Had a couple of chums visit at the weekend in the sunny climes of North-West London and we went to the pub.
Local pubs in our neck of the woods used to be spit-and-sawdust affairs but now you can’t move for Belgian beer this and gourmet food that. These pubs now also boast sofas and copies of The Guardian and The Independent at every table. They also have a high population of media twats with mobiles glued to their ears, Hoxton fin haircuts and the sort of glasses that I have just bought.
Christ! Am I slowly becoming one of them?
Anyway myself and the missus and my mate and his other half were having a chat about glasses as my mate had laser eye surgery some time ago and was singing it’s praises.
His missus, of West Indian descent, also told us the story of when he had it done and she came to visit him in hospital the day after. As the bandages were removed he started to open his eyes and look around the room to refocus his new eyesight. His eyes then rested on his missus and he was silent. She asked if he was OK to which he replied.
‘Christ. I’ve married a black woman!’
Now that’s comedy!
Wednesday, May 31, 2006
Tuesday, May 30, 2006
Tosca’s Kiss
The missus and myself went to the Orange Tree in Richmond to see Tosca’s Kiss at the weekend.
Written by Kenneth Jupp, the play is set in 1946 and follows reporter Rebecca West as she covers the Nuremburg Trials and, in particular, the case of Hjalmar Schacht, Hitler's economics minister whose fiscal skill ensured Nazi Germany had the financial clout to become a fearsome war machine.
It’s a four-hander with the characters West and Schacht joined by Tom Morton, Schacht's American prosecutor, and Francis Biddle, the American judge in charge of the case. Between these four is played out a personal drama as the reporter and the judge have an affair and a morality play as Morton and Schacht fight it out in court.
The first half needs a bit of script work as some of the dialogue is a bit clunky and a bit 1940s B&W movie melodrama. It’s light though not sharp. But the second half picks up pace when the moral meat of the play gets picked over. Can a banker and economist be blamed for the horrors that his system helped create?
The Nuremburg judges thought not and Schacht got off – then went to work in the US helping build their economy in the wake of World War Two.
It’s an engaging play – and with Bush handing out contracts for the rebuilding of Iraq before the invasion proper had started – it’s a timely play. Balancing the cost of human lives and public opinion against realpolitik and the clout of money men and industrialists is an all-too current dilemma. Just ask Mr Blair…
Written by Kenneth Jupp, the play is set in 1946 and follows reporter Rebecca West as she covers the Nuremburg Trials and, in particular, the case of Hjalmar Schacht, Hitler's economics minister whose fiscal skill ensured Nazi Germany had the financial clout to become a fearsome war machine.
It’s a four-hander with the characters West and Schacht joined by Tom Morton, Schacht's American prosecutor, and Francis Biddle, the American judge in charge of the case. Between these four is played out a personal drama as the reporter and the judge have an affair and a morality play as Morton and Schacht fight it out in court.
The first half needs a bit of script work as some of the dialogue is a bit clunky and a bit 1940s B&W movie melodrama. It’s light though not sharp. But the second half picks up pace when the moral meat of the play gets picked over. Can a banker and economist be blamed for the horrors that his system helped create?
The Nuremburg judges thought not and Schacht got off – then went to work in the US helping build their economy in the wake of World War Two.
It’s an engaging play – and with Bush handing out contracts for the rebuilding of Iraq before the invasion proper had started – it’s a timely play. Balancing the cost of human lives and public opinion against realpolitik and the clout of money men and industrialists is an all-too current dilemma. Just ask Mr Blair…
Friday, May 26, 2006
Movie Magic!
Took the boy to see X-Men III: The Last Stand yesterday evening.
Comics are our thing and the missus has long since decided that she has no wish to waste three hours of her time accompanying us to see CGI-laden fight-fests while the two of us consume more popcorn than most people see in a year.
But this is good as it means the two of us get to see all sorts of boys-action rubbish and gorge ourselves stupid on nachos and sweets and fizzy drinks, etc, without unhelpful comments such as ‘Do you have to eat that loud?!’ or ‘Can you keep still please? Just for once!’
The movie itself was OK and the shock bit at the end of the credits suggests there’ll be more of this franchise to come. The funniest bit for me, though, was when me and the boy were walking to the bus stop and he picked several continuity and plot device holes in the film.
The missus, naturally, is an arch pedant and she can’t walk down a high street without pointing out where the apostrophe should be in any shop sign offending basic laws of grammar. And the genes have obviously won through on this one as the boy now does this and by also utilizing his analytical skills to also critique movies he’s clearly following in his mother’s footsteps.
This, of course doesn’t augur well for me. There will clearly be no respite from the tide of criticism in our house. And guess where it will be directed…
Comics are our thing and the missus has long since decided that she has no wish to waste three hours of her time accompanying us to see CGI-laden fight-fests while the two of us consume more popcorn than most people see in a year.
But this is good as it means the two of us get to see all sorts of boys-action rubbish and gorge ourselves stupid on nachos and sweets and fizzy drinks, etc, without unhelpful comments such as ‘Do you have to eat that loud?!’ or ‘Can you keep still please? Just for once!’
The movie itself was OK and the shock bit at the end of the credits suggests there’ll be more of this franchise to come. The funniest bit for me, though, was when me and the boy were walking to the bus stop and he picked several continuity and plot device holes in the film.
The missus, naturally, is an arch pedant and she can’t walk down a high street without pointing out where the apostrophe should be in any shop sign offending basic laws of grammar. And the genes have obviously won through on this one as the boy now does this and by also utilizing his analytical skills to also critique movies he’s clearly following in his mother’s footsteps.
This, of course doesn’t augur well for me. There will clearly be no respite from the tide of criticism in our house. And guess where it will be directed…
Thursday, May 25, 2006
Specs Appeal…
It’s been well-documented through large sections of this blog that the missus and the boy think I’m a super-sized idiot.
And it’s an idiocy that can take many forms… Fashion faux pas (‘You actually bought that?!’), conversational misunderstandings (‘Cunning stunts is what I actually said…’), DIY disasters (‘You never thought to check for power cables first then?’) and a propensity to make things up as I go along and then pass them off as fact (‘So when you said farting was acceptable in an Indian restaurant that was a lie, wasn’t it?') are just a few of my claims to fame.
But my latest piece of inspiration may top all this. I went to a very flash optician recently and I ordered a new pair of spectacles. I also paid a small fortune for them and was very full of myself – until I told the missus…
‘So you went and bought glasses - without me?’
‘Might have done…’
‘Did you or didn’t you?’
‘Yes…’
‘And do they look nice?’
‘Yes…’
‘Would I think they look nice?’
‘What’s for tea?’
‘Would I think they look nice?’
‘Maybe…’
I’m still waiting for my specs to arrive but I now have a horrible feeling that I bought something that will make me look like a cross between Sue Pollard, Mike Harding and Timmy Mallett.
