Tuesday, February 28, 2006

Belt Up!

Hurray! I am now officially a brown belt.

I was presented with my new belt in class this morning and it was a great feeling. I went to see the missus in her office when class had finished to show her. She congratulated me in that pat-on-the-head, I’m-very-impressed, now-go-away-I-have-work-to-do way she sometimes uses.

I then bumped into a work colleague I’d been boring senseless about my grading and told her I had something special to show her… Fortunately I stopped her calling security by assuring her it wasn’t the same something special that a flasher had shown her a few weeks earlier.

I actually sat playing with my new belt at work for about an hour as new belts tend to be very stiff and I wanted to bash it up a bit to make it more flexible. Happy, happy, happy...

I have just reread this and I probably sound like some very sad mental case. But I am quite happy in my own little world…

The Modern World…

‘Please reproduce this proof as I originally sent it. Not how you and your half-witted spastic workmates think it should look because what you do is utter fucking rubbish.’

Apparently the use of such terminology is frowned upon in the modern office…

Sunday, February 19, 2006

All’s Fair…

As a former would-be community theatre revolutionary it was almost a badge of honour to hate the Royal National Theatre. For a start I’m a staunch republican so the royal bit does nothing for me and I could never see how it was a national institution for the whole nation when as far as I could make out it was a predominantly white middle-class crowd who were its most loyal and regular patrons.

But over the years I have grown at least to respect if not love the National and recognise it does important work in terms of reviving old classics, supporting new writing, touring nationally and internationally and with theatre-in-education. In fact I would now probably defend the National and argue for its subsidy against many other theatres whose output is much more in line with my own thinking and ideals.

So I was gutted to go see Southwark Fair by Samuel Adamson over the weekend and see the National put on a really poor play. The basic premise of the modern-day South Bank-based comedy is that a now-mature man meets up with another man who shagged him when the former was 14 and the latter was 20. And from this comes a story about chance meetings, potential relationships and exorcising ghosts from the past.

It’s got some good lines and the basic premise sounds promising… But it’s got no real heart, the acting’s pretty poor and the script’s not really saying anything you couldn’t find in a Patience Strong poem. To be fair it’s the first really poor thing I’ve seen at the National in more than 20 years of attending but it was so bad I was actually speechless on exiting the Cottesloe.

Bizarrely it got a great write-up in The Observer but so did the Korean martials arts play Jump and the French film Hidden and I saw both these recently and found them pretty dreadful. And if Juliette Binoche and something on Korean martial arts can’t keep my attention then they must be pretty bad.

Good Night, And Good Luck saved the weekend’s cultural side, though. It’s a genuinely thoughtful, intelligent and well-crafted story about CBS during the McCarthy era witch-hunts. God bless America. Well, George Clooney at least...

Thursday, February 16, 2006

Hearts And Minds…

Me and the missus don’t usually do Valentine’s Day.

I would like to say it’s because we refuse to have the terms of our romance dictated to us by Hallmark. But that would be a lie.

I’d also like to say it’s because (as my mate Spindle says to his lovely-but-sometimes beleaguered wife) ‘Every day with me is Valentine’s Day!’ But this would also be lie – although I did once say that sentence to the missus and I got a look that said something along the lines of ‘Shut up idiot. I don’t think you’re funny. The boy doesn’t think you’re funny. In fact nobody thinks you’re funny. Except you. And that’s just plain sad!’

It is actually because we usually can’t be arsed although this year I made a bit of an effort when I scooted to the Konditor and Cook shop (the best bakery in London) and bought her sausage rolls. The missus loves savoury stuff and, remarkably, she was genuinely touched by this offering.

St Valentine’s Day did however become less romance and more massacre-orientated when we got home and the boy revealed his new hobby when he announced ‘I have a death list!’

Death lists, of course, have provided a bulwark to my sanity for a long time and visions of George Bush and many others slowly being tortured have provided a soothing balm to my sometimes troubled soul.

Prominent on the boy’s list are quack nutrionist Gillian McKeith, charity-addict Bono and the people from The Singing Kettle theatre show, who refused to pick him to go on stage when he was four. This rejection has apparently put him off theatricals for life.

My parental pride swells. My work here is done…

Browned Off!

I graded for my brown belt at hapkido on Sunday and it went pretty good.

My sparring was pretty solid and my form and techniques were OK but my boxing skills need some serious work. So if you happen to chance on loud grunting and panting sounds coming from the Kensal Green area of London it’s probably just me pounding my punchbag rather than some nuisance-call sex-pervert cracking one off.

