Brother Mick...

With my impending but now delayed semi-retirement from playing competitive pool, I was toying with the idea of framing my county shirt as a little trophy-cum-reminder to make me smile in my dotage. This reminded me that somewhere at my mum's house in Yorkshire I also had a very old county shirt from my days playing for the Humberside County Pool Team in the mid-1980s.

I'd kept this shirt in pristine condition for many years until older brother Mick ending up using it to do some painting in, then ended up wearing it to a house party at my cousin's house. The house party was going great guns until pissed brother got pushed into a plate-glass window elbow-first. So it was goodbye blood-covered county shirt as older brother was driven to casualty to get his arm sorted.

This was a very serious injury and it took a few major operations to piece his arm back together and get it fully working again. Thankfully the surgeons did an excellent job. However they did have to lose some of his elbow skin as it was lacerated thanks to the plate-glass window and they had to graft some skin from his buttocks to replace what was missing.

I was thinking about this and I suddenly realised that, quite literally, my older brother does not know his arse from his elbow. Fact. It may explain a lot...

Play Time...

Egypt: Part IV...

One of the best days we had on our epic Egypt tour was the full day we spent in Cairo with our own guide and mini-bus.

We kicked the day off at the Pyramids and the Sphinx just outside Cairo. This was both stunning and a bit surreal.

It was stunning because the scale of the three pyramids was incredibly impressive: the big one was made of 2,300,000 huge stones and was amazing. The Sphinx was less impressive but the whole complex was well organised.

The highlight for me, though, was the mini museum housing the reconstructed 3000-year-old boat made of cedar wood. I come from a port town with its own docks and a now-defunct shipbuilding industry so I've always had a fascination with ships and boats and how they are made and what their jobs were.

It was surreal because the whole complex is so close to Cairo and if you look one way it's the pyramids and the Sphinx and lots of desert. But if you turn round it's the backs of hotels, houses and businesses in the not-too-far distance.

We then went to the Egyptian Museum in Cairo. This was a big deal for the Missus as alongside Abu Simbel it was the highlight of the tour. And it didn't disappoint. Two huge floors of antiquities from the Old Kingdom, the Middle Kingdom and the New Kingdom, plus the loot from Tutankhamun's tomb and the rooms containing the royal mummies. We spent three hours there and could quite easily have spent double that.

On the plus side, though, it does mean we have a reason to go back. But we'll probably wait until the latest social unrest is sorted out...

Pool: The Final Frontier: Part I...

The final county game of the season was a few weeks ago and I ended it on a high note by becoming the most capped county A Team player in Surrey history. I also won three out of four games to take my end-of-season tally to 26/40 and qualify for the trials for the England team.

The latter, of course, presents something of an issue as I'd already told everybody involved that I was taking a break for a year or maybe even two to focus on my writing and work with my theatre group in Guildford.

Even worse, after a trying start to 2013 I've sort of fallen back in love with the game... but I'm sensible enough to know that if I don't take a break from playing local league, interleague and county pool and all the regular practice sessions that entails then l won't be able to give the opportunities I now have the focus and the time they need.

But with the England Trials and the Inter-county Finals to come, plus a last national event in Yarmouth in April to, I guess the cue won't be getting put in the loft just yet.

It's not bad problem to have, though, and I'm doing well if it's the biggest thing I have to worry about...

Egypt: Part III...

After the Nile Cruise from Luxor to Aswan and back again, we returned to Aswan to start a four-day cruise exploring the temples of Lake Nasser, ending with the two stunning temples at Abu Simbel.

If life along the Nile was agricultural with crops growing and farm animals bathing and the odd town or city dotted along it, then life on Lake Nasser was a totally different experience. The Nile is no wider than the Thames in most places and was populated along its length on both sides, while Lake Nasser is about 40km wide in some places with very little but rocky outcrops and desert either side.

At times it felt like you were in one of the most remote places on Earth and, indeed, for two days of the trip we had no mobile of wi-fi connection of any type and saw nobody else apart from the people on the ship.

The temples on Lake Nasser were all removed from what used to be the banks of the Nile and placed on much higher ground before the area was flooded and it became Lake Nasser. The other thing about Lake Nasser is that the north of Egypt is very much Arabian while the south of the country around Lake Nasser is seen as Nubian.

The artwork and colours on many of these rescued temples is stunningly well preserved and there was some great stuff to see, but one of the most amazing things about the cruise was the chance to look up and see the stars as there's hardly any pollution and you could actually see the Milky Way with the naked eye.

The two temples at Abu Simbel, the Temple of Ramesses II and the smaller temple of his wife Neferteri, were simply breath-taking and sailing up to them in the cruise ship was an amazing way to see them. Even better, when we were on the ground exploring them we again had very few fellow visitors so we pretty much had them to ourselves at time.

We stuck around to see the light and sound show, which was OK, but the temples themselves were the stars of the show. And the job of moving Abu Simbel from it's former home to its current one is worth a blog post on its own...

Egypt: Part II...

The Valley of the Kings remains the stuff of legend with some sixty-plus tombs of Egyptian pharaohs and the world-famous story of Howard Carter's discovery of the boy pharaoh Tutankhamun's tomb and treasures only adding to the romance.

