Homeward Bound…

I am heading North at the end of March to finally meet my new niece.

I have booked the train so far in advance this time that I managed to buy a ticket without it costing me £150 and I’ll also be catching up with other family and friends while I’m there.

I explained to the Missus that I wanted to head up on my own so I could pretty much make my own itinerary and not have to worry about dragging her around various places like some kind of spare part.

It also obviously means I can go to whatever pubs I want whenever I want without worrying whether she’s having a fun time or not.

She was cool with this and, somewhat suspiciously, not totally unhappy to see the back of me for three days. But she did point out a flaw in the plan:

‘Your family will think I don’t like them.’
‘It’s fine. I’ll just tell them I want to come on my own as it makes it easier for me.’
‘They’ll probably assume I’m a posh southern girl who can’t be bothered with them…’
‘Well I don’t care what they think. I’ll set them straight. Anyway this is about me going home on my own so I can make my own plans without having to fret about you. It makes perfect sense to me.’
‘Well be warned. They’ll think something’s wrong…’

I forget her words and later that day I phone my mother to give her my dates and train times. I then inform her I’ll be coming on my own. There is a pause…

‘Is everything all right?’
‘Yes. Of course it is.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘Yes. Why?’
‘I mean. You’re coming home on your own…’
‘I just want to make the journey on my own so I can make my own itinerary and not have to worry about anyone else.’
‘Really?’
‘Yes!’
‘You would tell me if anything was wrong, wouldn’t you?’
‘Everything’s fine. We’re just not joined at the hip!’

There is another pause. My mother speaks again.

‘Well as long as you’re OK. I’ll see you when you arrive then… On your own…’

I may yet tell her I’m getting divorced. Just for the laugh value…

Sick: Part Two...

I’m still ill and still bed-bound and still in daytime TV hell.

This morning’s ITV1 offerings included the Jeremy Kyle Show, which featured one segment entitled ‘I’m Scared Of My 15-year-old Daughter’ in which a mother came on screen and confronted the daughter who bullies her and once threatened her with a kitchen knife. Enter the show’s resident psychologist whose instant diagnosis was ‘You have a dysfunctional relationship’. Bloody genius…

Next up was another segment entitled ‘Are You Saying I’m Not The Father Just To Hurt Me?’ in which a teenage chap wanted to know whether he was the father of his partner’s child or not. This ended in a DNA test in which the results were announced on-screen. Classy…

Over on Five was The Wright Stuff with ever-grinning media halfwit Matthew Wright. The topic here was How To Make Missing Dads Proper Dads. Involved in this discussion were such doyens of current affairs as Paul Nicholas (of Just Good Friends and Grandma’s Party Tonight novelty pop single fame) and Richard Park (Fame Academy). It was obviously quite heady stuff with those sorts of intellects on display…

Daytime TV comes in for quite a lot of stick – and rightly so because it’s cheap and it’s shit and it’s lowest-common-denominator. And if it’s a choice of watching this shite or phoning up any of the ‘have-money-for-free’ companies that advertise between these shows and getting into debt for life just to get a break from this nonsense I can see why debt among the poor and gullible is a major problem.

Thank god I’ve recently rediscovered Radio 4…

Sick: Part One...

Flu has swept though FBTP (From Beer To Paternity) Towers and it laid the indefatigueable Missus up for three days and now it’s done the same to me.

And this is proper flu, not ‘man’s flu’. The sort of flu that makes every joint in your body ache like some sort of medieval torturer is twisting it on a rack after they’ve stuck pins through it then rubbed salt into the wound.

In short it’s pretty shit… but if ever there was an incentive to take as many drugs as possible and return to full health ASAP it is the thought of being stuck in bed for yet another day with daytime telly.

Yesterday I slept through most of the day but I did wake up in time to catch Ready, Steady, Cook – and when I fell back to a drug and illness induced sleep it gave me nightmares.

The bits of the show that struck me were the fact that Ainsley Harriott was larger-than-life and massively enthusiastic about everything that went on. He also made everything into a sexual reference of some sort or another.