Maybe I just shouldn’t be allowed out on my own…
And it’s an idiocy that can take many forms… Fashion faux pas (‘You actually bought that?!’), conversational misunderstandings (‘Cunning stunts is what I actually said…’), DIY disasters (‘You never thought to check for power cables first then?’) and a propensity to make things up as I go along and then pass them off as fact (‘So when you said farting was acceptable in an Indian restaurant that was a lie, wasn’t it?') are just a few of my claims to fame.
But my latest piece of inspiration may top all this. I went to a very flash optician recently and I ordered a new pair of spectacles. I also paid a small fortune for them and was very full of myself – until I told the missus…
‘So you went and bought glasses - without me?’
‘Might have done…’
‘Did you or didn’t you?’
‘Yes…’
‘And do they look nice?’
‘Yes…’
‘Would I think they look nice?’
‘What’s for tea?’
‘Would I think they look nice?’
‘Maybe…’
I’m still waiting for my specs to arrive but I now have a horrible feeling that I bought something that will make me look like a cross between Sue Pollard, Mike Harding and Timmy Mallett.
Maybe I just shouldn’t be allowed out on my own…
Wednesday, May 24, 2006
Fair Cop?
Feel The Force is a sitcom about two WPCs in Edinburgh. It stars Rosie Cavaliero and Michelle Gomez as comedy coppers Frank and Bobbins and I was hoping it would be good. And I had good reason to hope too. Gomez is one of the most watchable things on TV as Green Wing’s raving administrator Sue White and the writer, Georgia Pritchett, is one of the folk behind Smack The Pony.
Sadly it was woeful. The sort of woe that gives you a tummy-ache and makes you feel slightly overcome with melancholia and other such Victorian-sounding ailments.
In sitcom-land there’s been a distinct shift away from purely plot-based comedy in recent years and the laughs more often than not come from the oddball behaviour of the protagonists rather than the plots themselves. In other words the plot is almost an incidental part as all this now does is give viewers the opportunity to see the characters expose more of their failings. Think Ricky Gervais or Larry David rather than My Family and you get the idea.
Last night’s episode of Feel The Force, though, couldn’t tell which way it wanted to go. Was it a plot-based comedy, was it a character-based comedy, was it a quirky foibles-based comedy?
Its TV listing in my head went something like this: ‘The wacky policewomen (For so they are. Honest!), who sometimes behave in a really bizarre way for no apparent reason, babysit the inspector’s daughter and go after a wanted man – with hilarious consequences…’
Essentially it was a bad idea poorly executed and that’s a shame because it has the seeds of something really funny and it certainly has the pedigree to be so much better. But this is a lame horse and if you possessed a horse this lame you would shoot it in a tender moment of equine euthanasia. Or force-feed it port so it would suffer from gout or die of ennui…
Sadly it was woeful. The sort of woe that gives you a tummy-ache and makes you feel slightly overcome with melancholia and other such Victorian-sounding ailments.
In sitcom-land there’s been a distinct shift away from purely plot-based comedy in recent years and the laughs more often than not come from the oddball behaviour of the protagonists rather than the plots themselves. In other words the plot is almost an incidental part as all this now does is give viewers the opportunity to see the characters expose more of their failings. Think Ricky Gervais or Larry David rather than My Family and you get the idea.
Last night’s episode of Feel The Force, though, couldn’t tell which way it wanted to go. Was it a plot-based comedy, was it a character-based comedy, was it a quirky foibles-based comedy?
Its TV listing in my head went something like this: ‘The wacky policewomen (For so they are. Honest!), who sometimes behave in a really bizarre way for no apparent reason, babysit the inspector’s daughter and go after a wanted man – with hilarious consequences…’
Essentially it was a bad idea poorly executed and that’s a shame because it has the seeds of something really funny and it certainly has the pedigree to be so much better. But this is a lame horse and if you possessed a horse this lame you would shoot it in a tender moment of equine euthanasia. Or force-feed it port so it would suffer from gout or die of ennui…
Tuesday, May 23, 2006
Ride ‘em Cowboy!
Now I’m liberal sort of guy. OK, I may crack jokes about the French not fighting in wars and I may snigger when watching Brokeback Mountain, but apart from these slight traces of racism and homophobia I’m generally a stand-up sort of guy, a live-and-let-live good fella (and I don’t mean the sort of good fella who goes around killing gangsters).
But even I am sometimes perplexed by 'difference' and yesterday I witnessed something I’d never seen before.
On the way home from work myself and the missus stopped off at Piccadilly Circus to buy a present from HMV and we crossed the Trocadero to reach our goal. At the bottom of this tourist hell hole is a picture shack where people pay money to dress in all manner of period garb to have their pictures taken so they can show them to the folks back home what a right larf they had in the Smoke.
Anyway, myself and the missus walked past this and getting dressed up in Wild West cowboy garb was a chap of Middle Eastern extraction while his missus (in full burka) was donning the guise of a saloon prostitute so she could pose by her man. Needless to say, she was still wearing the full burka…
Now I admit I stared. I stared a lot. I then pointed this out to the missus and she stared too. We briefly looked at each other in a confused sort of struggling-for-meaning way then walked on to HMV.
But even I am sometimes perplexed by 'difference' and yesterday I witnessed something I’d never seen before.
On the way home from work myself and the missus stopped off at Piccadilly Circus to buy a present from HMV and we crossed the Trocadero to reach our goal. At the bottom of this tourist hell hole is a picture shack where people pay money to dress in all manner of period garb to have their pictures taken so they can show them to the folks back home what a right larf they had in the Smoke.
Anyway, myself and the missus walked past this and getting dressed up in Wild West cowboy garb was a chap of Middle Eastern extraction while his missus (in full burka) was donning the guise of a saloon prostitute so she could pose by her man. Needless to say, she was still wearing the full burka…
Now I admit I stared. I stared a lot. I then pointed this out to the missus and she stared too. We briefly looked at each other in a confused sort of struggling-for-meaning way then walked on to HMV.
Friday, May 19, 2006
Bus Stop!
Love is the glue that binds myself and my good lady wife together – although she also claims the prescription drugs she uses to stop herself from repeatedly stabbing me through the throat whenever I annoy her are a major help.
But our marriage is also founded on other common interests...
We both reckon the only good Tory is a dead one, we both support Amnesty International and their work campaigning against torture (although we have an Amnesty amnesty on torture if it means either of us get to inflict pain on anyone in Coldplay) and we both despise both Dan Brown and anyone who reads any book he has ever written (or just walked by).
Sadly, though, there will be a parting of the ways over the next few weeks as the best reality show on Channel 4 is back and I will be watching it alone while my good lady wife is elsewhere, petulantly refusing to partake in the televisual fun.