So to go there when it was not very crowded was a very special experience, and to be one of only three people, alongside the Missus and a mutual friend, in the tomb of the boy pharaoh was astonishing.

You have to pay extra to go into this tomb and in reality the tomb is much smaller and much less well decorated than many of the other tombs in the Valley. But it's the tomb everyone wants to visit and the mummy was in situ and the stone sarcophagus and a gold one were also there so it was a strangely intimate moment at one of the most famous archaeological sites in the world.

We also visited three other tombs (as the entry ticket allows), one with stunning hieroglyphic decorations, one cut very deep into the rock and one very big and impressive tomb. And they were all amazing in their own ways.

The Valley of the Kings is a strangely stark yet beguiling place as all the good stuff is hidden in rock-hewn tombs under the ground and, when you start your descent down the corridors and start looking at the wall carvings, you do get the impression that you're involved in some sort of bizarre time travel.

Sadly all cameras are banned from the Valley of the Kings so we couldn't take pictures but it was a simply stunning day. I was so blown away I didn't even give the Collossi of Memnon much of a second glance.

Other Woman News...

The Other Woman's father remains a source of comedy joy.

Suffering from advancing Parkinson's Disease and sometimes needing to use a wheelchair, he occasionally goes into a respite care home in order to give the Other Woman's mum a bit of a break. And while there he does excursions.

And three days ago the Other Woman got the following text message for him:
'One thing I learned today – never go wheelchair ice skating...’

Legend.

Egypt: Part I…

The Missus has always had a fascination with Ancient Egypt and she’s wanted to go and see the pyramids, the temples, the Valley of the Kings, Cairo Museum, and sail on the Nile and Lake Nasser since she was nine.

Unfortunately, every time we planned the holiday something would happen. One year it was a bomb, then last year it was the revolution… but this year we thought ‘Fuck it. We’re going!’ And so we did…

The initial plan was to take a Nile Cruise and fly to Abu Simbel, the huge rock-hewn temple of Ramesses II, then head to Cairo to see the Pyramids and the Cairo Museum.

But then we started to realise just how huge the country is and just how little time we were giving ourselves… so the plan expanded and evolved and we ended up doing a cruise down the Nile from Luxor to Aswan and back again, then getting a car transfer back to Aswan to join a cruise sailing down Laker Nasser, ending up outside Abu Simbel Temple before flying back to Cairo to see the Pyramids and the Egyptian Museum.

Not so much of a holiday, more of a logistical challenge…

But it was worth it. We did loads, saw loads and the trip was even better because the country is suffering a dearth of tourism at the moment following the revolution last year.

Tourism remains the main industry in Egypt and the country usually welcomes something like 14million tourists every year but this year it’s estimated that figure won’t even reach 1million. That’s obviously awful for the struggling Egyptian economy but great for us as it felt like we pretty much had the run of the major tourist sites. This was an unexpected bonus.

The people were also lovely and genuinely welcoming and happy to see us. And we never had a sniff of trouble so if you’ve ever fancied doing a trip to Egypt then now is the perfect time to do it.

Me And Mrs Jones...

Prime-time BBC1 comedy gets such a kicking these days that it’s sometimes difficult to remember this is the genre that produced Dad's Army, Black Adder and much-loved John Sullivan series such as Dear John, Citizen Smith and Only Fools And Horses.

True, it also produced the truly awful Only Fools spin-off The Green Green Grass Of Home and, more recently, the fuck awful (or ‘f-awful’ as the kids say these days) Citizen Khan, but that doesn’t mean it’s quite dead yet.

A case in point in Me And Mrs Jones, which kicks off a six-episode run on Friday 12 October. It’s in what’s known as the Outnumbered slot at From Beer To Paternity Towers and this romantic comedy is a similarly classy affair to the hit family drama.

The premise is Sarah Alexander (the blonde woman from Coupling) is a divorced mother of two small girls and one grown-up son who has to balance the needs of her family with the desire to also have a life of her own. Oh... and she falls for the best friend of her twentysomething son, too. Throw in a lovable clot of an ex-husband (played by Neil Morrissey – the one who was not Martin Clunes in Men Behaving Badly) and a single parent with the hots for her, and… you get the picture.

But don't expect crude farce and convoluted set-ups that end in OTT set pieces. It's a much smarter animal than My Hero or My Family. The gags come quietly under the radar rather than announcing themselves five minutes before they enter the room only to finally deliver a weak punchline.

Alexander is very engaging and sympathetic as single mum Gemma and Morrissey is nicely under-stated as her former husband, while there’s also a show-stealing performance from Nathaniel Parker as possible single parent love interest Tom. But it’s the script that is the real star.

Written by Oriane Messina and Fay Rusling, it’s just clever without bragging about it and it manages the balancing act between great lines and genuine comedy without reaching for the gags and losing any form of character integrity. It's a genuinely engaging and smart piece of writing.

It's very good and it deserves to be a hit. Enjoy…

Batman: The Dark Knight Returns...

I've been a big comics fan since the late 1970s and, while many of my comics-reading friends adored The Uncanny X-men, I was always drawn to a second-string character called Daredevil.

Fortunately in 1979 this title was taken over, first as an artist then as a writer-artist, by Frank Miller and he slowly transformed the character from a poor man's Spider-man into a part-hero and part-vigilante, who protected his patch of New York thanks to a martial arts background and a determined will to overcome anybody who threatened his Hell's Kitchen home or those he loved. 