‘I’ve brought monkfish today, Ainsley.’
‘Oooh! Monkfish. We love a bit of monkfish don’t we girls? Cos it rhymes with spu…’

The other thing that disturbed me were the studio audience. Whenever Ainsley made some crass joke the camera panned back to the audience and they were mainly old or infirm. And they cackled…

And these two factors turned into one of the worst nightmares I’ve had in years. In it I was tied to a chair in the Ready, Steady, Cook studio and Ainsley was screaming and shouting every double entendre he could think of – and as he did he’d point his big fat sausage-like fingers at me before my chair span around to face the cackling and slobbering studio audience. Then when I turned back Harriott’s fingers had grown even bigger and it continued like this for some time…

Still, it was less scary than the actual show itself.

OWWLOW News…

Regular readers of this blog will already know that the OWWLOW (Other Woman Who Likes Other Women) has the best job in the world. And that’s official.

As the health and safety guru of one of the biggest theatres in London she gets to do pretty routine health and safety stuff. But she also gets to play with all the guns and weapons in the institution’s armoury, experiment with controlled explosions and pyrotechnics, and test all manner of fancy stage scenery and props.

She also has regular trips to check out anything that’s coming to her theatre so she can lay the health and safety groundwork and one recent trip included a weekend away at a Dutch stilt-walking festival. It’s obviously quite varied work…

Her latest task, however, is one of my favourites and sees her preparing for the theatre to become the adopted home of a goat which is starring in one of its productions. The goat is apparently a theatrical goat with plenty of previous stage experience and it comes with its own handler.

The goat’s contract also stipulates it must have fresh water and food, a clean living area, its own handler and a regular supply of Bolivian whores and crack cocaine. OK, I made the last two up but the goat is apparently to be very well looked after and will be paid to boot.

I also love the fact the goat will probably be better treated and better paid than several of the actors.

Amy's View...

I went to see the last night of Amy's View by David Hare with the Missus at the weekend.

It was a bit of an odd beast for Hare as it was a four-act play about the relationship between a mother and her daughter set over three decades rather than his larger-canvas political dramas such as The Permanent Way about the privatisation of the railways or The Absence Of War about the demise of the Labour Party.

Felicity Kendal of The Good Life fame was the ageing actress mother Esme who dominated proceedings and Jenna Russell was her at-odds daughter Amy. It was at times touching and funny but it didn't really light my fire in the way a Steven Poliakoff play that uses similar time jumps as a technique to move the drama forward does.

But it was OK. The writing was clear and intelligent, Peter Hall's direction was clear and Kendal was fine. The rest of the cast weren't fantastic, though.

Pool Over...

Myself and the Other Woman are currently looking for a new place to play pool after hapkido class following the demise of Kentish Town Snooker Club and Centre Point Pool Club’s ever-quickening decline from pool hall to Brazilian dance bar (a really rundown and shit-looking Brazilian dance bar at that too!)

So last night we headed to the Elbow Room in Westbourne Grove and we both felt a little out of place because we’re used to old-fashioned snooker halls and the Elbow Room is a trendy London bar first and a pool hall second.

In summary its bad points were:
i) It was full of trendy, bright young things drinking over-priced lager.
ii) It was not run-down or slightly seedy in any way.
iii) It was a whacking £10 per hour on the tables
iv) You could only book tables for an hour if it was busy.

On the plus side, however:
i) There were no knife-wielding nutters looking to rob you.
ii) The pool tables were well-maintained and level.
iii) The house cues were well maintained and cared for.
iv) It served food and had a decent menu.

Reluctantly I have to admit it was actually quite a decent place and we may well venture back but I think it’s a proper snooker and pool hall we really need to fulfil our needs. Because otherwise I am a pool player who just plays for fun – and I'm not sure I can consciously dull my competitive edge to the extent that playing pool just becomes fun.

Fortunately Rileys in Victoria is our next port of call and this apparently is THE place for nineball and American pool players in the UK so it may be a bit more like it – and it may spur me on to play actually seriously again after my self-imposed year-long exile.

Other Woman News…

The Other Woman’s relationship with her driving lesson car simulator is over.

