Sad Café…

There are two cafes near From Beer To Paternity Towers.

One is a good old-fashioned greasy spoon called the Station Café where me, the missus and the boy sneak off to whenever we need good old-fashioned stodge – and the other is a place called Graceland that does bistro-standard stodge (organically reared bacon and eggs, lentil and spinach quiche, fair trade mocha-focker-chinos, etc) for the glut of yummy mummies who now populate the wider environs of Kensal Green.

We had friends over at the weekend so we visited the latter – and I have to report it was bizarre.

For a start whenever the place has more than about six customers the serving and kitchen staff go into an absolute panic. Food arrives late, wrong dishes turn up and some orders just get forgotten. The food is actually half-decent but it just isn’t worth the drama that it takes to order it and the wait for it to be delivered.

But the really bizarre thing is that Graceland also offers a whole other world of middle-class living for those who frequent it on a regular basis. There are children’s drama workshops, baby yoga and baby massage, bag-making workshops, weaving classes and all manner of pseudo-arty bollocks alongside the ever-popular build-your-own-local-serial-killer classes.

OK. I made the last one up but if they did have that class it would create a vegan, peace activist serial killer in flip-flops who only butchered arms manufacturers in a very polite way.

It’s a horrible nightmare world of middle-classness where you can get a Peruvian nasal flute workshop more quickly than you get a cup of coffee – even though the primary job of the café is to serve coffee.

To be quite frank I couldn’t wait to be out of there. But I now know that if I end up in hell it will be a place like Graceland peopled by women called Tabatha or Jemimah who have children called Moonstone, Treebark or Stetson – and I’ll be their servant.

In the words of Prince ‘I’ve seen the future and it will be.’ Probably...

French Kissing…

It is Saturday morning. The Missus has just got out of bed and has dressed and is wearing a vest top sort of thing. I decide to pay her a compliment.

‘I like you in that stripey vest top thing…’
‘Thank-you.’
‘It makes you look like a classy French whore from a Toulouse-Lautrec painting. It's very retro-stylish…’

She looks at me.
‘It’s a blue and white striped vest and it makes me look like an onion seller.’

I pause. She is correct. I’ve connected the wrong French image. Maybe I secretly desire French men who sell onions… Bugger. I was never very good at art anyway. I try to bluff.

‘Well in the painting that I’m thinking of it’s definitely a really attractive girl and not a man. Selling onions. Or any other vegetable for that matter.’

The Missus pauses. She smiles, then shakes her head and walks out of the bedroom.

I think I got away with it…

Table Talk…

I’m back on the pool table in a money league in Sutton.

I’ve had a five-month lay-off from competitive pool and now I’m rubbish. Like really bad. I’ve had 50-odd frames in the past week and have yet to break off and clear up once. It’s that bad.

Fortunately I’ve been put in the second division and I’ve scraped my opening two matches and I’m hoping I won’t take too many beatings on my way back to match form. Well I hope…

But it’s good to be back, even though it’s frustrating that I can’t do all the clever stuff I used to be able to do on auto-pilot about six years ago.

I’ve trying not to take it too seriously but the competitive instinct is over-riding my desire to be relaxed so I’ve spent half the first two matches laughing and joking then the second half trying to get it together.

Fortunately life in hapkido class and playwriting land is much better. I finally learnt to fall properly a few months ago and it was genuinely like getting a new belt. And I love the new techniques I’m learning. They’re called Yew Sool and they’re Korean judo throws and after four years I think I have found a set of skills that I instinctively understand.

I also have tomorrow off work to get on with Meat, my play about Victorian prostitutes.

For everything else to be good it’s worth not being able to pot balls. Well, for the time being...

Labour Of Loathe…

Work has been stupidly busy for the past eight months and now we’ve moved offices to a swanky new building.

The promised hi-tech paradise, however, leaves a lot to be desired as large parts of it are still a building site, access to the bike store is only gained via a walk up two flights of stairs and the showers are still a room waiting to happen – so any cyclists encouraged to ride to work end up sitting in a large open-plan office sweating and smelling.

I really dislike work at the moment anyway but this is making it even worse – and I didn’t think that possible…

Clean Mind...

My hapkido instructor is back from Chicago where she's been training at the main school.

Whenever she returns she always has a few weeks where she gets everyone in the class to reassess many of their basic skills and fighting techniques and ki class was no exception. Here she reiterated an old message about using meditation to help cleanse our minds of impurities, such as anger or lust, in order for us to think with more clarity and not have our thoughts or vision blighted by external or internal factors that can cloud our judgement.