Miller’s run on Daredevil featured assassins, crime lords, drug dealers and ancient martial arts warriors. The new characters he introduced were fascinating, such as assassin-for-hire Elektra, while his take on established characters like assassin-for-hire Bullseye and crime lord the Kingpin evolved them from slightly pantomime villains into truly frightening foes.

It was gritty noir story-telling at its best, which would later bear more fruit in one of Miller's other landmark titles, Sin City. 

But it was his run on Batman that truly established Miller as one of the premier forces in comics and his four-issue story The Dark Knight Returns, alongside Alan Moore's seminal The Watchmen, remain the two books that are always cited as changing the comics landscape for good. These were the books that helped the comics industry grow up.

So with all the excitement surrounding the concluding part of the Christopher Nolan Batman film trilogy, I decided I'd go back and reread the Miller Batman to see if it was still as exciting. And it utterly is. 

Set in a dystopian future where all superheroes have been outlawed, Bruce Wayne is introduced as a danger-seeking nutcase who longs to again don the cowl and tackle Gotham’s increasingly violent present.

And when old foes come to the fore, so does the Batman.

But times have changed and his return prompts a debate and he’s branded an outlaw, even though he’s sorting out the mess the police force can’t. And when the outlaw then becomes a political liability, he eventually faces a final battle with Superman, now a stooge employed by the government and sent on missions by an increasingly deranged Ronald Reagan.

The Dark Knight Returns is, quite simply, a superior piece of comics writing and art and no potted summary can adequately summarise the scope of its ideas on personal and public freedoms, crime and punishment, obsession, global and local politics, and justice.

It’s an utterly stunning piece of work and, alongside Love In The Time Of Cholera and 100 Years Of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez and King Lear by Shakespeare, it remains one of the few things I go back to and reread every decade or so.

And, like those literary masterpieces, it also never disappoints. 

Chambers Maid...

It is Saturday afternoon and I am in the bedroom ironing my martial arts uniform. The Missus is laid on the bed watching athletics. The sprint races are on when suddenly I hear the following.

'I'd fuck Dwayne Chambers in a heartbeat.'

There is silence until the Missus turns around to see me looking at her agog. She registers my look and ponders before realising.

'I said that out loud, didn't I?' she asks.

'Yes. You did...' I reply and carry on ironing.

We both know the truth is that she would. He is sculpted and beautiful. 

It doesn't need any more discussion.

Message For: Part I...

So the performance dates for my first play in more than a decade are set for 18-21 September 2013 at the Electric Theatre in Guildford.

The play itself is a comedy told through a series of very brief monologues that gradually build up the overall story arcs. The characters delivering the monologues through a series of mobile phone messages include a travelling salesman, his dope-smoking friend, the salesman's hippy wife, a pool league chairman, the salesman's boss and several other characters.

I have a reading of an early draft of the script in January and, before then, I have plenty of bits and bobs to do, such as finish the first draft of the script, help cast it and produce it, and hopefully have a hand in the direction, too.

One thing I am ahead of the curve on, though, is the marketing side of things. For a start, I've written the scripts for a few short films to go on Facebook and YouTube to promote the play nearer to the time and I've arranged to shoot them over Xmas. I've also created a Twitter account for the pool league chairman to try and sell the idea to more people.

I also have some pretty firm ideas on how to fund it and publicise it, too. I'm looking forward to this and already getting stupidly enthused.

If you feel like following the pool league chairman on Twitter then please sign up and follow Malcolm Drudge (twitter.com/MalcolmDrudge). It promises to be slightly depraved good times.

And if you could spread the word, reserve the date in your diary and come to the show and buy tickets that would be great, too.

Other Woman News...

The Other Woman's Dad suffers quite badly from Parkinson's disease and in his worst moments his mobility is badly affected and he has to use a wheelchair.

So when the Other Woman and the Other Woman’s Long-suffering Boyfriend got tickets to see an Olympics football match at Wembley and they decided take her dad along, the wheelchair was obviously factored into the trip.

What wasn't factored into the trip, however, was the Other Woman's Dad arriving at Wembley and being so excited at seeing the new stadium then sitting down in the wheelchair section pitch-side that he had a two-hour lucid spell and suddenly forgot he couldn't move properly.

Apparently this got particularly problematic when he wanted to join in the Mexican Wave and the Other Woman had to pretty much physically restrain him in case he did himself an injury - or got them thrown out of the wheelchair section as frauds lying to get good seats.

Apparently matters didn't improve much when the still-lucid Other Woman's Dad then insisted on wheeling his daughter out of the stadium. Once in the car, however, he dropped off and normal business was resumed.

The idea of the Other Woman trying to physically stop her dad joining in a Mexican Wave is a thing of beauty. I wish I was there...

Nice...

Me and the Missus are arguing over some minor point. I am annoyed.
'I could have married a nice one,' I cry. 'They do exist. Women that are nice... Who would have married me...'

She turns and smiles.
'And I could have not married a twat. They exist, too.'

I don't think she meant it...

Long Weekend...

It's a long bank holiday weekend and me and the Missus have had a few days relaxing and I am waxing lyrical.