Coach Trip, for those who have not had the pleasure, is either the ultimate postmodern satire on reality TV – or it’s quite simply the worst show to grace TV screens. Ever. In the whole history of telly. And that includes ITV dramas with Ross Kemp.
The basic premise is that seven couples (husband and wife, mother and daughter, brother and sister, etc,) go on a coach journey around Europe and stop off somewhere each episode to do fun things, like lace-making in Belguim, making pottery in Limoges or harpooning dolphins in Spain (I made the last one up).
The 14 folk are guided by an elderly tour guide called Brendon, who’s like a bitchy Norris Cole from Corrie, and people who upset or annoy the other travellers are voted off the bus to be replaced by other couples. The travellers themselves are brilliant and the voiceovers introducing them go something like this:
‘Ted is an unemployed spot welder from Sheffield and his wife Liz is a suppository inserter in a care home in Bradford. They collect bar towels in their spare time. Today Ted is trying his hand at laying a mosaic in Budapest while Liz looks on…’
Ted: ‘It’s fiddly, this. Give us an hand.’
Liz: ‘Fuck off Ted, I’m doing The Sun bingo.’
Ted: ‘But you could help me with this here more zake, Liz.’
Liz: ‘Fuck off Ted – or I’ll sleep with your brother again…’
Ted: ‘You slept with my brother as well as my father!’
And this is just the rucks between the couples themselves. It gets even better when factions of the 14 start having a pop at each other.
Every conflict is cynically engineered and all the squabbles involve the sort of people who are not classy enough to spend a week in Playa Las Americas. But bizarrely it remains compulsive viewing. Honest.
But our marriage is also founded on other common interests...
We both reckon the only good Tory is a dead one, we both support Amnesty International and their work campaigning against torture (although we have an Amnesty amnesty on torture if it means either of us get to inflict pain on anyone in Coldplay) and we both despise both Dan Brown and anyone who reads any book he has ever written (or just walked by).
Sadly, though, there will be a parting of the ways over the next few weeks as the best reality show on Channel 4 is back and I will be watching it alone while my good lady wife is elsewhere, petulantly refusing to partake in the televisual fun.
Coach Trip, for those who have not had the pleasure, is either the ultimate postmodern satire on reality TV – or it’s quite simply the worst show to grace TV screens. Ever. In the whole history of telly. And that includes ITV dramas with Ross Kemp.
The basic premise is that seven couples (husband and wife, mother and daughter, brother and sister, etc,) go on a coach journey around Europe and stop off somewhere each episode to do fun things, like lace-making in Belguim, making pottery in Limoges or harpooning dolphins in Spain (I made the last one up).
The 14 folk are guided by an elderly tour guide called Brendon, who’s like a bitchy Norris Cole from Corrie, and people who upset or annoy the other travellers are voted off the bus to be replaced by other couples. The travellers themselves are brilliant and the voiceovers introducing them go something like this:
‘Ted is an unemployed spot welder from Sheffield and his wife Liz is a suppository inserter in a care home in Bradford. They collect bar towels in their spare time. Today Ted is trying his hand at laying a mosaic in Budapest while Liz looks on…’
Ted: ‘It’s fiddly, this. Give us an hand.’
Liz: ‘Fuck off Ted, I’m doing The Sun bingo.’
Ted: ‘But you could help me with this here more zake, Liz.’
Liz: ‘Fuck off Ted – or I’ll sleep with your brother again…’
Ted: ‘You slept with my brother as well as my father!’
And this is just the rucks between the couples themselves. It gets even better when factions of the 14 start having a pop at each other.
Every conflict is cynically engineered and all the squabbles involve the sort of people who are not classy enough to spend a week in Playa Las Americas. But bizarrely it remains compulsive viewing. Honest.
Thursday, May 18, 2006
Legless...
Had a debate about Heather Mills McCartney in the office today and the general consensus is that she's out to dig more gold than the mineral mining communities of Africa.
I suggested she was also an Argos version of Princess Di and that to eradicate her from our collective consciousnesses we should come up with a list of five more famous amputees.
So for the record here are our five amputees who are more deserving of newspaper coverage than the former Mrs Macker – even though they've all been dead for many years...
1) Cole Porter (song-writing mono-pedded genius at the end of his life)
2) Sarah Bernhard (acting mono-pedded genius at the end of her life)
3) Josiah Wedgwood (porcelain and pottery maverick with one good pin)
4) Arthur Askey (comedy demi-god who lost both his legs at the end)
5) Douglas Bader (Air Force ace and PoW extraordinaire with no legs)
God bless them all...
I suggested she was also an Argos version of Princess Di and that to eradicate her from our collective consciousnesses we should come up with a list of five more famous amputees.
So for the record here are our five amputees who are more deserving of newspaper coverage than the former Mrs Macker – even though they've all been dead for many years...
1) Cole Porter (song-writing mono-pedded genius at the end of his life)
2) Sarah Bernhard (acting mono-pedded genius at the end of her life)
3) Josiah Wedgwood (porcelain and pottery maverick with one good pin)
4) Arthur Askey (comedy demi-god who lost both his legs at the end)
5) Douglas Bader (Air Force ace and PoW extraordinaire with no legs)
God bless them all...
Wednesday, May 17, 2006
Humour...
OLD JOKE
Q. What has three legs and lives on a farm?
A. The McCartneys.
NEW JOKE
Q. What had three legs and lived on a farm?
A. The McCartneys.
Q. What has three legs and lives on a farm?
A. The McCartneys.
NEW JOKE
Q. What had three legs and lived on a farm?
A. The McCartneys.
Tuesday, May 16, 2006
History Of Violence…
Myself and the missus are laid in bed on Saturday morning. I’d been watching a DVD of a martial arts series called Mind, Body And Kick-ass Moves the night before and she was quite taken with a Dim Mak expert who attacked people using pressure points.
‘I think I should learn martial arts.’ She suddenly announces.
‘You always reject the idea when I suggest it.’
‘Well not so much martial arts. Just the Dim Mak bit of it. I like the idea of just being able to touch someone and cause them pain.’
‘You just live with me and you cause me pain.’
‘Yes but you’re an idiot and you deserve it.’
‘I know some pressure points. Let me show you…’
‘Ouch! That bloody hurt!’
‘And there’s this one too…’
‘That’s not a pressure point. That’s just a bloody nip!’
‘But it was nipping a pressure point.’
‘You do that again and I’ll knock your head part off.’
‘But I’ll look like a Pez dispenser?’
‘It’ll be an improvement on an idiot…’ Pause. ‘Idiot!’
‘I think I should learn martial arts.’ She suddenly announces.
‘You always reject the idea when I suggest it.’
‘Well not so much martial arts. Just the Dim Mak bit of it. I like the idea of just being able to touch someone and cause them pain.’
‘You just live with me and you cause me pain.’
‘Yes but you’re an idiot and you deserve it.’
