Tales From Goole: Part 1…

My long weekend home sans the Missus was a pretty successful one.

Going home can sometimes be a bit of a trial because I’m obviously distanced from it by geography, time and experience but I’m pleased to report it was all pretty good. I caught up with my family, met my new niece, spent some time with my other nieces and nephews and caught up with a few other notables.

It turned into quite a heavy boozing weekend when myself and Older Brother headed out for a pint on Saturday morning and he took me to a pub called the Jailhouse where I was stunned that a pint only cost £1.20.

I also thought the name of the pub was quite funny as Goole has something of a reputation as a real trouble spot and, although the Jailhouse is based on geographical history (the site of the town’s original jailhouse in 1826), I’d love to have been at the council meeting where permission for that name was granted. Their PR department were obviously out to lunch when that was passed.

But Goole’s quite good for names: there’s the off-license Rhythm ‘n’ Booze; the tanning shop Tan-fastic!; and the town’s most famous transsexual who nobody could decide to call by their male or female name so instead just called he/her He-She.

I also headed out with Older Brother and Little Brother for a few hours of pool on Friday night – and it was almost like a step back in time to when we were kids playing at home and desperately trying to beat each other. Little Sister’s Fella also came along and he looks like he can hold a cue too.

I also heard the best joke in the world – which I’ll tell tomorrow…

Tough Shit!

The Other Woman and the Other Woman’s Fella (her real one as opposed to me) visited myself and the Missus on Friday.

We headed out for curry where the Other Woman’s Fella told a memorable story about a night out with Jo Guest (model), a Toxic Slut (from the punk band Toxic Slut) and several Cocksucking Cowboys (cocktails) while I spent several hours ranting about Jane Austen (a writer who sadlly will never be a Toxic Slut).

A fun night was had by all (even though the Other Woman is obviously punching above her weight with her fella and I’ll tell her so when I next see her).

When the next morning arrived, however, it seemed an extraterrestrial being had carried out an experiment on my body in which my previously functioning bowel had been replaced by an agricultural muckspreader on a high pressure setting. Consequently I spent large parts of the weekend on the toilet but I did manage to listen to quite a lot of Radio 4 and Radio 5 Live while in situ.

The real fun part of the day was a trip to see Porgy And Bess, though. Watching the show and wondering whether I was going to make it to the end of the next song – never mind the first or second halves – was an experience I would not want to repeat. Ever!

Things are thankfully now back to normal but it has made me re-evaluate the joys of a healthy gut. And that’s why I’m currently eating nice, healthy and not very spicy things. It won’t last, though…

PS. Ulrika Johnsson has a show on C4 tonight called Ulrika: Am I A Sex Addict? Now I could have told her the answer to this without the need of a TV show. So here goes:

No Ulrika, you’re not a sex addict. You’re a publicity addict who chose to indirectly accuse a man of rape several years after the event on TV and kick off a chain of events that ensured he faced a trial by media before he got a trial by court and was proved innocent – just so you could sell some fucking book. If it was about rape you’d have handled it the way many women do and go through the correct legal channels and not turn it into the sort of media circus that may actually put women off going to court if they’re victims of this crime. So Fuck Off My Telly!

There… I feel much better now.

Porgy And Bess…

Porgy And Bess is a musical written by two Jewish men about the experiences of a group of poor black people watched predominantly by wealthy white people in London’s Savoy Theatre.

If, however, you can get your head around this bunch of cultural paradoxes it’s quite a good show.

The story focuses on a cripple called Porgy who takes in a bad girl Bess after her bad boy boyfriend kills and has to go on the run. While living with Porgy, Bess finds redemption for her former corrupt lifestyle – until her murderer fella comes back and is killed by Porgy.

Then Bess runs off to New York alongside the local drug dealer with Porgy determined to follow her and save her. Again.

As a slickly packaged evening of musical theatre it’s a good show and the performances were impressive, particularly as the night myself and the Missus saw it three of the main leads were played by understudies.

