had spoken often on the ‘phone to the others. They asked if they should call to check on me. I refused one of my closest friend when she asked if she could come. I explained it was a Twarty strictly for tweeps. I didn’t want to spend most of the evening explaining in jokes.

I had a purple shiny balloon with TWARTY written on it in silver, tied to the hedge at the bottom of my drive. Wonder what the neighbours thought? Fortunately they are far enough away, so mayhem could ensue. My guests had taken time off work, which I really appreciated, midweek isn’t a usual time for a party. This was no ordinary party, a Twarty had to be on the actual anniversary day.

The sun was shining and we spent the first few hours on the patio with raucous laughter echoing across the fields. There are certain people who bring a mood to a room as soon as they enter, I was blessed with the best bringers of joy and laughter anyone could wish for. Innuendo became the accepted form of communication.

There was a double mattress to be blown up and the thing that inflates tyres if plugged into a cigarette lighter didn’t work. Don’t think I have to be too specific about the jokes this particular task spawned, when it was done by taking turns.

There was enough alcohol to re-float the Titanic, food was on hand all the time. Not me doing a Nigella but very obliging caterers had delivered earlier.

Twarty Rules were spelled out on a welcome notice.

Thou shalt get pissed

Thou shalt have fun

Thou shalt eat lots

Thou shalt give hostess regular hugs

For those hell bent on an early demise there is

Cancer Corner outside (Illustrated with a coffin)

We had a caption competition and a Karaoke machine, as I knew one of my guests was particularly brilliant at that. Of course the rest of us soon turned it into a sound track of drunks being thrown out of a club in the small hours.

On the first night bodies were sleeping all over. It looked like the opening shot of a movie after the population had been gassed. I must point out that at no time did anything untoward occur. Although I suspect many song writers would disagree.

The bottle count was unbelievable. I would need the whole boot of the car when I went to recycle them. Remarkably only two guests had Ibuprofen as a first course of breakfast.

I have never suffered from laughter ache before. My jaw muscles confirmed that it was one of the most fantastic times I have ever had. You may know who my guests were, I won’t name them here, as we said at the time, ‘What goes on at the twarty stays at the twarty’. I hope we will always be friends.

I love Twitter.

WinceyWillis ©

29^th August 2011

There Is Nothing Like A Dame

Take yourself back to the Eighties – not literally, unless you are The Doctor or Dr Sam Beckett you may find this impossible – I mean in your mind (Yep – sorry youngsters this blog might be a bit before your time – don’t worry I will get around to doing a Power Rangers one at some point that you can enjoy :D). Have you done it? Cast yourself back. Look around you and what do you see? Perms & Mullets abound, Shoulder Pads are huge, there is a woman(ish) in charge of the country, and a rat is the biggest ratings winner on TV.

But who is interested in Roland Rat on telly when you look at the same programme he is on and she her….Blonde Mulleted, wearing some of the snazziest jumper combos seen in the eighties, and giggling like a loon. It can only be one person….Wincey Willis! So famous she goes to An Audience With… recordings, and has been name checked by Victoria Wood, and she bestrides our screen like a juggernaut of lovlieness.

Fast forward more years than you could imagine and now she bestrides a different arena – the online sexiverse that is Twitter, and that’s what I am going to blog about. You might think about her for different reasons – for being a journalist, author, editor, conservationist, radio presenter, or even for helping buffoons guide Aneka Rice around a town in a helicopter, but for me Wincey Willis is now always going to be about Twitter.

As you may have read in some of her previous blogs Dame Wincey joined Twitter purely because somebody was pretending to be her, but in my opinion, that person has done us all a massive favour. I, like some people, was a bit sceptical when I saw her tweeting, and thought it was another one of these sad acts who pretends to be someone they aren’t because they are too scared that people won’t find them funny in their real life persona. Then that awkward moment came when she tweeted me after one of my piss take comments no doubt. Being that I am a bloody lovely person (hell yeah you know it! Lol) I replied and thought nothing of it, then I got another tweet – telling me off for spelling Wincey wrong – then more tweets followed, a bit of banter and then oh no she followed me. I don’t normally follow “fake” celebs unless they are funny, but I was unsure whether @WinceyWillis1 was real or not, so I had a closer look at her profile and tweets. If she was fake then her tweets were pretty convincing so I gave her the benefit of doubt. I don’t know why I was so worried. We tweeted each other more over the next couple of days and it soon became apparent that she was the real deal. What’s more it soon became apparent that I found her engaging, funny, sweet and just the little bit smutty – just what I want in a follower!

I soon became the unofficial official Twitter guide for Dame Wincey – after bamboozling her with the terms we use on Twitter. A few times I would get a tweet saying “what is ROFL?” Knowing me I probably made up some bullishit like “Rolf Orgasms For Llamas”. On another occasion I had to explain what #Twitterjail was – after I think she thought I was really a prisoner somewhere.

This probably made me like Dame Wincey even more – how many celebrities do you know that would try to organise a Jail Break gang for you, complete with dynamite, tunnels, seduction and smuggling?

More banter has followed over the past year or so we have followed each other – from the formation of our double act WinceyBell (due to play the 02 arena in 2012), to Star Wars Tennis, to blog wars, to the near elimination of my use of the c-word on Twitter and now we have agreed to have a tweet up over the summer. How lucky is she getting to meet me!

Anyway, if you follow @WinceyWillis1 (oooo I’ve plugged you now Dame Wincey – was it good for you?) then you will see that she is the best celebrity on Twitter. She is down to earth, tweets funny things, replies when she can, promotes Merlot so much that I am sure she is getting freebies, and never ever tries to do a weather report. Saying that she tries to stop me from swearing sometimes (to some but not a lot of effect) and she has a tendency to blame cows for all the poo in her garden (there are no cows nearby – say no more!) so she has her bad points too!

So why is she Dame Wincey? Well for her services to Tweeting of course and because she is a great person to follow. I am allowed to bestow Damehoods, because I am the King Of Twitter according to her (I don’t like to correct her but I am actually the Emperor Of Twitter!) and I think it is a well deserved one.

So basically this blog is a bit of a salute to the living legend that is Dame Wincey Willis – I’m proud to call her a follower, tweep, Dame and friend. If you aren’t following you are missing out and if you are following her (she has long overtook me now!) then you already knew all of this I have written about and you have wasted 5 minutes of your life you fool!

Keep tweeting Dame Wincey

Lots of Love
@Gazabell