I think I passed the grading although I am resisting the temptation to go out and celebrate just yet in case the results are announced and I have a nasty shock waiting for me.

This happened on my degree when I was pretty sure I’d done the work and got a first only to be disappointed when the results were announced and I hadn’t. That was a pretty shit day but it did teach me the importance of not taking anything for granted.

So fingers crossed and here’s hoping…

Friday, February 10, 2006

Making The Grade…

Sunday is grading day for my brown belt at hapkido.

I was hoping to grade for this in October last year until a combination of injury and bad luck meant I couldn’t complete the curriculum in time. But now it’s actually here again I bizarrely have a bit of a lax attitude towards it.

On the one hand I’ve worked quite hard towards this belt and I’m confident I know enough to pass it, but on the other I am missing that pre-grading buzz and pressure that I’ve had on previous gradings when fear of potential failure spurred me on.

At the moment I’m actually not bothered whether I pass it or not. I find this worrying as it means I’m not as in tune with my hapkido side as I usually am – or maybe it means I’ve finally realised the belts aren’t all that important and it’s practicing the art itself that matters most.

Either way it’s a strange state to be in and I’m a little discombobulated by it all.

At least my new play, Blessed, is starting to pick up a head of steam and I did manage to fit one of my favourite insults into it yesterday. The line goes: ‘You carry on like that and you’ll end with a reputation as a slag – and a cunt like a clown’s pocket!’

It sounds like utter filth but in context it works quite well. Strange how one line can trigger lots of other things but that and me telling a story about a pub-to-pub fish seller suddenly made everything connect in the play.

Writing’s a strange business but that’s probably why so many strange people end up doing it. Normal minds simply don’t make that sort of jump…

Tuesday, February 07, 2006

Bruce Almighty!

Me and the missus had our weekly outing to do the big shop at Sainsbury’s on Sunday morning. Our usual routine is to shop, pay then get a cab home from the little kiosk in the store.

Booking the cab ride, however, has become a battle of wills because the conversation between me and the cab kiosk controller always goes something like this:

‘Where are you going to?’
‘Kensal Green.’
‘Your name?’
‘Brooks…’
‘Bruce?’
‘No Brooks.’
‘OK Bruce. Green car out the door on the right.’
‘Thanks.’

This has been going on for six year until we finally had the following conversation on Sunday.

‘Where are you going to?’
‘Kensal Green.’
‘Your name?’
‘Broo… Actually my name is Bruce.’
‘Bruce?
‘Yes. Bruce…’
‘OK Bruce. Green car out the door on the right.’
‘Thanks.’
‘No problems Bruce.’

The missus was waiting with the trolley and looked puzzled.

‘Why did he call you Bruce?’
‘Because I told him it’s my name…’
‘Why?’
‘Because it just is…’

Pause. I get the look. This is part-confusion, part-pity and part-I-can’t-believe-I-married-you. We are driven home.

Friday, February 03, 2006

The Difference Between Men And Women…

The missus was telling me about her day…

‘My friend told me about this poor woman who found out that her husband was cheating on her and he left her at Christmas. And now, to add insult to injury, she has to buy the family business from him because it was a joint company so she’s obviously really vulnerable and feeling depressed and now she’s got all this financial stuff to worry about because her livelihood is on the line…’
‘Did she get her presents?’
‘What?’
‘Did she get her Christmas presents before he left?’
‘Are you trying to be intentionally obtuse?’
‘Well I can understand her being upset at learning her husband is a love rat and with all the business stuff, but I just thought that if he got her some nice presents then it may have taken the edge of it a little bit.’

Silence…

‘You really are a first-class idiot.’
‘That’s a “No” isn’t it?’

More silence...

Wednesday, February 01, 2006

Something Fishy…

I am, of course, not unhappy in my job and not looking for a change. Oh no…

But I do like to keep abreast of what’s happening in the wild and wacky world of newspapers and magazines and I do occasionally have a look to see what else is on offer out there.

So I was delighted when a trawl through my usual jobs websites unearthed the possibility of a role as a journalist on ‘a major relaunch of the UK’s number two sea fishing monthly’.

Now I like fishing as much as the next man (as long he thinks it’s a pointless pastime and would rather superglue his testicles to a threshing machine than try to catch a bit of cod) but could there really be a deep-seated rivalry in the world of fishing magazines?

The job promises ‘fishing, travel and writing about it’ but I reckon those behind the publication are in reality after the number one spot rather than being content with the number two spot. So it’s a cover to hide the real hopes and ambitions of the magazine’s publishers.

The job advert is obviously a red herring.

I’ll go now…