‘I know some pressure points. Let me show you…’
‘Ouch! That bloody hurt!’
‘And there’s this one too…’
‘That’s not a pressure point. That’s just a bloody nip!’
‘But it was nipping a pressure point.’
‘You do that again and I’ll knock your head part off.’
‘But I’ll look like a Pez dispenser?’
‘It’ll be an improvement on an idiot…’ Pause. ‘Idiot!’
Monday, May 15, 2006
Picture This...
Am trying to work out how to post pictures on my blog. I think I may just have figured it out...
The Changeling
Went to the Barbican at the weekend with the missus to see the Cheek By Jowl production of The Changeling by Thomas Middleton and William Rowley.
It’s a Jacobean tragedy about a desperate heiress who uses a disfigured servant to ‘dispose’ of her unwanted bridegroom – but the servant decides he wants her rather than any form of cash payment after he’s committed the murder.
It’s pretty grim and gory stuff but the production switched between dark tragedy and black comedy really effectively and, as there was little in the way of set or props, the stripped-down style helped emphasise the brooding language. Will Keen was also fabulous as the Machiavellian manservant De Flores, a character who was both scary and sympathetic.
It’s one of my favourite plays from that period and it was the first time I’d seen it performed and it was a really strong production. Well worth a look…
It’s a Jacobean tragedy about a desperate heiress who uses a disfigured servant to ‘dispose’ of her unwanted bridegroom – but the servant decides he wants her rather than any form of cash payment after he’s committed the murder.
It’s pretty grim and gory stuff but the production switched between dark tragedy and black comedy really effectively and, as there was little in the way of set or props, the stripped-down style helped emphasise the brooding language. Will Keen was also fabulous as the Machiavellian manservant De Flores, a character who was both scary and sympathetic.
It’s one of my favourite plays from that period and it was the first time I’d seen it performed and it was a really strong production. Well worth a look…
Wednesday, May 10, 2006
The Apprentice: The Final…
Michelle won. Ruth lost. Sugar went on a 'gut feeling' after he criticised another candidate for also going on a 'gut feeling' earlier in the series.
It’s the worst recruitment decision since Graham Taylor said Geoff Thomas and Carlton Palmer were international footballers.
And she's from Hull for God's sake. The only good thing to come out of Hull is the M65.
It’s the worst recruitment decision since Graham Taylor said Geoff Thomas and Carlton Palmer were international footballers.
And she's from Hull for God's sake. The only good thing to come out of Hull is the M65.
Crack Monkeys...
I complimented the rest of the subs desk today by telling them they were performing like monkeys on crack after they’d shifted their way through a very large pile of proofs in impressive time. I then mused that it probably wouldn’t be a good idea to put monkeys on crack when a colleague suggested that it had probably already been done.
‘When?’ I asked.
“Well they had to test it somehow.’
‘But why on monkeys?’
‘Why not?’
‘Well it’s not like it’s a drug for medical use is it? I imagine they’d test it on humans.’
‘Trust me. It’s always monkeys who are first in line…’ he said. Knowingly.
I thought about this and it made me feel quite sorry for the monkeys as they obviously don’t know which way they’re going. At one point they’re puffing away on new types of cigarette, the next thing they know they’re testing out devices to stop people smoking, then they're on crack. No wonder they always look glum in those cages.
I may start a campaign…
‘When?’ I asked.
“Well they had to test it somehow.’
‘But why on monkeys?’
‘Why not?’
‘Well it’s not like it’s a drug for medical use is it? I imagine they’d test it on humans.’
‘Trust me. It’s always monkeys who are first in line…’ he said. Knowingly.
I thought about this and it made me feel quite sorry for the monkeys as they obviously don’t know which way they’re going. At one point they’re puffing away on new types of cigarette, the next thing they know they’re testing out devices to stop people smoking, then they're on crack. No wonder they always look glum in those cages.
I may start a campaign…
Tuesday, May 09, 2006
Things You'll Never Hear Again…
An England football manager saying: ‘We played as a team and we won the World Cup as a team.’
Monday, May 08, 2006
The Other Woman...
Went out with my 'other woman' a few nights ago.
The missus knows all about her and she and the boy openly refer to her as my 'other woman'. But her boyfriend also refers to me as her 'other man' so at least everybody knows where they stand.
Me and my 'other woman' met doing martial arts and we're both professional word butchers and we both also play pool so in many ways it's a friendship made in heaven. She also told me two of the funniest things I'd heard in a long time.
The first concerns her boyfriend, who recently went on a 'flirting course' paid for by his work. The object of this course was to give marketing and sales people the sort of subtle skills they made need in the markertplace to woo potential advertisers or other clients to part with their hard-earned cash via subtle flattery and other non-verbal seduction techniques.
The second concerned her dad, who since retirement has embarked on an impulse-buying spree which has so far included a pool table and a computer. We reckoned it wouldn't be long before he sold the house and bought a travelling circus - or blew his pension on a unicorn to tether and keep in the back garden.
I just hope the two don't meet and reveal their new skills or it could be financial carnage all round...
The missus knows all about her and she and the boy openly refer to her as my 'other woman'. But her boyfriend also refers to me as her 'other man' so at least everybody knows where they stand.
Me and my 'other woman' met doing martial arts and we're both professional word butchers and we both also play pool so in many ways it's a friendship made in heaven. She also told me two of the funniest things I'd heard in a long time.
The first concerns her boyfriend, who recently went on a 'flirting course' paid for by his work. The object of this course was to give marketing and sales people the sort of subtle skills they made need in the markertplace to woo potential advertisers or other clients to part with their hard-earned cash via subtle flattery and other non-verbal seduction techniques.
The second concerned her dad, who since retirement has embarked on an impulse-buying spree which has so far included a pool table and a computer. We reckoned it wouldn't be long before he sold the house and bought a travelling circus - or blew his pension on a unicorn to tether and keep in the back garden.
I just hope the two don't meet and reveal their new skills or it could be financial carnage all round...
Friday, May 05, 2006
If The Cap Fits…
The boy is now convinced I am a major-league nutcase.
He walked into the kitchen this week to find me labeling several huge sweet tins that have hung around the house since we glutted ourselves on confectionery at Xmas. He gave a puzzled look to the missus who responded with her ‘I know, I know…’ smile, inspected the already labeled tins then approached me with a question.
‘What are haribot beans?’
‘Haricot beans. It says haricot beans.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘Yes.’
‘Right…’
‘And I have no idea what they are but we’ve had them in the larder for months so I’m putting them away somewhere safe.’
‘In a tin?’
‘Yes.’
‘Why? Will they explode otherwise?’
‘No. But we’ve had these tins in the kitchen for months and so by using them to store all the loose stuff in the larder we are recycling the tins and also tidying up the loose rubbish in the larder.’
‘You’re a bit OCD.’
‘I’m making the kitchen more efficient.’
‘What’s pain flour?’