It's a Trevor Nunn production so it's cleverly staged and beautifully paced and I learnt three important lessons from it:
i) Poor black people always get the shit end of the stick in America. Folk from New Orleans take note in case you didn't already know this.
ii) Bad boys are far more attractive than well-meaning do-gooders. My wife has been told to ignore this lesson.
iii) Never trust women.

I still quite liked it, though.

Plastic Fantastic!

Me, the Missus and the Boy are sat eating tea (supper for southern readers). Ten Years Younger with style Nazi presenter Nicky Hambleton-Jones is on the TV.

In this show a very pleasant HGV of a woman is being magically transformed into something slightly less behemoth-like thanks to the magic of telly (and several thousand pounds worth of style makeover, wardrobe changes and plastic surgery).

Such shows usually prompt a volley of abuse in From Beer To Paternity Towers. But myself and the Boy are distracted discussing the relative merits of being fancied by gay men after the Missus has just told the Boy he is not slim enough to attract the attentions of any chap-loving Adonises.

Our musings, however, are interrupted by the Missus…

‘That’s what I’m going to spend money on when I get older…’
‘What? A fat woman from Nottingham?’ asks the Boy pointing to the telly?
‘No. Plastic surgery…’

I interject as the woman on the TV has her nose sliced open.

‘But you don’t need plastic surgery. You have a fabulous face.’
‘Oh I wouldn’t touch my face.’
‘So you don’t need it then…’
‘I could get my stomach done…’
‘Your stomach’s fine…’
‘And my legs…’
‘Your legs are fine…’
‘And have liposuction…’
‘You don’t need liposuction. That’s ridiculous!’

There is a pause. Myself and the Boy think the moment has passed. But it hasn’t.

‘I wouldn’t get my breasts done though.’
‘Oh. That's the bit I'd have chipped in for...’

The Boy sniggers. The Missus turns and smiles. She gets the gag but there will be pain later. Lots of pain...

Fame!

Holy Moly is one website that I can spend several hours on and it can consistently make me laugh.

For those unaware of Holy Moly it’s a spurious celebrity gossip and slating website a la Pop Bitch but it’s much funnier. It also does a very natty line in funny T-shirts (see above) and the site features several different sections and my favourite one of these is called C**ts Corner where readers can nominate their own favourite celebrity c**ts.

Anyway a few weeks ago I nominated Dr Gillian McKeith and my entry made it on:

'Dr Gillian McKeith: Sanctimonious, sour-faced, shrill-voiced, patronising, fraudulently certificated, 20th-century snakeoil saleswoman, Jock bitch... You're not a "Dr" any more than my cock is a fucking heart surgeon. Get off my telly. Cunt.'

My mum will be so proud…

300...

The Boy is very excited. I am very excited. The Missus, however, couldn’t care less…

But the film version of Frank Miller’s graphic novel 300 is out in the UK soon and myself and the Boy have tickets to see it at the Imax.

The film is based on the story of the 300 Spartans who sacrificed themselves against a huge Persian army to make the slumbering Greek empire wake up and defend itself, thus preserving its legacy of democracy, art and philosophy for the rest of the world.

It’s an epic film and it looks utterly stunning. And as Frank Miller is a favourite artist and writer of both of me and the Boy it promises to be a real treat.

It is a sign of how excited the Boy that he is actually venturing out with just me for company. On an evening. Where other people can see him. With me. Who will not be as fashionable or as hip as him.

But if anyone asks he'll probably use his usual line and say he's taking me from the 'special' home for a night out. The shit.

I’m also heading back to Goole the day after seeing this film so a few hours of warfare, fighting and violence will handily prepare me for a Saturday night out in my old haunts should I decide to head for a pint down Aire Street – or Blood Alley as it’s affectionately known to locals…

Diseased!

Whenever I get stressed I get coldsores.