'Life can quite simple, can’t it? I mean, essentially, you’re affectionate some of the time and we do rude stuff and in return I make you happy. That’s pretty much the deal, isn’t it?'

The Missus stares at me. It's the sort of knowing look I imagine a farmer gives to his favourite sheep before sending him off the slaughterhouse.
'When you gonna start your end of the bargain then?’ she asks.

After more than 15 years together, the Missus still hasn’t lost her sense of humour. Bless her and her vicious and uncompromising tongue...

Big Break…

The truth is, of course, it probably won’t be a big break at all. The last time I planned to stop playing pool, snooker or any other cue sport for any length of time I went stir crazy after four months and was back playing in a money league after six. As much as I sometimes wish otherwise, it would seem potting balls on a baize of any description is something of an addiction, but it’s also one off those meditative, relaxing practises I need to keep my equilibrium.

The masterplan to take a year out at the end of the season is already gathering pace, though, and in my head it’s like I’ve almost made the leap, which is when, of course, I’ve started playing some good stuff and have started to enjoy playing competitively again.

But I need the break. I have a play on next year and it’s important I put everything I can into making it work so that it’s not only artistically and personally satisfying but so that it also leads somewhere in terms of commercial success, whether that’s getting it staged at a bigger theatre or using it as a platform to tout my writing skills and land writing gigs elsewhere.

On my theatre CV I have a huge amount of artistically credible work as a writer, director and producer: Fringe theatre plays on political and feminist issues, a large-scale community play in Docktown, a community musical in Elvis: The Howden Years, a theatre-in-education tour on domestic violence, a play commissioned by a London health authority on care in the community, the latest show about The Forgiveness Project… And I’m proud of that work because it suggests a continuity of commitment to good causes and a socially responsible and responsive theatre practice.

The one thing I’ve never done, though, is to sit back and take a really businesslike approach to my theatre work and think: How I do make this go somewhere else that will directly benefit me?

So the answer I’ve come up with is to put a comedy on that I’m currently writing with an eye on box office success. I also want to direct this or at least co-direct it and I’m going to run it like a business so I want it to make money and I also want it to have a life after that and be taken on elsewhere. To do that I need to ensure I get some theatre producers in the audience. If I want to get other work from it then I need to ensure I also get some commissioning editors and dramaturg folk along.

This whole process is obviously going to take a lot of work so it’s goodbye competitive pool and hello theatre world. I’m back and I’m hoping it will at least be with a bang of some sort…

RIP: Sid Waddell…

Sports commentator extraordinaire Sid Waddell died at the weekend after a long battle with bowel cancer.

To many he was the voice of darts, both on the BBC when the sport was in its pomp during the 1980s and then on Sky TV when the game’s elite players broke away from the British Darts Organisation to form the Professional Darts Corporation and broadcast tournaments on Sky TV. And for that reason he was one of the voices of my youth as any pub sport on TV was heavily watched at home when I was growing up.

Waddell, the son of a Northumbrian miner, went to Cambridge and graduated in Modern History before embarking on a TV career, launching pub sports TV show Indoor League with Fred Truman as host and also carving out a career as a TV writer with children’s shows Jossy’s Giants and Sloggers.

His darts commentary, however, was the work that won him real affection. In an age of contained and softly spoken expert analysis, Waddell’s boyish enthusiasm and clearly partisan enjoyment of darting contests was refreshing.

He freely mixed classical allusions with the sort of banter you’d hear in any working men’s club or pub and we, his fans, loved him for it.

Some of his more memorable quotes included:
‘Jockey Wilson… all the psychology of a claymore.’
‘There hasn't been this much excitement since the Romans fed the Christians to the Lions.’
‘When Alexander of Macedonia was 33 he cried salt tears because there were no more worlds to conquer... Eric Bristow's only 27.’
‘We couldn't have more excitement if Elvis walked in and asked for a chip sandwich.’
‘Bob Anderson came on stage like the Laughing Cavalier… now he looks like Lee Van Clef on a bad night.’
‘Wade is like a man trying to eat candy floss in a Hadrons Collier.’
‘Keith Deller’s not just an underdog… he's an under puppy.’
‘Look at the man go… it’s like trying to stop a water buffalo with a peashooter.’
‘This lad has more checkouts than Tescos.’
‘William Tell could take an apple off your head. Phil Taylor could take out a processed pea.’
‘Jockey Wilson... What an athlete.’
‘He's about as predictable as a wasp on speed.’
‘It's like trying to pin down a kangaroo on a trampoline.’
‘That's the greatest comeback since Lazarus.’
‘It's the nearest thing to public execution this side of Saudi Arabia.’
‘He looks about as happy as a penguin in a microwave.’
‘The pendulum swings back and forth like a metronome.’
‘He's been burning the midnight oil – at both ends.’
‘As they say at the DHSS, we're getting the full benefit here.’
‘I don't know what he's had for breakfast but Taylor knocked the snap, crackle and pop outta Bristow.’
‘Eat your heart out Harold Pinter… we've got drama with a capital ‘D’ in Essex.’
‘If we'd had Phil Taylor at Hastings against the Normans, they'd have gone home.’

And these were just a few of them.

Thanks for the memories, Sid. I have only one word to describe you: ‘Magic darts!’

