Stock...

My new play about heritage and family and a brick robbery is finished and sent off to several theatre companies who deal with new writing.

It's always a good feeling to get a play finished and to be happy with it and to feel some optimism about it maybe getting on somewhere.

But there's always the threat of rejection letters and the gnawing worry that maybe you're just not good enough.

But then you go to the theatre and see something really rubbish and realise that if that found a home then you at least have a fighting chance so you start something else.

Perseverance is the key. In all things...

A History Of The World In 100 Objects...

I love my status as a Brit and there are many great things to be proud of being a Brit: a long tradition of democracy, freedom of speech, that whole sense of fair play thing, a breath-taking literary and scientific heritage...

The list goes on and on and I haven't even started to wax lyrical on the Battle of Britain or Coronation Street yet.

But in this age of a media populated by dumbed-down celebrity tales and real-life documentary schlock, the BBC remains a shining beacon of hope ready to tackle the would-be barbarians and philistines who'd otherwise invade the airwaves and TV screen and fill them with programme ideas that, quite frankly, would make Alan Partridge's bone-headed suggestion of Monkey Tennis to Tony Hayers seem like bona-fide ratings winners.

Of course, even the mighty Beeb sometimes gets it wrong and produces work of breath-taking crassness: see the recent sitcom Big Top with Amanda Holden if you can stand more than a few minutes without wanting to gouge your eyes out with chop sticks and fill the holes with molten lead so you never have to watch anything so bad again.

But more often than not the Beeb is bang on the money and it's sometimes so spectacularly right that you just want to pick it up in your arms and hold it like a lover you never want to let go.

A case in point is A History Of The World In 100 Objects, a series of 15-minute shows currently on Radio 4. Each show takes one of 100 objects that has been selected from the British Museum and explains the significance of that object in its period and also examines how it demonstrates the evolution of human beings.

Narrated by Neil MacGregor, the Director of the British Museum, it's a wonderful series and reminds you that radio and TV can be entertaining, informative, fascinating and educational.

Objects range from a Clovis spearhead to a battery to the Great Wave Off Kanagawa (above) and the show runs in chronological order. Each of the 100 shows is also available to download as a free podcast.

It's truly wonderful stuff and should win every award going, from the Nobel Prize to BBC Sports Personality Of The Year.

It's 15 minutes a day for five days a week spread over 20 weeks. Go on... treat yourself...

Romance...

It is cold and wet and I am walking home arm-in-arm with the Missus and I want to tell her about a quote I read.
'I read something really good today.'
'You reading online porn again?'
'No. Marcel Proust actually.'
'Go on then...'
'Well he said "Love is time measured by the heart." Don't you think that's fabulous?'
'What does it mean?'
'Well it's obvious, isn't it?'
'Sounds like a load of old cock to me.'
'Well it means that when you are with someone you love that time is no longer judged by the usual apparatus of timekeeping such as a watch or a calendar, but it's measured in terms of emotional commitment and happiness and contentment. I think it's a great quote.'

The Missus turns and looks.
'I prefer to think that "Love is caring about somebody enough to resist the temptation to smash their face in when they're really annoying you."'

Proust's quote had more poetry...

Bum Deal...

Some families pass on untold wealth and million-pound properties to the next generation... some people pass on a great family name that ensures they have access to the higher echelons of society... my family inheritance is haemorrhoids, with possibly a bit of alcoholism, gambling and dementia thrown in.

And today the first part of that genetic legacy threatened to arrive. I visited the doctor to chase up some test results of an MRI scan I had last year and, in passing, mentioned another symptom so she asked me to drop my trousers so she could have a look.

And before I knew it she had a digit inserted up my anus and was having a rummage around. Although I had nothing to gauge her technique against I felt she was very smooth and, if you've never had a posh-sounding lady insert her finger up your anus first thing on a snowy morning, I can report that it is not an entirely unpleasant experience.

But the upshot of her investigation was that if untreated I may be saying hello to one part of the family legacy sooner than I'd anticipated. And the treatment? Suppositories. The size and shape of sniper bullets.

I just hope I don't have a bad bout of farting as I'm bending over or I may end up shooting someone.

Rooted: Part II...

I've been working through some hapkido techniques in my head and trying to remember the footwork patterns involved.

Footwork has consistently been the bane of my martial arts studies but I've been working on this for the past three months in class and chinks of light are appearing. Sometimes. Now, however, I realise I may be becoming a tad over-obsessed as I started dreaming about it last night.

In my dream me and my fellow hapkido students were training but instead of us training in the do-jang we were training in the sports hall of my old school, which in my school days was a place of torture as I'd totally opted out of anything vaguely sporty. We were also not in uniforms but in old-stylee gym kit and my instructor was giving instructions which I could not hear no matter how hard I tried.

Consequently everyone else was performing a punching, blocking, kicking routine with emphasis on the footwork part and when it got to me I just stood there not knowing what to do. Feeling a bit silly.

I've had this type of stress dream before, usually after a play I've directed is over, and in it I'm on stage struggling to recall lines other people have been saying. After the dream repeats for a few nights I usually remember the lines then it goes away.

In the martial arts dream, however, I went for a walk and chilled out by a river and told myself not to worry about it. Then I cried... Bizarrely I now realise the river was the same one I walked down when I lost an election at college to run the student union magazine. I cried then too.

Wow. School sporting frustrations, college defeats and failures and bad footwork. Fortunately I can do something about the last one.

And I can always hunt down and kill those responsible for the other stuff...

Rooted: Part I...

In my former life as a community theatre writer and director one of the big ideas I was into was the idea of 'rooting', which – unless you're Australian where it means something totally different – translates as the idea of establishing firm foundations and a firm understanding of basic principles behind a project so that it continues growing long after the initial burst of excitement is over.

For me 2009 was all about 're-rooting' so now that 2010 has kicked in I'm ready to roll.

On the martial arts front 2009 was about getting myself into a position where I could think about grading for my black belt in 2010; in my writing it was about having a play I was happy with ready to send out when 2010 starts and having another one ready to finish by the first third of the year; on the pool front it was about rediscovering my urge to compete at a decent level; and on the home front it was about relocating and settling into a new home and a new town so myself and the Missus can enjoy a new life now the Boy is at university.

Consequently I'm realy looking forward to 2010. I've always believed that life (like pool and martial arts) is always about position and if you put yourself in the best position to strike effectively then you give yourself a half chance at success.

So I'm rooted, I'm in position and I'm raring to go. Let's have a look at you, 2010...