‘Plain flour. It says plain flour.’
‘Are you going to put it next to the haribot beans?’
‘Get out!’
He exited the kitchen sniggering…
He walked into the kitchen this week to find me labeling several huge sweet tins that have hung around the house since we glutted ourselves on confectionery at Xmas. He gave a puzzled look to the missus who responded with her ‘I know, I know…’ smile, inspected the already labeled tins then approached me with a question.
‘What are haribot beans?’
‘Haricot beans. It says haricot beans.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘Yes.’
‘Right…’
‘And I have no idea what they are but we’ve had them in the larder for months so I’m putting them away somewhere safe.’
‘In a tin?’
‘Yes.’
‘Why? Will they explode otherwise?’
‘No. But we’ve had these tins in the kitchen for months and so by using them to store all the loose stuff in the larder we are recycling the tins and also tidying up the loose rubbish in the larder.’
‘You’re a bit OCD.’
‘I’m making the kitchen more efficient.’
‘What’s pain flour?’
‘Plain flour. It says plain flour.’
‘Are you going to put it next to the haribot beans?’
‘Get out!’
He exited the kitchen sniggering…
Wednesday, May 03, 2006
The Apprentice. Nearly...
The best show on prime-time TV (well the best show on prime-time BBC2 featuring Alan Sugar, as he does get about a bit) reaches its penultimate episode tonight with the four remaining contenders facing ‘gruelling interviews’ with some of the former Spurs’ head honcho’s business buddies to determine which two go through to the final next week.
Fans of the show will realise no-nonsense Ruth and dignified go-getter Ansell should be the successful duo as they’ve been the best performers on all the previous tasks so far. The two who should be booted higher than the still unsafe arch on Wembley Stadium should be smug Yorkshireman Paul, the sort of going-to-seed podgy thirtysomething you see chatting up teenagers in Leeds nightclubs, and professional whinger Michelle, who whines a lot but does wear designer spectacles surprisingly well.
The beauty of this show, however, is that Sugar decides who he wants – and, as this is the fella who thinks the Amstrad videophone is the future, then anything can happen.
Fans of the show will realise no-nonsense Ruth and dignified go-getter Ansell should be the successful duo as they’ve been the best performers on all the previous tasks so far. The two who should be booted higher than the still unsafe arch on Wembley Stadium should be smug Yorkshireman Paul, the sort of going-to-seed podgy thirtysomething you see chatting up teenagers in Leeds nightclubs, and professional whinger Michelle, who whines a lot but does wear designer spectacles surprisingly well.
The beauty of this show, however, is that Sugar decides who he wants – and, as this is the fella who thinks the Amstrad videophone is the future, then anything can happen.
Utterly Lost...
Come on. Admit it… Lost is a pile of old cock. It’s Fantasy Island as run by the Marquis de Sade with pretensions towards a morality tale thrown in for good measure.
It’s also bloody annoying as rather than solve any of its puzzles it merely adds more layers of puzzlement every episode. It’s like peeling back a layer of some mutant onion only to find another two layers have grown in its place – and this time one of the layers has fur. And spots.
The things it does have going for it are that it’s filmed somewhere pretty and that that cast are tremendous eye candy. Even the token fat bloke’s probably worth a go.
Oh and it takes itself very seriously because it has groups and objects named with initial caps in the press blurb: there’s The Others, The Tailies, The Hatch, etc, etc.
Anyway it’s back. Watch it if you like that sort of thing and there are no books in your house…
It’s also bloody annoying as rather than solve any of its puzzles it merely adds more layers of puzzlement every episode. It’s like peeling back a layer of some mutant onion only to find another two layers have grown in its place – and this time one of the layers has fur. And spots.
The things it does have going for it are that it’s filmed somewhere pretty and that that cast are tremendous eye candy. Even the token fat bloke’s probably worth a go.
Oh and it takes itself very seriously because it has groups and objects named with initial caps in the press blurb: there’s The Others, The Tailies, The Hatch, etc, etc.
Anyway it’s back. Watch it if you like that sort of thing and there are no books in your house…
Wednesday, April 26, 2006
Goodbye Kentish Town
Just heard the news that one of my favourite London places, Kentish Town Pool And Snooker Club, is closing.
For those of you who haven't been there here's an extract from a book I am working on. Well, on and off between other projects...
****************************
In his epic poem The Waste Land TS Eliot claimed that April was the cruellest month. But then again he’d probably never seen Kentish Town on a dark January night in the pouring-down rain…
Even at the height of summer with the sun blazing and temperatures rising, Kentish Town can look a grubby and slightly threatening place. Its local newspapers carry regular front-page leads detailing shootings and muggings, and this particular stop on the Northern Line has neither the bohemian reputation nor the much-visited market of its trendy neighbour Camden, nor the desirable property or high-class chic of nearby Highgate. A former church converted into a branch of Pizza Express is about as upmarket as Kentish Town gets, and the local branches of Iceland and Woolworths, or the fruit and veg stall outside the Tube, are more in keeping with its down-at-heel charm than the high street's Owl Bookshop with its sizeable sections of poetry and feminist literature.
To pool players up and down the land, however, Kentish Town does boast one major attraction, namely the home of eightball pool in the capital.
Kentish Town Pool And Snooker Club, or Kentish as the eightball fraternity knows it, looks a largely unassuming place. Its entrance is hidden away down a side road next to McDonalds on the High Street and access is gained by a buzzer and monitor system, which means the bar staff can check out potentially dodgy customers before refusing or, more often than not, granting them access. On negotiating the front door, there's a steep flight of stairs leading to a picture-filled noticeboard with various league tables and adverts for pool competitions, and then another door before punters reach the venue proper.
Once inside, the layout of the club spreads across the first floor of a large building, which in total floor space is about half the size of a football pitch. The bar runs along the wall to the right of the main doorway and the fruit machines run along another wall opposite the stair entrance. The latter joins together with a bank of seating opposite the bar to form three sides of a makeshift amphitheatre around the main match pool table, while the club's other nine 7ftx4ft pool tables are spread around away from this area to form the club's main pool room.
A separate snooker area is partitioned off from the pool room with yet-to-be painted glass and plywood divides, and this has seven 12ftx6ft snooker tables and one 9ftx5ft snooker table. The sight of the latter is a little bizarre in a place dominated by so many cue purists as it's neither a full-size snooker table nor a matchplay pool table. The younger kids mainly use it to knock around on now, but local legend has it that several eightball punters with no great aptitude for snooker have played on the 9ftx5ft table after a few too many beers and compiled sizeable breaks, uttering cries of 'This game's easy!' or 'Hendry. Who is he?' without realising they were on the smaller of the venue's snooker tables.