Olympics: Part III...

Some thoughts on London 2012:
i) Well done the British aristocracy with medals in shooting, rowing and equestrianism. Yes it may be a lazy assumption to make but quite a lot of them sounded a bit posh, didn't they? Come on. They did...

ii) We are brilliant at track cycling. Chris Hoy and Victoria Pendleton retire with more gold medals and new kids Jason Kenny and Laura Trott, who was very sweet, come in and look like nailed-on favourites for gold in Rio in 2016. We need to study why we have success in this area and transpose that blueprint to other areas because we are stupidly dominant at this.

iii) So many great moments to enjoy: Jade Jones winning an unexpected gold at Taekwondo; Mo Farah winning golds at 10,000m and 5,000m; Nicola Adams winning the first women's boxing gold; Gemma Gibbons winning an emotional silver at judo; Jess Ennis handling the pressure and coming through to win gold; Yorkshire providing a shedload of gold medals for Team GB.

iv) The Spice Girls should never, ever be reunited again. We've got rid of cholera and we don't want to bring that back. The same should apply to the Spice girls.

v) Well done team America for winning the basketball. It's brilliant to see the most well-paid sportsmen in the world doing so well in an Olympics. Basketball should not be an Olympic sport. Same as tennis in my opinion. What next? Golf? Football? Oh, hang on...

vi) Paul McCartney singing Hey Jude. We don't expect Ali to box any more. We shouldn't expect McCartney to still be the singer he was 30 years ago. Just stop. Please...

vii) Seb Coe. To quote Chris Morris: 'I hate Seb Coe.' But him and his team have done good here.

For me, London 2012 has shown that when there is a combination of the money and the political will and that joins with the support of the people, then Britain can still be great and punch well above its weight.

You just wish politicians of any hue who end up running the country would harness this sort of enthusiasm and funding to make a difference in things like dealing with youth unemployment and rebuilding the economy instead of letting the poor get poorer and bringing in legislation to allow their rich mates to get richer.

But there are no medals and international kudos for that. And you know most politicians, particularly the current lot, don't actually give a fuck about that either. So expect it to be business as usual.

Sad but true...

Olympics: Part II...

Olympics fact: in volleyball the coach can pull each player off twice.

Make your own gags...

Olympics: Part I...

Me and the Missus are discussing who will light the flame at the 2012 London Olympics.
‘Sir Steve Redgrave...’
‘Too obvious.’
‘Mo Farrah...’
‘Not famous enough outside the UK.’
‘Dame Kelly Holmes...’
‘Don’t think so.’

I start to think outside the box.
‘David Beckham...’
‘Too much of a twat.’
‘Eddy the Eagle Edwards...’
‘Wrong Olympics.’
‘Eric Bristow...’
‘Why?’
‘He could throw a lit dark into the unlit flame and light it up.’
‘No.’
‘Tony Knowles...’
Silence.

I take a different track.
‘Stephen Fry...’
‘No sporting connection.’
‘Sean Bean...’
‘Supporting Sheffield United and starring in When Saturday Comes is not a sporting connection.’
‘Muhammad Ali...’
‘He’s American.’
‘But we’re British. We have a history of stealing from other countries. It’s the British way!’
No response. Again.

‘Charles Dickens...’
‘Charles Dickens is dead.’
‘Sherlock Holmes...’
‘Fictional character and also dead.’
‘No he’s not. There’s a new series on next year.’
No response. A brief look of exasperation.

‘Dick Emery...’
‘Dead.’
‘Charlie Chaplin...’
‘Dead.’
‘Benny Hill...’
‘You’re just naming dead comedians now. Please stop.’

We decided I have no idea about who is lighting the Olympic flame. And no idea about anything else either...

Fighting Fit…

It is Saturday night and I am going out to see a night of MMA fighting. A friend’s nephew is on the bill and it’s essentially a lads’ night out that will end up in a pub or a nightclub of some description.

The plan of the Missus, however, is to spend the evening at home watching DVDs while curled up on the sofa with the cats so we are on a DVD-buying mission. She shows me her first suggestion:
‘What is it?’ I inquire.
‘It’s a horror film about a woman alone in a house who is attacked by a maniac.’
‘I’m sure we’d both see the irony if that actually happened while I was out and you were a woman alone in a house who was attacked by a maniac, but do you think it’s the sort of thing you really want to be watching while I’m out and you are a woman alone in a house?’

The Missus thinks and eventually puts it back. Instead she buys a film with Jason Statham, a man we both quite fancy, and Paul, the Simon Pegg and Nick Frost comedy about an alien. She explains:
‘I know we’ve seen it but that way I can still be reminded of you even if you’re not here.’
‘So I’m an alien?’
‘No. You’re called Paul.’
'Right.'

It was nearly affection then I realised I was sort of taking the same approach.
‘Thinking about it I’m doing a similar thing. I’m going to watch people with bad intentions meet and try to spend time damaging and injuring each other. It will be a reminder of you…’

Apparently that wasn’t funny…

Other Woman News...

The Other Woman passed her black belt grading at hapkido and was presented with her black belt at the weekend.

She's trained ridiculously hard to achieve this and she's also come back from two badly broken bones and two operations to reset them.

That's real determination. It shows real strength of character to come back from something like that.

