Balls!

I went training and was in the changing room yesterday when an elderly gentleman came out of the gym and undressed to go to the shower.

He was mid-fifties and he stripped naked and instead of grabbing a towel and heading off to the showers as most people do he paraded around the changing room for a good five minutes. This was odd but what was odder still was the fact that he had the smallest knob and the hangiest, biggest testicles I have ever seen. They were literally inches away from his knees.

I found it hard not to snatch a few sneaky glances and I caught somebody else doing the same. It could have been quite embarrassing for two young men to be caught staring at an old man's testicles but they were so extraordinary that when we both caught each other's eyes we merely shrugged as if to say: 'They are quite spectacular – and just a little bit freaky...'

Anyway, Big Plums headed off to the showers, or so I thought, and I put my head down to put my socks and shoes on then tie my bootlaces. It was then I saw something move in my peripheral vision and I raised my head as Big Plums eased his way past me to retrieve his shower gel. And they were inches away from my face.

I had nightmares about it last night and I still feel sullied...

Roland Rat?

OK. So it’s a bit like shooting very big fish in a very small tank with a very large gun. Like a bazooka. Or one of those surface-to-air missle things. Or a Trident…

But Trust Me… I’m A Holiday Rep on Five is about as barrel-scrapingly bad as it gets. In fact I’d rather watch every single episode of Ultimate Force while tied to a chair with matchsticks propping open my eyes to ensure I didn’t miss a single second than chance upon this again.

The basic premise is that half a dozen minor celebs are parachuted into some ghastly Club 18-30 type hellhole (in this case Malia in Crete) and then made to work as a rep for some equally ghastly holiday company (in this case Olympic).

So cue minor celebs taking a bunch of chavs on a booze cruise and hating their drunken behaviour, cue minor celebs moaning about working long hours and cue minor celebs grouching about doing the job the publicity-greedy fuckers signed up for in the first place.

Those ‘stars’ taking part include DJ Brandon Block, TV chef Nancy Lam, comedian Roland Rivron and three people I’ve never heard of – and that’s quite a feat because in my role as a TV journalist I can still name most of the cast of Family Affairs (RIP).

The episode I caught on Saturday night when myself and the missus returned from a night out featured new rep Paul Burrell entering the fray. He, of course, is the Diana butler chap and rather brilliantly he had no idea who the other ‘celebrities’ were.

This sent Roland Rivron off the deep end and he behaved like an utter twat.

Now Rivron has always made me laugh in previous incarnations. Raw Sex were genuinely funny, his chatshow where he interviewed people while floating in the Thames was inspired lunacy and his sitcom A Set Of Six was cruelly under-rated.

But he’s now decided to behave like an idiot and appear on this bilge.

Times must be hard and rather than be annoyed I can only hope he walks out, returns to the UK and lamps the agent who persuaded him this would be a good career move.

That would also make much better telly than this trash.

That's Entertainment!

The missus is a sucker for musicals and I thought I’d pulled off quite a coup by getting her tickets for the West End show Seven Brides For Seven Brothers last month for her birthday as it’s one of her fave shows.

Sadly a week before her birthday she happened to mention that in no way, shape or form did she wish to see the show as the reviews had utterly panned it. But I argued that:

i) That information would have been useful before I bought the tickets.
ii) Reviews aren’t always correct and can’t always be trusted.

So she countered by saying that she’d quite happily go as we had good seats and I promised to buy her chocolates.

Well we went on Saturday with an open and limited expectations and the show still managed to disappoint. The cast weren’t up to it, the on-stage energy was sorely lacking and the choreography and overall production values just seemed a bit half-baked. The male lead Dave Willetts had a weak voice and the supporting cast had major problems holding American accents and projecting at the same time. And that’s a basic sort of skill for an actor to master.

To add insult to injury we were also charged £24 for four G&Ts.

In fact I’d have been happier if the entire cast and the woman serving at the bar were wearing face masks and carrying bags labelled SWAG as the entire sham was daylight robbery from start to finish.

So here’s my review of Seven Brides For Seven Brothers and you can trust it if you want: It was shit. It wasn’t even mediocre. The only half-decent thing in it was Shona Lindsay in the female lead and she only looked good because everyone else was so shockingly bad.

In fact I’m quite tempted to ask for a refund…

Boxing Clever…

Let’s face it. On the whole telly is largely a pernicious and malevolent force continually aiding and abetting a celeb-obsessed, tabloid-fed society to chasm down into a never-ending pit of mediocrity and crassness.

But sometimes telly can actually do some good.

Take the ubiquitous Jamie Oliver. The gets-where-shit-doesn’t mockney geezer TV chef (who anyone sane wanted to punch about four years ago) did a good deed by opening his Fifteen restaurant and teaching disadvantaged kids to cook, then he topped that by getting the Blair government to gets off its pontificating arse and commit money and policy into getting the nation’s kids to eat better.