In a nutshell our mind controls our body and and our emotions and it tells it how to act rather than our body or our emotions telling our mind how we see the world. Simple but beautifully true.

As she said this I examined my own mind which is currently crammed with research for my new play so consequently it's full of Victorian prostitutes, venereal disease, child rape victims and odd sexual practices and, bizarrely, I was quite pleased to find it's remarkably clear and focused.

Clever stuff this meditation...

No Jacket Required...

Ever the eagle-eyed fashion guru, it has come to my attention that many young hipsters are sporting suit jackets but in a casual manner with jeans.

I've decided it's a look I should try as I have several old suit jackets that never see the light of day and also because I am too much of a tight-arse to buy a new summer coat. So I don my jeans and a t-shirt and pop one of my jackets on and head downstairs to seek approval from the Missus.

'What do you think?' I ask, trying not too desperately to sound like a man seeking approval.

The Missus glances up from a TV show she's engrossed in.
'It's fine.'
She turns back to the TV.

'But can I...'
'I'm watching this. I'll talk to you when it's finished.'

I leave. Five minutes later I am in my office when the Missus enters.

'Right. What do you want to know?' she asks, realising – not for the first time - that she's married a sartorial mornon.

'Can I wear this jacket with jeans and a t-shirt?'
'Yes.'
'Can I wear it with other coloured clothes or is it just blue?'
'Black or grey t-shirts will also be OK. But stick to it with the jeans.'
'Good. I've got lots of those.'
'Is that all?'
'Can I wear my sandals with it?'

There is a pause and she gives me a look that offers pity, the sort of look that an evil cat owner gives to newborn kittens just before he pops them in a sack and throws it down the well with a brick.

'Best not, eh?'

She leaves the office. I think I hear her snigger but I can't be sure.

Peep Show...

Ugly Betty can piss off, Charlotte Church can go back to shagging her injury-blighted rugby fella and those two comedian idiots (long hair regional man and gay, squat speccy fella) can take their Friday Night project and put it somewhere it can never be found again ever (let’s all hope, eh?).

Because the best show on TV is back and thank God for its return as it demonstrates how truly starved of quality Friday nights on Channel 4 have been.

Just in case you hadn’t gathered a few facts thus far I quite like Peep Show. In fact I think it's bloody brilliant. If I had to sacrifice a kidney to ensure they made another series I’d seriously think about it. If they’d accept one I conveniently came across instead of my own it would be a done deal. I’d be out hacking through the back of lost tourists as you read this. No problem.

Yes David Mitchell and Robert Webb as great as the mismatched flatmates… and the supporting cast of Olivia Colman and chums are pretty splendid too… and the internal monologues and first-person camera angles are inventive… but the real star of this show is the script.

Jess Bain and Sam Armstrong are quite clearly writers of no little genius to take a traditional sitcom idea (chalk and cheese friends sharing a flat) and make it into such an astoundingly sharp, witty and genuinely funny show.

In the first episode of the latest series Mark is having doubts about marrying girlfriend Sophie and Jeremy ends up shagging Sophie’s mum. Inbetween there’s a bit of arson and some bloodsports.

Some of it sounds run-of-the-mill sitcom material but it’s a work of genius. If you watch nothing else on telly then make an exception and watch this.

It really is that good. Honest…

OWWLOW News…

My hapkido instructor is in Chicago at our academy’s main school so all normal classes are cancelled for the week.

Fortunately she’s let me arrange a class in her absence – with several other senior belts. Sadly many can’t make it so 20 minutes before we are due to start it’s myself and the OWWLOW (Other Woman Who Loves Other Women) warming up before we begin.

The OWWLOW has read my blog and announces that she is also in the Leon-never-slept-with-Mathilda camp and hints that my interpretation of the film may be a by-product of my sometimes warped imagination. So I defend myself then change the subject to something else.

She then leaves the do-jang.

When she returns she announces that two other senior belts have arrived. Both are also intelligent, stunning females and lovely to boot and she jokes that I have arranged the class purely to be surrounded by beautiful women. She laughs – but I start to think it through…

I knew most of the male senior belts couldn’t make it for one reason or another yet I still arranged the class because I wanted to do it. And I didn’t really try to contact the only other male who might have made it as I didn’t have his email address – and didn’t try to get it either…

Maybe she’s right. Maybe I am an ego-driven evil genius who just wants to spend time with beautiful women… spend time actually being beaten up by beautiful women. I mean I knew what the score was when I married the Missus, herself the possessor of a fearsome right hook and a penchant for occasional violence, yet I still went ahead with it…

And I’m currently writing a play about Victorian prostitutes who hurt people for money…

Oh my god! I am sick in a masochistic way. I need help...