It was a brief affair that started when she decided she wanted to learn to drive but not go on the road until her confidence was sufficiently bolstered. The simulator offered its services, she accepted and all looked rosey…

But then the simulator didn’t offer her the full support she required, she started beating the shit out of it on a regular basis and the simulator didn’t like it and started to withdraw its services.

But things really came to a head when she tried to change into second gear on her most recent lesson and the simulator wouldn’t let her.

So she tried to change again.
The simulator wouldn’t let her.
So she tried to change again.
The simulator wouldn’t let her.
So she tried to change again.
The simulator wouldn’t let her.

So she finally complained to the woman running the simulator – and it turned out she’d forgotten to press the clutch while changing the gear. Oops…

At this point most people would admit their mistake. But the Other Woman is not the sort of Other Woman who readily does this so she spent the rest of the lesson trying to confuse the simulator by giving it contradictory commands, hitting the buttons in an aggressive manner and generally forcing it into meltdown.

The Other Woman was victorious. The simulator is now in counselling.

Trophy Husband: Part Two...

I asked the Missus if I could be a trophy husband last night.

She said if she earnt a lot more more money then I could certainly stay at home and be a trophy husband. She also pointed out that Johnny Depp would probably be a better trophy husband but I'd be OK to be getting along with.

Sadly we can't afford it. Guess that means it's back to work then...

You Are What You Eat...

You Are What You Eat is the title of ‘Dr’ Gillian McKeith’s Channel 4 series. And if this premise is true then at some point the ubiquitous McKeith must have eaten a constant diet of sanctimonious, pointy-faced, know-it-all pain-in-the-arses because she is the worst person on TV. Ever. In the history of Earth. Or any other worlds. And that list includes Ross Kemp too.

Her new series' routine is pretty much the same as it always has been: Gillian meets a bunch of folk with (to use an American term for career fatties) too much junk in the trunk, then points out that not eating sweets all day and combining a sensible diet with a bit of exercise can mean they’re not cardiac arrests waiting to happen.

Now if that was all she did that would probably be bearable, but she combines this advice with a whole host of medically unproven codswallop that she passes off as scientific fact. Then to add insult to injury she speaks to those poor souls who’ve volunteered for her show as though they were mentally ill or just so stupid that she can’t believe they actually exist.

A little advice here Gillian – if they didn’t exist you wouldn’t have anyone to patronise to death on your rubbish telly show.

Last night’s episode featured two sisters and their daughters from the Midlands. After spending half the show ripping them to bits she introduced them to a whole new dietary regime and introduced them to exercise. Then several weeks later she presented the quartet after her miracle cure and, lo and behold, they’d lost a bit of weight and looked a bit healthier.

Brilliant… Sadly anybody new to the magic of telly will at this point probably not realise this usual end-of-show reveal relies more on stylists to make the victims look good in better clothes and nicer make-up than on anything the shrill-voiced one has to offer. But Channel 4 have yet again bought this pile of old shite and are screening it.

Even funnier is the fact that McKeith is currently facing some stick from the ASA (Advertising Standards Authority) for her use of the term ‘Dr’ as she has no medical qualifications at all. Anyone who visits her website, however, could be forgiven for thinking she is the most qualified woman ever to walk the planet with all sorts of certificates and testimonials.

But her main academic claim to fame in the area of nutrition is as follows:
‘Gillian McKeith earned a PhD in Holistic Nutrition from the American Holistic College of Nutrition, which is now known as the Clayton College of Natural Health, an off-campus learning institution with well respected graduates in the United States’

In other words she studied via a correspondence course at some two-bob institution that at the time didn't even have premises. And even now it does have a home it is still not recognised by any medical body of any real worth.

I must confess I am quite a fan of some self-help TV. I thought Jamie Oliver and his attempts to feed kids properly was not only a brilliant campaign but also brilliant telly. He’d also made more than a few quid before he embarked on this and clearly didn’t need to do it for the cash. In fact it was sometimes painfully too evident that he really cared about the kids and their plight because of how he interacted with those involved and how he reacted when things sometimes went tits up.