Redemption complete in my eyes.

In fact he can probably go and bugger the entire populace of the Anna Scher Theatre School on live TV and I’d still think he’s an OK sort of guy. In fact I’d probably like him more for the latter as it may mean the little darlings would be so traumatised that they’d stop wanting to act, therefore not appearing on EastEnders playing rough kids but rough kids with perfect skin, air-brushed smiles and RP diction. Little fuckers…

Anyway the success of Oliver has, of course, spawned another C4 vehicle that extends the caring and sharing telly franchise with Ian Wright's Unfit Kids.

In this series the usually perma-grinning Wrighty takes a group of sullen, unenthusiastic and overweight kids and tries to get them doing the sort of activities (well, any activities actually…) that will see them take some interest in their health.

And it’s hard work but the former England’s striker mix of enthusiasm and grumpiness comes shining through as he slowly makes headway with the sort of kids who are low-income heart attacks waiting to happen.

Bizarrely it’s quite compelling TV as Wrighty struggles to make an impact on the kids and, what in other hands could have been quite crass, turns into something moving as he gets to like the kids and they get to like him.

In last night’s episode he chatted to one of the kids whose dad has just come back into his life and he discussed how his own son dislikes him at the moment after leaving his mum for a new life.

It was touching stuff and it works as good telly and good campaigning. More of the same would be good – but no Anna Scher kids. Please!

The Creatives...

Went to a seminar on launching magazines yesterday and had to come up with various shell concepts for the oldies market. One of mine was:

'Euthanasia Weekly: Thinking Inside The Box'

People stared...

Make ‘Em Laugh!

Saw Dylan Moran (introduced on the PA as ‘Dylan Moron’) at Hammersmith Apollo on Friday. I saw his Monster show a few years ago and it was very funny but, I am sad to report, this outing was pretty lame.

Two 45-minute sets of semi-coherent rambling with the occasional good gag thrown in does not an enjoyable night make. And the 30-minute break between halves so the venue could cash in at the bar was taking the piss.

Moran is always a laconic comic and that’s his schtick but I got the impression he wasn’t in the mood and this was a shame as a few thousand people paying £25 per ticket should have provided some incentive to put on a more polished show.

Mark Thomas the week before was playing a much smaller venue at Soho Theatre but still managed to be more slick and engaging – and he was talking about the bloody arms trade!

But I suppose even comedy veterans like Moran sometimes do a duff gig and, as my DVDs of Black Books continue to make me laugh well into the fifth showing, he can probably be forgiven.

Fortunately the new series of Extras also started last week and was superb so I felt I’d had my quota of good comedy entertainment for the week.

The second outing of the Ricky Gervais and Steve Merchant comedy sees supporting artist Andy Millman have the chance to star in his own comedy series – and the first show saw his initial optimism whittled down as the integrity-filled TV he envisaged creating turned into a cliche-filled abomination.

Gervais as Millman is always on the money and Merchant as his idiotic agent is similarly good. Ashley Jenson, though, still steals the show as Millman’s faux-pas-prone pal Maggie Jacobs and I love the fact that Shaun Williamson is still around as he’s one the funniest things in it.

Christ, I may even stay in on Thursday nights now…

The ShIT Crowd…

The office printer decided to go on the blink today because a toner cartridge needed replacing.

Our procedure for such things at my particular words factory is to contact our IT department, be passed around two or three people for ten minutes, then be patronised for another five minutes when I get the right person until they promise to send one of their minions to take a look at the problem.

But today they adopted a new tactic. I explained the problem and, drawing on their years of experience and countless degrees in computer and electronic engineering, they advised me to ‘Pick up the toner cartridge and waggle it a bit.’

I pointed out that I had already exhausted the waggle option, which caught them a bit off-guard – until they followed it up with more sage advice…

‘You could try waggling it a bit harder...’

They went to university for that…

Paper Tigers…

The past two weeks have seen the streets of evening London turn into a battleground of rival newspaper vendors trying to palm their respective freesheets off on passing punters.

In the purple corner in London Lite (spelt just like that), the bastard child of the Evening Standard and Metro from Associated Newspapers whose vendors dress in bright purple tops. In the other purple corner is thelondonpaper (honest, not capped or punctuated just like that), the hip upstart from News International whose vendors also wear bright purple tops and dish out their wares from under stands with bright purple umbrellas.

This means myself and the missus can now no longer walk from work to the Tube (a journey of about 10 minutes in total) without at least four folk from either rag accosting us and pushing their publications right under our noses.

Just outside Waterloo is where the freesheet battleground is at its hottest with one very vocal vendor deafening all around him in a bid to get rid of his pile of papers. Each paper has at least five or six folk here and into this mix this week came several people from a mental health charity.