The Apprentice…

I thought I’d weaned myself off this show. I honestly did.

I’d seen the preview adverts and not worried it was on its way back. And not even the thought of missing panto villain Alan Sugar telling besuited halfwits they were total fuck-ups with no value was luring me near BBC1 come Wednesday night at 9pm.

Hell, I even missed the first episode and my heart didn’t murmur a jot. Not one.

But then I caught the repeat of episode two when I was making tea last week – and there I suddenly was gorging myself on Sugar and his business mogul wannabes like some Viagra-fuelled sex addict who’d gone without a jump in ages.

So come episode three and I’m back in Apprentice land, a place where management-speak-spouting buffoons draw pie charts and discuss strategy for simple tasks like selling cups of coffee, a place where people pretend to like each other then stab each other in the back at any given opportunity.

And the ringmaster of this freakshow is Alan Sugar, a poor man’s Donald Trump (and that’s poor in terms of charisma, class and prescence – not cash) who still hasn’t worked out that the only place he’d ever be taken seriously is on a telly show populated by idiots who want to be just like him.

It’s wicked, it’s cruel, it’s car-crash telly – and it remains utterly watchable if only to see which one of the new intake will actually win.

So here’s my current list of runners and riders:

Tre: Bizarre facial hair and inflated ego aside, he is the most entertaining thing on the show. He swears, he gets stroppy and he’s right to be exasperated at the idiocy that surrounds him.

Jadine: The loose cannon of the show who should get together with Tre and machine gun every other contestant down. Then they should fight it out to see who wins. Not at all like the other twittering, designer-suit-wearing bitches on board. Thank God!

Paul: Former Army man and currently a posh idiot. Must be fired soon. Preferably from a cannon. With cluster bombs. Please…

Katie: Pleasant bit of posh. Surprisingly likeable too.

Adam: Token bluff northerner. Bit of a bitchy girly too.

Ghazal and Kristina: The ice queens of the show. The sort of people who say they're strong women and strong feminists then sell kisses for coins on a task. Will get what’s coming to them. Hopefullly…

Lohit: No idea who he is. But he has survived this far.

Naomi: Insert any dumb blonde joke here. It will work but she won’t get it.

Natalie: Bit of rough and determined Weight Watcher. The sort of woman you’d avoid in the pub on karaoke night. Or any other night.

Dr Sophie: Too tightly wrapped for my liking.

So it’s Tre and Jadine all the way for me.

Leon…

It is Easter Monday and myself, the Missus and the Boy have just finished watching the Luc Besson movie Leon.

This is one of several films I’ve been trying to get the Boy, who’s now turning into a major film fan, to watch for ages as I know he likes another Luc Besson film, The Fifth Element. I am optimistic that he will enjoy this so as the closing credits roll I ask what he thought of it…

‘It was excellent.’
‘I’m glad you liked it. I really like it too. Well apart from the Sting song at the end…’
‘I might watch it again,’ says the Boy excitedly.
‘Did you like the action sequences too?’
‘Yes. It was all good?’
‘And did you get the bit where they wake up in bed together?’
‘Yes…’
‘Because I always love the fact that Besson doesn’t dwell on the fact that they’ve slept together, that it just happens and it goes unsaid by the two of them…’

There is a silence. The Boy looks puzzled.

‘But they haven’t slept together.’
‘Yes they have.’
‘She’s a 12-year-old girl, he’s a grown man, it would make Leon a phaedophile.’
‘But it’s not like that. Their love is something pure and trusting.’
‘The fact they sleep in the same bed is a sign he feels relaxed enough around her to let his guard down. It shows how she’s changed him – not that she’s shagged him. Idiot.’

The Missus now decides to join in the conversation.
‘He’s right you know. It’s about innocent love and not illegal sex.’

The Boy also joins in again.
‘How could you think they shagged? You’re just wrong in the head.’

I go to my office. Alone…

Landscape With Weapon…

Joe Penhall is a playwright I really like.

I directed one of his plays, Some Voices, and – whatever the flaws with the production – the script was superb. His Love And Understanding at the Bush remains one of the finest plays I’ve seen and although his following play, The Bullet, felt a bit churned out his acclaimed next, Blue/Orange at the National, was a fascinating play about conflicting ideas on treating mental health patients. Dumb Show at the Royal Court was pretty decent too.