But McKeith is an utter cow to her victims and the show is less about helping people and interacting with them in a sympathetic way and much more about selling the quasi-mystical bunkum that is brand McKeith. And Channel 4 continue to let her get away with it.

To be quite frank, McKeith and You Are What You Eat make me thoroughly ill. And she can’t even pronounce pasta (‘Pah-star’). Pass the sick bucket…

Trophy Husband: Part One…

Yesterday was a rubbish day: a puncture ensured a long and unscheduled walk to work in the rain; getting in late meant I had a larger-than-normal stockpile of press day proofs on my desk; then a meeting made the proof stockpile even bigger; then I had to repair the tyre before heading home late…

I was so arsed off that even the cats, who are affection sluts, wouldn’t come anywhere near me when I got home.

So I have formulated a cunning plan to avoid the travails of the working day… I am going to be a professional trophy husband!

To be fair the face probably needs a bit of work… and I may have to lose my rough edges… and the wardrobe will probably need a major overhaul… but the constant cycling and martial arts mean the body’s looking OK so I reckon I may be in with a fighting chance.

The plus points of this new job are that I get to go to posh parties with my wife and get shown off and spend the rest of the time at home writing or refining my beauty. The minus points are that our household loses my wage and I no longer have any type of career.

But I think it’s worth the sacrifice so I’m going to run it past the Missus tonight…

Hogarth...

It's been a weekend of social satire at From Beer To Paternity Towers.

On Saturday myself, the Boy and the Missus went to see the excellent stand-up Phil Nichol at Soho Theatre, whose show The Naked Racist is thoroughly entertaining. For me anything that combines lunatic and energetic musings on arguments with girlfriends, historical pacifism and the Iraq War, with music and displays of nudity is always worth a look.

On Sunday myself and the Missus went to see the Hogarth exhibition at Tate Britain.

I've always liked Hogarth as I love his talent for brilliant social satire and he's always my first line of defence to art-lovers who claim that comics are not 'proper' art:
Sexy lady art critic: ‘Comics are not proper art!’
Me: ‘Well I think fans of William Hogarth and his sequencial works such as the Rake’s Progress or the Harlot’s Progress would dispute that…’
Sexy lady art critic: ‘Bugger! You’re so right! Make love to me like an animal and teach me never to question your wisdom again…’

But I also like Hogarth because he’s one of those artists where you can almost taste the smell of whatever they are depicting.

STOP PRESS
On an unconnected theme the Boy now has his own blog. It’s address was supposed to be:
www.we’reoutoftime.blogspot.com.
This is a reference to 24 but you can’t use apostrophes in blog titles so it reads:
www.wereoutoftime.blogspot.com instead.

Other Woman News...

The Other Woman is learning to drive and the Other Woman’s Boyfriend is staying well clear of this.

And, having seen what violence she can unleash on a punchbag when anyone has the temerity not to notice her latest hairdo, I think this is probably a sensible decision on his behalf.

The Other Woman also admits to not being terribly confident on the road and, like me when I had my aborted attempts at learning to drive many years ago, she finds the whole prospect of learning to drive with OTHER CARS NEARBY a bit scary.

Consequently she’s initially learning on a simulator so I was a bit perplexed when we had the following conversation.

‘I nearly wrote the car off on one of my driving lessons yesterday.’
‘I thought you were learning in a simulator?’
‘I am…’
‘But the point of learning in a simulator is that it doesn’t actually move, isn’t it?’
‘Yes…’
‘So how the hell did you manage to write off a non-moving vehicle simulator?’
‘I got really angry when it wouldn’t do as it was told and I started hitting it…’

Gotta love her…

Let It Snow!

I love London. It’s now my home and it has remained one of the most influential and important cities in the world for the past thousand years or so. And it’s still a real buzz to feel a tiny, tiny part of that.

But today it is snowing and London has ground to a halt. Most Underground trains (ie. trains that go UNDER THE GROUND so they should not be hit by adverse weather above ground!) are affected by the snow, bus routes are in chaos and basically it’s a right old state.

I remember when I was a child then a teenager growing up in Yorkshire and we had snow too, but that particular county didn’t grind to a halt. We just wore scarves and gloves along with our usual apparel.