The less worldly-wise punter walking into Kentish for the first time could think the bar staff at the club haven't been watching the buzzer monitor quite as closely as they should have. All sorts of people usually mingle here and the regular punters fall into various groups, including teenage boys of school age and the girls they'd like to know better, their slightly older blinged-up peers with their girlfriends, and a few students. Then there are die-hard gamblers perched on the fruit machines or following the racing results on Ceefax, seasoned drinkers, a petty criminal or two, chain-smoking businessmen, not-so-seasoned drinkers who have obviously necked too many pints, plus a smattering of local hard men boasting an impressive collection of tattoos and muscles as well as the club's older patrons.
It's potentially an incendiary mix with so many different interest and age groups together. Three factors, however, unite many of the regulars at Kentish and ensure this unusual selection remain on respectful if not particularly friendly terms.
For a start, Kentish, like many other similar clubs I'd ventured into over the years, is sometimes a den of escape and unreality and, as such, normal rules of peer group division simply don't apply. It’s a place outside the norm with its own rules and own etiquette, which all the regulars know and observe. Daylight also rarely graces the place as the windows are blacked out to ensure no outside rays of sunshine interfere with the pool and snooker table lighting, so another usual compass of normality, light and darkness, can easily become a non-factor here and add to the feeling of unreality.
Consequently, quick drinks at Kentish can descend into late-night sessions without those involved even realising it, and more than one friendly pool or card game has seen the combatants leave the following morning as the milk delivery arrives not realising that the hours 'just slipped away' - usually somewhere between their self-restraint, the last of their money and any hope of making it to work that day.
It's hardly surprising, though, as there is something strangely soothing about Kentish and its rhythms are quite seductive to those used to their familiar sounds. The cadences of money disappearing down a bandit coin slot, potted balls rhythmically dropping down a pool table pocket to come to rest on the ball tray mechanism in the table, and the ringing of the cash register are just noises to the unconverted. But to the Kentish regulars and the many like them who inhabit these baize-based nether-worlds, they are the recognisable sounds of a home away from home, where punters escape their real families of mothers, fathers, sons and daughters to visit their 'other' families of boozing chums and pool-playing pals.
It's an odd home away from home so it's no surprise that the latest generation of teenage hustlers and would-be hard men will chat up local girls and try to prove their street-cred and machismo - and then revert to domestic type by sitting down to watch EastEnders and discuss the latest travails of Sonia Jackson or Dot Cotton.
The second factor uniting the locals and ensuring the different groups at Kentish rarely clash is a respect for Ron Deugnen, the larger-than-life Irish governor of Kentish Town Pool and Snooker Club.
Ron, or 'Big' Ron as he is affectionately known by pool players up and down the land, is several inches over six feet tall and his portly figure is of generous proportions to put it politely. But 'Big' Ron exudes generosity and his usual demeanour is that of the merry uncle at the family wedding who's keen to ensure everyone has a drink. 'Big' Ron's hospitality is the stuff of legend in pool circles and his chicken curries has fed entire generations of would-be cuemen from hardened money players to teenage prodigies, and almost everyone at the club has a story of a personal kindness Ron has performed or a favour they owe the big man with the clipped Irish accent, the spectacles and the contagious laugh.
My first meeting with 'Big' Ron had been at a pool event on a caravan site in Great Yarmouth several years ago when he'd recognised me from a county pool match the previous season where my team, Surrey, had played Ron's all-star London side. It was late at night and myself and a friend were on our way to get some food so he dragged us to the nearest chip shop and proceeded to buy us, several of our friends and the 15 members of the youth pool team he was then looking after at the tournament a fish and chip supper with the cry of 'You Surrey boys all need feeding up, so you do!' At the time my friend and I were sporting stomachs that would have shamed most sumo wrestlers.
The biggest uniting factor for the majority of people who are Kentish regulars, though, is an aptitude or interest in eightball pool.
The club is the home venue of both the highly successful EPA (English Pool Association) and ECPF (English Counties Pool Federation) London county squads and it also houses events for the EPA Region Seven Tour, the PPPO (Professional Pool Players Organisation) Tour, the South-East Tour, the EPPP (English Professional Pool Players) Tour and the London interleague, as well as various money matches, individual leagues and local pool leagues.
So it's no surprise to see seasoned professionals knocking around with schoolkid prodigies, junior internationals playing students, and suited and booted business types swapping stories with old-school hustlers. Less gifted league journeymen are found on the same table as several of the game's brightest young prospects as they prepare for the night's league match at Kentish, while several women, some sporting cropped haircuts and jeans and others looking like they'd be more at home in a local Women's Institute making jam, take out clearances.
Needless to say, all the tables are usually in use on most nights of the week and it's clear the club derives a decent amount of its income from the 50p pieces precariously stacked on the sides of the various tables. Players do discuss other matters but pool is the main topic of conversation and the casual interloper could be forgiven for thinking that the only reality that matters at Kentish is the potting of balls in a pocket.
On this particular January night in question the club is pretty busy. It's one week into the New Year and the Imperial League, one of the capital's most famous and long-running pool leagues, has restarted again after its Yuletide break. The tables are still rammed to capacity with league players preparing for a match or non-league players eager to grab an extra few hours of practice, even though it's several weeks before any of the major series of competitions or Tours kick off.
Holding court at the bar is the club's long-time professional Pat O'Kane and a combination of the weather and the restart of the Imperial League ensure that he has a larger audience than usual.
O'Kane is nicknamed 'the Chat' and what the 5.7 Londoner with the dark hair and impish looks lacks in stature he more than makes up for in ebullience and chutzpah. O'Kane stories are legend in the pool world and they could probably fill up a book on their own and tonight the vodka and Red Bulls perched beside him ensure he’s in full flow.
The most recent addition to his repertoire happened just before Christmas when a white goods supplier dropped into the club for a last drink and challenged O'Kane to a few friendly frames. Two hours on and several bizarre bets later and O'Kane was the proud owner of a luxury fridge freezer, an item which was delivered to his flat the following morning.
O'Kane has been a fixture on the London pool scene for some 20 years and at one time was one of the most feared money players in the UK. He began playing pool in the late 1970s when he attended a dinner-time youth club at school.
'There were a few pool tables and we used to play for our dinner money,' recalls Pat. 'It was soon obvious I was a bit better than everyone else so I couldn't get a game - until some of the workers who ran the club and fancied themselves as players cottoned on to what was happening and started to play me, too! It was a lucrative sideline for a boy of 13!'
After Pat left school, he started work in the Post Office as a messenger boy and, as his works social club also had a pool table, his baize-based education also continued. By his own admission, though, he never really got serious about the game until he was reading The Daily Mirror one night in the early Eighties.
'It ran a piece on a pub called The Cock Tavern where a lot of the top players in London used to hang out. I saved up and went there and played a scruffy guy for £2 a game and lost all my money, which was a grand total of £24. But I kept going back and within a year I'd beaten the likes of 'Maltese' Joe Barba, Andy 'The Greek' Lopez and Roger Blank. I also beat the scruffy guy I'd met on my first outing, who was actually a top money player called 'Scotch' Alex Shennon.'