It's also an example that inspires me to be tougher and I'm more durable and less concerned about minor aches and pains because of the example she has set me.

My Other Woman. I'm better because of her friendship. Even the sarcastic and grouchy bits of her friendship. And the many references to me being 'an idiot' bits of her friendship. My thanks.

More Music News...

It was the annual From Beer To Paternity Towers trek down the road to Guildfest this weekend and here are some thoughts.

i) Jimmy Cliff was on the bill on the main stage and about four from the top while Olly Murs was headlining the main stage. What sort of fucking world are we living in where our values are that out-of-kilter? I felt embarrassed for Jimmy Cliff, who was bloody excellent.

ii) The weather was shit awful and it was a veritable mud bath for most of the day. The only time the sun threatened to shine was when Jimmy Cliff came on stage; the time when the heavens opened and it really pissed it down was when Cher Lloyd came on stage. An unfortunate fluke of weather timing or divine justice wishing to drown any fucker who stayed around to listen to Lloyd. You decide...

iii) I very much liked the Signal Fires. They're an indie band from Woking and they're a bit Joy Division, early U2 and Editors. Apart from Jimmy Cliff, they were the best thing I saw. Bastille were also pretty decent.

iv) Nouvelle Vague are a French band. With jazz influences. They do covers and murdered Love Will Tear Us Apart by Joy Division when I saw them. Other songs in their routine also include Blue Monday by New Order. Note to producers: a good idea on paper and two photogenic female singers does not a ground-breaking band make. Fuck off.

v) Demanding £16 for two pies with mash and gravy is daylight robbery. I don't care how good the pies were. You charged £2 for a portion of mash and £1 for a portion of gravy. You should have been wearing masks and carrying flintlock pistols you robbing fuckers.

vi) The memory of Gary Numan is much better than the reality of seeing him live now. Particularly when he suffered from a few technical hiccups and system malfunctions before and during his set. Are Friends Electric? They weren't today, Gary.

Music News...

I've realised I'm becoming a bit full of vitriol of late. I'm pretty sure this is just a natural reaction to doing all the recent theatre work I've been doing and it's my brain's way of recalibrating itself after being submerged in the topic of forgiveness and compassion for so long. But I sort of recognise that and as long the hatred is only happening in my head and quickly passing then I'm not too worried.

As part of my rebalancing therapy, though, I am letting my need to shop off the tight leash it's been on for most of this year and I have discovered a veritable gold mine of musical gems in Ben’s Collectors' Records, a second-hand music shop just off Guildford High Street. And even better it's pretty much £3 for any CD in there so it's not exactly bankrupting me either...

The shop is mainly vinyl and CD but my 20-minute fortnightly visits to this shop to leaf through the wonderfully disorganised shelves of CDs have really got me back into buying music again. I'd allowed buying music to become something of a treat when really it had always been a quite important part of my life from my teenage years onwards. 

So one recent trip saw me buy Paranoid by Black Sabbath, Goodbye Yellow Brick Road by Elton John, Scarlet And Other Stories by All About Eve, Rant In E Minor by Bill Hicks, The Singles by XYC and I'm Your Man by Leonard Cohen. And all for under £20.

The shop also has a very large collection of classical music CDs and I've located some real bargains in here too. I may have found my new favourite shop. Hurray!

Spleen Venting: Fashion...

I once went to a party with some fashion people. It was on the same day that British troops had gone into Iraq but the only topic of conversation at this party was fashion. Clothes and fashion; fashion and catwalk shows; designers and fashion; models and fashion... You get the picture.

And even though this major event had received wall-to-wall coverage in the press and the radio and the TV, fashion was all these cunts could talk about. And with their beautiful ways and their beautiful clothes, and their interest in only themselves and their stupid fucking opinions about their beautiful ways and their beautiful clothes, I quickly realised I probably didn't like fashion. Or them. At all.

Now let's be clear: liking fashion is not a crime. It clearly should be. But it's not. Elevating it to an art form and pretending it's something of global significance, however, is. And that's entirely what these vacuous shit-for-opinions arsewipes were doing. Now I don't really mind vacuous arseholes. The world's full of them. But at least some of them realise they are vacuous arseholes and make an effort not be. Sometimes... And that's pretty commendable in my book.

But after giving it some consideration I've realised that pretty much everyone I've ever met who's worked in fashion is a vacuous arsehole who doesn't know it. They think they're interesting and chic when actually they're just fucking dullards and a bit thick.

But thinking like this made me feel slightly ashamed. I'd lost my ability to empathise and I realised I was probably giving them a bad press... so I promised the next time I met one I'd try to be more compassionate and not imagine throwing them in a cage with several starved pitbulls and enjoying the bloody spectacle of:
a) them dying horribly and brutally.
b) them dying horribly and brutally and their fave clothes being ripped to shreds in the process.

So I realised I needed a coping mechanism to conjour some empathy and I figured I'd think of other people who had a bad press and try to remember that they were also somebody's son or somebody's daughter. That way I would find compassion in the most unlikely place and simply replicate that process for the fashion people.

And this week my chance to try my new coping mechanism finally came after I met a couple of new people from the fashion world.

Make no mistake, they were utter shitcakes-for-brains oxygen thieves, but instead of adopting my default position of contempt and hatred I used my coping mechanism.