So Landscape With Weapon, a play about a weapons designer named Ned (Tom Holland) who’s forced to confront the reality of the industry he’s involved in, sounded pretty intriguing. And it’s not at all bad. In fact it’s quite good.

Holland is very strong as the morally troubled Ned and Julian Rhind-Tutt is suitably endearing as Ned’s dentist brother Dan, perplexed and worried by his sibling’s sudden role in the whole military-industrial-arms-complex.

In the second half the play shifts from the relationship between the two brothers and shows how Ned is co-erced and pressured into signing his deadly new technology over to a private company by arms firm employee Ross (Pippa Haywood) and shadowy security enforcer Brooks (Jason Watkins).

The play is full of Penhall’s usual sparky dialogue and gallows humour and it has good lines aplenty. But some of it feels a bit like the charade of an episode of Question Time where each person represents a moral position and defends it using exactly the arguments you’d expect them to use.

And the staging, a long rectangle where the cast take opposite sides when they’re arguing their positions and physically come together when they near agreement (be it coerced or based on genuine kernels of understanding) emphasises these moral and political polarities.

There’s a really good play to be written on this subject and, although this is a decent and thought-provoking two hours, it’s too much debate and discussion and not enough drama.

And that’s a shame as I genuinely believe Penhall has a really important play in him. But, even though it ticks many of the right boxes and it is an undoubtedly smart piece of work, Landscape With Weapon isn’t quite it.

Grave Concern...

Myself and the Missus are walking back from the supermarket. Our route takes us past Kensal Green Cemetery. I decide to let the Missus in on my intended graveyard tryst.

'I could be going over there with my gardening tools next week.'
'The cemetery?'
'Yes.'
'Why?'
'Because I've found a way to find the grave of my dead madam/whore and I can't imagine anyone is still tending it so I'm going to adopt the grave and look after it. I think it's a good idea to adopt a grave. There's something quite human about it, honouring the memory of a woman whose story has intrigued and inspired you. I could start a trend...'
'I suppose you'll be taking flowers...'
'Yes. I think I should. It obviously wouldn't be red roses or carnations as they have romantic references and I don't have that sort of relationship with Sarah...'
'First name terms now, eh?'
'I feel I've bonded with her.'
'Bonded with a dead Victorian prostitute?'
'Yes...'
'Who specialised in flagellation?'
'Yes.'

I get the look she usually reserves for me when I've done something really stupid. Like boilwash her most delicate blouse or shrunk her expensive cashmere jumper. I think this look is the end of it. But it's not. She simply turns to me and asks:

'Why can't you be normal?'

It could be a long day...

Dead Lucky…

Meat, my play about Victorian prostitution, is two scenes old and all planned out so my battleplan for the weekend is to finish the first half.

This may be a little ambitious but I’m writing against a deadline and that usually brings out the best in me.

During my research I came across the story of a famous madam/prostitute who specialised in flagellation. Her name was Sarah Potter/Stewart and she was a very successful businesswoman who died in 1883 and is buried in Kensal Green Cemetery, a mere stone’s throw from FBTP Towers

Sadly the cemetery is huge but I’ve found a search service which will locate the grave of my dead madam/prostitute so with any luck in a few weeks I’ll be taking my gardening gear and tidying it up.

Tending the grave of a long-dead madam/prostitute may seem strange but to me it makes perfect sense. One of the best bits of researching any play is when you dig through the years and make a connection, be it thematic or intellectual.

And here at the top of my road I can almost make a physical connection with the story of someone who has helped shape something I am writing.

I’m quite excited. I will be taking flowers…

Anniversary Time!

It's time to celebrate at FBTP Towers as it's nearly one month since I wrote to my local MP Dawn Butler (pictured above).

And has she written back? Has she buggery! Anyway the original letter is below.

*******************************************************************

Dear Dawn

I’m one of your constituents and I’m just dropping you a line to ask about your position on EDM 595 (Serious Fraud Office Investigation into the Al Yamamah Military Contract).

As you probably know, this EDM was tabled by a cross-party group of MPs who thought the Government’s decision to halt the due legal process of an SFO investigation into large-scale corruption involving BAE Systems was pretty deplorable.

So I’m just writing to ask if this EDM is something you’ll be supporting or whether you won’t be supporting it because you genuinely think the Government’s decision was morally and legally justifiable?

Many thanks for your time

300...

I forgot to mention this as I saw it at the Imax with the Boy before I went journeyed to Goole.

But it's bloody fantastic. End of review.