Pat left the Post Office in 1985 to become a full-time pool professional and he joined the ranks of the Professional Pool Players Organisation (PPPO), of which he was chairman from 1999-2002, after going on a run of money matches against all their brightest stars which saw him unbeaten for six months. His biggest money game, though, came three years later in 1988 when he played a match over 31 frames for £12,000 against a player from Essex called Mark 'The Ginger Ninja' Hewitson.
'I was 6-12 down and being totally outplayed,' recalls Pat. 'My opponent was smashing into the pack and potting balls and clearing up from nowhere and my backer was about to start counting the money out. I looked dead and buried. Then my opponent suddenly decided to just tap the break and play safe instead of potting everything in sight as he had been doing. I knew I'd got him then...'
Several hours and several drinks later, Pat and his backer emerged victorious with Pat winning the match 16-14. 'It was quite a night,' he says in typical O’Kane understatement.
But Pat admits that living on his wits was also a precarious way to make a living.
'I did a TV show about hustling in London and myself and my brother were in an East End pub playing the locals for a few quid and having a good crack. They obviously didn't know who I was and we were making a nice little bundle, too.'
'But then a guy who I'd taken for a few hundred quid a week before walked into the place - and, worse still, he'd seen the TV show so I knew we were well rumbled. It really was a matter of handing all their money back and also giving them my stake money so they could get a few drinks - and getting out of there as quickly as possible!'
These days Pat makes his living from exhibition matches and he still thinks the game can develop beyond its present state.
'We need TV and there are a few tournaments on Sky and the Shetlands event will be on Eurosport, but we badly need terrestrial TV coverage to take the game forward,' believes Pat. 'Pool used to be on World Of Sport and I remember it getting 6.7 million viewers – and that's when it was up against darts in its prime on the BBC!'
'The game has millions of players in the UK and whole networks of unpaid officials who support those local or county networks. Yet we struggle to get the same TV space and column inches as sports that are much more outside the mainstream than we are.'
For those of you who haven't been there here's an extract from a book I am working on. Well, on and off between other projects...
****************************
In his epic poem The Waste Land TS Eliot claimed that April was the cruellest month. But then again he’d probably never seen Kentish Town on a dark January night in the pouring-down rain…
Even at the height of summer with the sun blazing and temperatures rising, Kentish Town can look a grubby and slightly threatening place. Its local newspapers carry regular front-page leads detailing shootings and muggings, and this particular stop on the Northern Line has neither the bohemian reputation nor the much-visited market of its trendy neighbour Camden, nor the desirable property or high-class chic of nearby Highgate. A former church converted into a branch of Pizza Express is about as upmarket as Kentish Town gets, and the local branches of Iceland and Woolworths, or the fruit and veg stall outside the Tube, are more in keeping with its down-at-heel charm than the high street's Owl Bookshop with its sizeable sections of poetry and feminist literature.
To pool players up and down the land, however, Kentish Town does boast one major attraction, namely the home of eightball pool in the capital.
Kentish Town Pool And Snooker Club, or Kentish as the eightball fraternity knows it, looks a largely unassuming place. Its entrance is hidden away down a side road next to McDonalds on the High Street and access is gained by a buzzer and monitor system, which means the bar staff can check out potentially dodgy customers before refusing or, more often than not, granting them access. On negotiating the front door, there's a steep flight of stairs leading to a picture-filled noticeboard with various league tables and adverts for pool competitions, and then another door before punters reach the venue proper.
Once inside, the layout of the club spreads across the first floor of a large building, which in total floor space is about half the size of a football pitch. The bar runs along the wall to the right of the main doorway and the fruit machines run along another wall opposite the stair entrance. The latter joins together with a bank of seating opposite the bar to form three sides of a makeshift amphitheatre around the main match pool table, while the club's other nine 7ftx4ft pool tables are spread around away from this area to form the club's main pool room.
A separate snooker area is partitioned off from the pool room with yet-to-be painted glass and plywood divides, and this has seven 12ftx6ft snooker tables and one 9ftx5ft snooker table. The sight of the latter is a little bizarre in a place dominated by so many cue purists as it's neither a full-size snooker table nor a matchplay pool table. The younger kids mainly use it to knock around on now, but local legend has it that several eightball punters with no great aptitude for snooker have played on the 9ftx5ft table after a few too many beers and compiled sizeable breaks, uttering cries of 'This game's easy!' or 'Hendry. Who is he?' without realising they were on the smaller of the venue's snooker tables.
The less worldly-wise punter walking into Kentish for the first time could think the bar staff at the club haven't been watching the buzzer monitor quite as closely as they should have. All sorts of people usually mingle here and the regular punters fall into various groups, including teenage boys of school age and the girls they'd like to know better, their slightly older blinged-up peers with their girlfriends, and a few students. Then there are die-hard gamblers perched on the fruit machines or following the racing results on Ceefax, seasoned drinkers, a petty criminal or two, chain-smoking businessmen, not-so-seasoned drinkers who have obviously necked too many pints, plus a smattering of local hard men boasting an impressive collection of tattoos and muscles as well as the club's older patrons.
It's potentially an incendiary mix with so many different interest and age groups together. Three factors, however, unite many of the regulars at Kentish and ensure this unusual selection remain on respectful if not particularly friendly terms.
For a start, Kentish, like many other similar clubs I'd ventured into over the years, is sometimes a den of escape and unreality and, as such, normal rules of peer group division simply don't apply. It’s a place outside the norm with its own rules and own etiquette, which all the regulars know and observe. Daylight also rarely graces the place as the windows are blacked out to ensure no outside rays of sunshine interfere with the pool and snooker table lighting, so another usual compass of normality, light and darkness, can easily become a non-factor here and add to the feeling of unreality.
Consequently, quick drinks at Kentish can descend into late-night sessions without those involved even realising it, and more than one friendly pool or card game has seen the combatants leave the following morning as the milk delivery arrives not realising that the hours 'just slipped away' - usually somewhere between their self-restraint, the last of their money and any hope of making it to work that day.
It's hardly surprising, though, as there is something strangely soothing about Kentish and its rhythms are quite seductive to those used to their familiar sounds. The cadences of money disappearing down a bandit coin slot, potted balls rhythmically dropping down a pool table pocket to come to rest on the ball tray mechanism in the table, and the ringing of the cash register are just noises to the unconverted. But to the Kentish regulars and the many like them who inhabit these baize-based nether-worlds, they are the recognisable sounds of a home away from home, where punters escape their real families of mothers, fathers, sons and daughters to visit their 'other' families of boozing chums and pool-playing pals.