Sadly the only people I could only think of who'd been the victims of such vitriol in the press were Peter Sutcliffe and Myra Hindley. And I started feeling sorry for Sutcliffe and Hindley to be compared to this pair of wankstains...

I clearly need a new strategy. Gun anyone?

Spleen Venting: Office Politics...

I am working late and waiting for the lift to take me to the top floor to get coffee and chocolate, my diet of choice when I'm knackered and in need of a caffeine/sugar rush to get me through the final hours of a press day.

The lift arrives and I press the button for the top floor. As the lift doors start to close what can only be described as a twattery of marketing types and fashion girlies enter. They then repeatedly start ramming the button to take the lift to the ground floor. Bear in mind I've already pressed the button to go the top floor and it is already lit. This is a sign to all lift users of where the lift intends to go. Even stupid people know this.

The doors then close and the lift begins its ascent to various moans of 'Why's it going up?' or 'I thought you pressed the ground floor button?'

There is debate and astonishment and anger towards the original button-presser. I am annoyed and think bad thoughts, then as I exit the lift I hear it go silent.

I then realise that the phrase 'Brain-dead cunts...' that I thought I'd only uttered in my head had actually escaped from my mouth.

I ponder for a moment. What to do? I may have offended people. And that's bad. But then I figured 'Fuck 'em. They deserve to know the truth. Perhaps if more people had actually told them the truth about themselves and their idiot opinions they'd be better and nicer people. I'm actually doing a form of community service by finally giving them a clearer picture of themselves.'

So I smiled to myself and headed for coffee and chocolate, the friend of the profanity-uttering chief sub on press day. My good deed for the day was done and I'd helped make the world a better place. Hurray for me. Probably...

Theatre Thoughts: Part II...

The show finished so I spent a day clearing out my office and making space for new ideas and projects.

This used to be a ritual at the end of any project many years ago and it's amazing how quickly I reverted to this long-forgotten habit. Of course, this particular show is not over: we have reports to file for our funders; hold a debrief meeting to discuss both the process and what we learnt; and hold another debrief meeting about the production and how we improve it before touring next year.

But I'm fired again and wanting to start work on the comedy play I'm now convinced will finally 'break' me and the more serious project I have lined up for later next year, which may well 'break' me in a different way as the research is quite morbid and involving.

I also have other decisions to make about what I do next year because if I'm committing to new productions then I'm going to have to lose something from my schedule to create the time.

But whatever gives the theatre work has to be sustainable. It's no longer enough to just do good work; it now has to pay or have at least the prospect of paid work as an end result. But having that goal to aim for and making that happen will make the commitment worth it. I'm genuinely excited by the possibilities again. And that's a good thing.

And my guiding thinking on this new road will be a quote by Miyamoto Musashi:
'Do nothing which is of no use.'

Or... if it doesn't serve your purpose or advance your goal then forget it.

It will be interesting to see if I can be that single-minded about this personal plan and bring the focus I bring to helping everyone else to my own work.

Theatre Thoughts: Part I...

Tonight is the final performance of Consider This, the play I've been project managing for the past nine months.

The play is inspired by the work of The Forgiveness Project (TFP), a wonderful charity started by Marina Cantacuzino that collects stories from both victims and perpetrators of crime who talk about how they've moved on from their pasts by forgiving other people, forgiving themselves or being forgiven by others.

The play is essentially the story of a stranger on the run from his past who runs into a fabulous storyteller. Their meeting reveals bits about them both coming to terms with their pasts and intercut into this dialogue are read-out stories from TFP, filmed interviews, original music and songs. It's a real multi-media event.

And, a few bits that need tightening up aside, it works as an engaging and entertaining piece of theatre, too. I'm genuinely proud to have helped make this happen.

The play is my first involvement with a theatre company for a decade and working exclusively on the production, fundraising and press side has been hard work; it's been a bit frustrating sometimes, too, but that's mainly because I'm learning to work with people I'm not used to working with and they're suddenly having to learn to work with somebody they barely know. It's probably been a bit frustrating for them at times, too.

But overall I've found it a hugely positive and empowering experience. The theatre company are good people who do good work and they've welcomed me in, which has been quite touching. It's also reassured me that I can do this again and as much as I can do all the production and logistical and fundraising and budget stuff, I do also want to do the creative stuff again. And not just the writing but the directing, too.

So watch this space... that whole side of my life is up and running again. Only, what's different this time? Well... this time I won't let anyone else dictate the terms of my failure but me.

And the goal will be artistically credible work married to commercial success. And it will happen.

Hair Today...

My attempts to grow my hair long and have actually hair rather than a No.1 buzz cut are foundering.

For a start I have no idea what to do with long hair as it's been a decade and a half of not having any. Quite simply I don't know how to style it, what style looks good or what to use to keep that style going. It's like I missed the memo or wasn't listening in that bit of the male grooming class.

I was so desperate not to be beaten by the long hair issue and head for the nearest barber that earlier in the week I even started looking up hair styles for men with glasses on Google. And it's clear I am no Emo (they have big fringes, apparently) and I'm probably not Johnny Depp so I'm a bit knackered really.

I'm actually turning into a bit of a girl over this issue and I may just think 'Sod it. A skinhead is who I am!' But without the racism, right-wing politics and penchant for violence. Obviously.