Bizarrely they also wore bright purple tops and it just all got too confusing with the soundscape loop going something like this:

‘London Lite! Free London Lite!’
‘thelondonpaper! Get thelondonpaper here!’
‘Mental health. Mental health concern here!’

Only in London could something this bizarre seem entirely commonplace. And only in London could everybody just walk by and totally ignore the sheer lunacy of it all…

Glasses Half Empty…

Medical science is a wonderful thing. OK, so the common cold is still one step ahead and pesky cancer is still giving it a bit of a kicking but on the whole it’s rather brilliant what they can cure these days.

And in this category laser eye surgery is one of the recent advances that grabbed my attention as several pals have had it done and reported impressive results so I finally worked up the courage to go for a consultation with a view to getting it done at Xmas.

No more specs, no more fiddling around with contact lenses before hapkido, no more worrying about getting that first scratch on an expensive new pair of glasses…

The possibility of a brave new world was suddenly opening up before me.

This sort of optimism was, of course, just asking for trouble and lo it appeared when 20 minutes into the consultation the optometrist told me I couldn’t have it done as my eyesight is too poor (although apparently with my specs I have better than 20/20 vision).

I was a bit glum over this and promptly arrived home and let rip on the punchbag for a good half hour. The missus and the boy then arrived home and I broke the news to her.

‘We can put men on the Moon and medical science can apparently cure most things but my eyesight is beyond even that sort of technology. I’m afraid you’re still married to a speccy spacker…’

The missus smiled.

‘Well, you were a speccy spacker when I married you so I’m not unhappy with that.’

I smiled too.

Happy Birthday!

The missus celebrated her birthday yesterday so I did my impression of a loving husband and showered her with gifts aplenty.

The missus is quite difficult to buy for because, like me, if she wants anything she just tends to buy it herself. Fortunately trips to Molton Brown, Jo Malone and the Tintin Shop, plus anything with Johnny Depp, are always sure-fire winners to get the present-buying ball rolling.

One tradition that money can’t buy, though, is my yearly task to make her a gift. Previous hand-crafted-by-me presents have included a self-powered hairdryer made from empty toilet roll tubes (blow in one end and the air travels round a u-bend out through a funnel and, hey presto, dry hair!); a DIY liposuction kit (complete with big syringe); the Fatkins Diet Book (a mini book with the words ‘Eat less cake and do more exercise. That’s it!’); and, my favourite, a mini theatre that myself and the boy made when I feared I wouldn’t be able to get her tickets to Guys And Dolls. The mini theatre featured the musical Guides And Dolls and had pictures of Girl Guides and dolls on stage (this was going to be Guide Dogs And Dolls but I couldn’t find enough pictures of guide dogs).

This year’s offering is my latest invention (see above). It’s called Hate Weight Mates and you simply cut them out and pop them over the digital readout on the bathroom scales. Then when you get weighed the next morning it’s suddenly not so bad.

I think it’s a great idea! I may go on Dragon’s Den…

Goth Watch: Update...

A friend and fellow scriptwriter writer and blogger (check out the rather excellent Velvet Empire link on the right) sent me the following email this morning:

‘I was dining in Pizza Express in Soho last night when two middle-aged Goths on a date came and sat at the table opposite. It was a treat for the eyes to see two ageing Goths in full regalia (stack-soled shoes, red fishnet tights, him with long flowing dyed black hair, her with neatly plaited dyed black hair and a skull-encrusted staff resting in the umbrella holder by the door) holding hands over a Margherita (extra pepperoni) and fanning themselves with their feather-plumed fans. Sadly, as my companion pointed out, you don't see as many Goths as you used to these days. However chivalry is not dead in the Goth world and I'm pleased to report that Mr Goth paid the full bill. I wonder if they met on GothicMatch.com?’

You have been warned. Goth-spotting will soon be an Olympic sport…

Viva Espana!

Me and the missus went to see Volver by Pedro Almodovar yesterday.

It was a truly fabulous movie with the usual quirky storyline and offbeat characters seeking redemption through love. Penelope Cruz played the lead character but it was a really strong ensemble piece.

I’m quite a fan of Almodovar and I could rattle on for ages about how Bad Education is a really uplifting film… or how Live Flesh is a visually stunning movie… or how Matador is really tragic…

Well, I could but I have major problems pronouncing his surname so any verbal praise for the Madrid movie maestro usually sounds like this:

‘I really like Alodomerar…’ Or this: ‘I’m a big Amoldovarerer fan.’

Try as I might I have a mental incapacity to translate the name I can write perfectly well into a word that I can pronounce. To be fair, it could be a family-based illness, as the missus has a similar problem with the phrase ‘I agree with you and you are right’ and the boy always uses ‘Idiot’ when what he actually means is ‘loving stepfather’.

So I usually keep quite when this subject of Almodovar comes up and wait for them to get round to discussions on Benny Hill or Dick Emery. And this can take serious time…