It's an odd home away from home so it's no surprise that the latest generation of teenage hustlers and would-be hard men will chat up local girls and try to prove their street-cred and machismo - and then revert to domestic type by sitting down to watch EastEnders and discuss the latest travails of Sonia Jackson or Dot Cotton.
The second factor uniting the locals and ensuring the different groups at Kentish rarely clash is a respect for Ron Deugnen, the larger-than-life Irish governor of Kentish Town Pool and Snooker Club.
Ron, or 'Big' Ron as he is affectionately known by pool players up and down the land, is several inches over six feet tall and his portly figure is of generous proportions to put it politely. But 'Big' Ron exudes generosity and his usual demeanour is that of the merry uncle at the family wedding who's keen to ensure everyone has a drink. 'Big' Ron's hospitality is the stuff of legend in pool circles and his chicken curries has fed entire generations of would-be cuemen from hardened money players to teenage prodigies, and almost everyone at the club has a story of a personal kindness Ron has performed or a favour they owe the big man with the clipped Irish accent, the spectacles and the contagious laugh.
My first meeting with 'Big' Ron had been at a pool event on a caravan site in Great Yarmouth several years ago when he'd recognised me from a county pool match the previous season where my team, Surrey, had played Ron's all-star London side. It was late at night and myself and a friend were on our way to get some food so he dragged us to the nearest chip shop and proceeded to buy us, several of our friends and the 15 members of the youth pool team he was then looking after at the tournament a fish and chip supper with the cry of 'You Surrey boys all need feeding up, so you do!' At the time my friend and I were sporting stomachs that would have shamed most sumo wrestlers.
The biggest uniting factor for the majority of people who are Kentish regulars, though, is an aptitude or interest in eightball pool.
The club is the home venue of both the highly successful EPA (English Pool Association) and ECPF (English Counties Pool Federation) London county squads and it also houses events for the EPA Region Seven Tour, the PPPO (Professional Pool Players Organisation) Tour, the South-East Tour, the EPPP (English Professional Pool Players) Tour and the London interleague, as well as various money matches, individual leagues and local pool leagues.
So it's no surprise to see seasoned professionals knocking around with schoolkid prodigies, junior internationals playing students, and suited and booted business types swapping stories with old-school hustlers. Less gifted league journeymen are found on the same table as several of the game's brightest young prospects as they prepare for the night's league match at Kentish, while several women, some sporting cropped haircuts and jeans and others looking like they'd be more at home in a local Women's Institute making jam, take out clearances.
Needless to say, all the tables are usually in use on most nights of the week and it's clear the club derives a decent amount of its income from the 50p pieces precariously stacked on the sides of the various tables. Players do discuss other matters but pool is the main topic of conversation and the casual interloper could be forgiven for thinking that the only reality that matters at Kentish is the potting of balls in a pocket.
On this particular January night in question the club is pretty busy. It's one week into the New Year and the Imperial League, one of the capital's most famous and long-running pool leagues, has restarted again after its Yuletide break. The tables are still rammed to capacity with league players preparing for a match or non-league players eager to grab an extra few hours of practice, even though it's several weeks before any of the major series of competitions or Tours kick off.
Holding court at the bar is the club's long-time professional Pat O'Kane and a combination of the weather and the restart of the Imperial League ensure that he has a larger audience than usual.
O'Kane is nicknamed 'the Chat' and what the 5.7 Londoner with the dark hair and impish looks lacks in stature he more than makes up for in ebullience and chutzpah. O'Kane stories are legend in the pool world and they could probably fill up a book on their own and tonight the vodka and Red Bulls perched beside him ensure he’s in full flow.
The most recent addition to his repertoire happened just before Christmas when a white goods supplier dropped into the club for a last drink and challenged O'Kane to a few friendly frames. Two hours on and several bizarre bets later and O'Kane was the proud owner of a luxury fridge freezer, an item which was delivered to his flat the following morning.
O'Kane has been a fixture on the London pool scene for some 20 years and at one time was one of the most feared money players in the UK. He began playing pool in the late 1970s when he attended a dinner-time youth club at school.
'There were a few pool tables and we used to play for our dinner money,' recalls Pat. 'It was soon obvious I was a bit better than everyone else so I couldn't get a game - until some of the workers who ran the club and fancied themselves as players cottoned on to what was happening and started to play me, too! It was a lucrative sideline for a boy of 13!'
After Pat left school, he started work in the Post Office as a messenger boy and, as his works social club also had a pool table, his baize-based education also continued. By his own admission, though, he never really got serious about the game until he was reading The Daily Mirror one night in the early Eighties.
'It ran a piece on a pub called The Cock Tavern where a lot of the top players in London used to hang out. I saved up and went there and played a scruffy guy for £2 a game and lost all my money, which was a grand total of £24. But I kept going back and within a year I'd beaten the likes of 'Maltese' Joe Barba, Andy 'The Greek' Lopez and Roger Blank. I also beat the scruffy guy I'd met on my first outing, who was actually a top money player called 'Scotch' Alex Shennon.'
Pat left the Post Office in 1985 to become a full-time pool professional and he joined the ranks of the Professional Pool Players Organisation (PPPO), of which he was chairman from 1999-2002, after going on a run of money matches against all their brightest stars which saw him unbeaten for six months. His biggest money game, though, came three years later in 1988 when he played a match over 31 frames for £12,000 against a player from Essex called Mark 'The Ginger Ninja' Hewitson.
'I was 6-12 down and being totally outplayed,' recalls Pat. 'My opponent was smashing into the pack and potting balls and clearing up from nowhere and my backer was about to start counting the money out. I looked dead and buried. Then my opponent suddenly decided to just tap the break and play safe instead of potting everything in sight as he had been doing. I knew I'd got him then...'
Several hours and several drinks later, Pat and his backer emerged victorious with Pat winning the match 16-14. 'It was quite a night,' he says in typical O’Kane understatement.
But Pat admits that living on his wits was also a precarious way to make a living.
'I did a TV show about hustling in London and myself and my brother were in an East End pub playing the locals for a few quid and having a good crack. They obviously didn't know who I was and we were making a nice little bundle, too.'
'But then a guy who I'd taken for a few hundred quid a week before walked into the place - and, worse still, he'd seen the TV show so I knew we were well rumbled. It really was a matter of handing all their money back and also giving them my stake money so they could get a few drinks - and getting out of there as quickly as possible!'
These days Pat makes his living from exhibition matches and he still thinks the game can develop beyond its present state.
'We need TV and there are a few tournaments on Sky and the Shetlands event will be on Eurosport, but we badly need terrestrial TV coverage to take the game forward,' believes Pat. 'Pool used to be on World Of Sport and I remember it getting 6.7 million viewers – and that's when it was up against darts in its prime on the BBC!'
'The game has millions of players in the UK and whole networks of unpaid officials who support those local or county networks. Yet we struggle to get the same TV space and column inches as sports that are much more outside the mainstream than we are.'
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