On the plus side I did make a work colleague laugh yesterday by suggesting the glamour model and keen equestrian Jordan mutilates horses in her spare time.

So that was good.

Quote Of The Week...

'Kindness is in our power, even when fondness is not.'
Samuel Johnson

Great Sights Of Our Time: Part 1...

I was up and about early on Saturday morning to walk into Guildford to drop some publicity off for the play I'm producing.

I was walking over a railway bridge and over the bridge came a bloke who weighed at least 20 stone riding a mobility scooter while smoking a fag.

I still don't know where to start on deconstructing that particular picture.

Bob Marley...

The missus is a huge reggae fan so one of the things to do on our week-off hit-list was to catch up with Kevin MacDonald's film profile of Bob Marley.

This was a pretty in-depth affair and followed Marley's life in chronological order, from his childhood in Nine Mile in Jamaica to his rise as international superstar. Talking heads included son Ziggy, wife Rita, Bunny Wailer, record producer Lee 'Scratch’ Perry,  Island Records supremo Chris Blackwell and girlfriend Cindy Breakspeare.

It's a hugely informative and very entertaining documentary, featuring plenty of footage of Marley on stage and off it, and it captures an eventful life fully lived then cut tragically short by cancer.

The fact he had nearly a dozen kids by several different women while still married to Rita has also made me change my favourite Bob Marley joke. This once went:
Q. How does Bob Marley like his doughnuts?
A. With jammin'.

But it now goes:
Q. How does Bob Marley like his doughnuts?
A. While fucking lots of different women.

Fortunately the film is better than my gags. And it's also made me go through the Marley musical back catalogue, which remains a thing of beauty.

Kapow!

Today I enjoyed a day out with the Boy at Kapow! Comic Convention.

I was a major comics geek through my pre-teens to mid-teens and then again in my late twenties to mid-thirties. And this was a love that was passed on to and encouraged in the Boy. Consequently some of our regular bonding sessions (insert rude but slightly sick incest gag in here) involved trips to London to tour the comic shops.

So the fact the two of us were going here after a few years away from this sort of shenanigans was part deja vu and part I-may-be-getting-back-into-this-again. I've always fancied a go at comic writing and I certainly know enough about the medium to give it a good go.

We had a fab day and the Boy guided me around, which was quite cool.

I also saw two very good panel discussions/QandA affairs. The first was with some of the head honchos from Marvel who talked about their own experiences of getting into the comics industry. The main advice was: make your own opportunities because talent and persistence equals success.

The second was with Warren Ellis, one of my favourite writers of the past two decades. He sounded quite disillusioned with the whole comics industry, citing the fact it seems pretty much in thrall to the movie industry. One story he told about this concerned a mini series I bought about Nick Fury.

The series essentially pitted old spy and Cold War warhouse Fury against the new bright young things running Shield who viewed him as something of an anachronism, a relic of a past era when wars were fought with guns and not hi-tech spyware and surgical strikes. Then a banana republic in South-East Asia erupts and Fury is needed. The series was very good and had a lot to say about global politics and was refreshingly politically incorrect in its world view. It was a very good comic book that was well written and beautifully drawn.

But Warren Ellis said this series essentially got one established and very good comics editor the sack because it affected a deal about a Nick Fury movie linked to George Clooney. A case of the movie tail now wagging the comics dog if ever there was one.

Two artists I saw who also really impressed me doing sketches for fans were Craig Wilson and Becky Cloonan. Both were really nice with people and made time for everyone who came to their tables. I'll certainly buy their work and give it a chance in the future on the back of seeing them in action.

A very good day with the Boy. And I even bought a few more things to read. Which is good if I'm going to write one this year...

Misterman...

I went to the National Theatre with the Missus to see Misterman this week. And it was stunning.

It's a one-man play written by Irish writer Enda Walsh and it stars Cillian Murphy of 28 Days Later fame as fierce evangelist Thomas Magill and various other characters. The play follows Magill over the course of several days as he goes about the business of saving the souls of folk in his home town of Innishfree.

What starts off as funny and quaint gradually descends into horror and tragedy as Magill realises everybody is way past redemption and his grip on the fine lines between fantasy and reality becomes rapidly blurred; think an extended episode of Father Ted written by a Samuel Beckett possessed by the Marquis de Sade and Stephen King and you're sort of there.

The writing felt like it could have been a bit tighter in places but overall the script was pretty brilliant and Walsh more than made up for this by directing and staging the show in one of the most inventive ways I've seen in a long time.

The star of the show, however, was Murphy. I am under no illusion that the Missus would have me dumped and divorced faster than shit goes through a goose if he ever turned up in our bedroom, so I realised in another world I could be watching a potential love rival. But even I was won over. To quote one of my friends who saw the show: 'So that's what real acting is!'

As a writer it's good to see productions that raise the bar. It makes you want to up your own game. And this was one such production.

Epiphany: Part II...

So... A talk to two or three trusted friends, a meeting in a pub with a director friend, a quick three-year business plan scribbled on the back of sheet of script notes and a potential new Fringe theatre company for London is all there. I've even worked out how I can fund it.

All I need to do now is take the chance and make it happen. When you have the will and the belief it's as easy as that...