So take heed London. It’s only bloody SNOW!

Pet Shop Boys…

I heard Desert Island Discs on Radio 4 last week and Neil Tennant was on it.

I’ve always quite liked Tennant’s arch take on life and greatly admired his song-writing abilities with the Pet Shop Boys. And any man named after a lager must be OK. Unless they’re called Stella as that’s just wrong.

So I downloaded Discography: The Best Of The Pet Shop Boys and it’s bloody marvellous. It’s pop-tastic with intelligence and wit thrown in.

Listening to it almost made me want to dance at my desk like a camp dancing thing. I may well be a gay man trapped in the body and by the libido of a raging hetero-sexual…

Perfume…

I went training this morning and I met my Other Woman Who Likes Other Women (as opposed to my Other Woman).

I’ve been pals with my OWWLOW for a few years now and, apart from being a really impressive martial artist, she’s quite saucy and flirtatious so I often tend to give sauce and flirtation back.

I noticed, however, she was wearing a really fabulous perfume so I asked her what it was, she told me and when invited I ventured in for another sniff.

We then begin training and at the end of the class my OWWLOT grabbed a few of us and had a chat about a fund we’ve started at the hapkido school to replace old mats and suggested a way we could raise some extra cash for it.

Hers was an eminently sensible idea about collecting loose change. Then I happened to mention my suggestion:

‘I was hoping we could do a sponsored sniff of you…’

She laughed but other people who were not party to the earlier exchange simply stared. They may now think I’m a bit odd. Suggesting smelling people is probably not very normal.

So it’s a good job I didn’t also tell them I’m currently trying to find the grave of a dead Victorian prostitute who specialised in flagellation…

Grateful Dead…

It’s been a weekend where me and the missus have been hanging out with lots of famous dead folk…

First up on Saturday was the RSC production of Antony And Cleopatra at the Novello in London. Partrick Stewart of Star Trek: TNG and The X-Men fame played Antony and he was pretty bloody marvellous as the Roman hero torn between his heart and his duty. Ken Bones was also superb as Antony’s right-hand man and the play’s sometime narrator Enobarbus.

Harriet Walter, however, was an absolute revelation as the Egyptian queen who moved between arch seductress, petulant and lovesick schoolgirl and jaded monarch throughout the evening. She was thoroughly engaging and utterly watchable and overall it was a pretty solid production.

Sunday saw me and the missus go on a tour of Kensal Green Cemetery. I’ve lived in Kensal Green for eight years now (the missus and the boy for 16 years) and the cemetery is a five-minute walk from our house and, somewhat embarrassingly, it’s taken me joining the Friends of Kensal Green Cemetery before we’ve done this tour.

And at £5 a head it’s great value. It’s a two-hour trek of going round the catacombs (the first hour) then the overground cemetery (the second hour) and essentially learning a bit about funerary and the history of both burial and the local area over just under 200 years.

Afterwards it’s tea and biscuits in the newly renovated Dissenters’ Chapel where you can ask whatever questions you like about the graves of Wilkie Collins, William Makepeace Thackeray, Blondin or Charles Babbage. Tours are every Sunday at 2pm but tours that include the catacombs are on the first and third Sunday every month.

More details are available here: www.kensalgreen.co.uk

A bizarrely offbeat but brilliant afternoon.

Sweet Dreams…

The missus got the boy up this morning so I had a lie-in and was awoken by the clink of a cup of tea at my bedside. But I’d had a bad dream and decided to let my better half know:

‘I dreamt I was sat in my office at home and Marge sat on my lap – and I dashed her head against the office table until she was dead. Then I got my Kill All Humans t-shirt and wrapped her body up in it and threw her in the bin. I decided I wasn’t going to tell you as you may think you were living with a homicidal nutcase.’

I should probably point out that Marge is one of our two cats. The missus stared before replying with her own night-time imaginings.

‘I dreamt you refused to sleep with me ever again so I had sex with Prince William instead.’

We stared at each other. I took a slurp from the cup.

‘Nice tea…’

Some dreams are better left undiscussed…