But as I don’t really do stress I rarely recognise the normal signs of when I’ve pushed myself too hard so the coldsores, ugly and annoying little buggers though they are, are actually a good barometer of my mental/physical state.

Coldsores, of course, are a simplex of herpes, which in a more advanced form is an STD – and ironically I am researching STDs at the moment.

I mentioned this to the Other Woman as we were walking home from playing pool last week and I also complained how a major downside of having coldsores was that I can’t kiss the Missus as I have no wish to infect her. And the Other Woman's words of comfort were:

‘Well I’m not bothered. I’ll give you a friendly kiss goodnight to show I don’t mind catching your sexually transmitted scabby lip disease…’
'But it could infect you - and your boyfriend.'
'He'll understand. I'll tell him it was a mission of mercy.'

Outside of my marriage this is possibly the nicest thing anyone has ever said to me.

Although Shaggy, one of my long-term pool playing colleagues, did send me a text from a county game yesterday saying how he missed me playing pool. I thought this was really sweet – until I realised this was because without me present nobody had a token northerner and part-time drunk to take the piss out of.

But it was still very sweet in a bloke sort of way. It's good to have friends – for whatever reasons...

Other Woman News…

In our quest to find a decent pool club in the centre of town myself and the Other Woman ventured to Rileys in Victoria last night.

And we were quite impressed: drinkable beer, a cheeky little red wine, decent food and good tables. There were a few City twats trying to big themselves up but everyone treated them with the disdain they deserved and they soon pissed off.

The Other Woman also told me of her dad’s latest impulse purchase – a wheelchair…

Now this is not as bonkers as it sounds because the Other Woman’s father has Parkinson’s and he’s bought the chair in preparation for when the illness eventually takes hold and he needs help with his mobility.

But this is some considerable time off yet and the Other Woman is convinced he’s simply getting her and other members of the family to wheel him around when he feels like a bit of relaxation or attention – or if he just can’t be arsed to move anywhere under his own steam.

Thoughts of the Other Woman grumpily wheeling her dad around the house at the drop of a hat make me smile. Especially as when everyone else leaves the house I bet he gets out of the chair and goes to play on the pool table he bought last year.

I think he’s a genius…

Breaking Through…

Yesterday was a day of breakthroughs.

My first breakthrough came at hapkido where I finally fell out of a front throw for the first time. Like properly. Legs over head and everything.

This is quite a basic thing for most students but it’s something I’d struggled with for three and a half years. And it’s been bloody annoying because my falling under my own steam is quite good and I knew I could fall out of this particular throw but I just had a mental block on doing it.

But yesterday the clouds parted and, hey presto, I think I’m in business.

Breakthrough two came when I finally realised I couldn’t include everything I wanted to write about in one play. So I’ve decided to write two plays instead. And in a moment of genuine serendipity I happened to chance on one interview about venereal disease in Victorian England that unlocked everything in terms of the structure and characters for the first one.

So I now have a former sailor who is so rotted with VD that he has a wooden nose.

I’m also naming him after my father-in-law. He’ll be pleased…

Protest Vote…

I wrote some time ago about how BAE Systems used its clout to make the government over-ride a due legal process and make the SFO (Serious Fraud Office) drop an ongoing investigation into bribery and corruption over a Saudi arms deal.

I also reported that CAAT (Campaign Against the Arms Trade) and Cornerhouse were bidding to challenge this decision in court and make the government reopen the case to bring BAE Systems to book for its corrupt activities.

Well an Early Day Motion (EDM), a sort of petition which gauges opinion on this matter, has been tabled by a cross-party group of MPs and is due to go before parliament.

The EDM in question is Early Day Motion 595 (Serious Fraud Office Investigation into the Al Yamamah Military Contract) and you can check if your MP has signed it here:

http://edmi.parliament.uk/EDMi/EDMDetails.aspx?EDMID=32264&SESSION=885

So if you think it’s wrong that BAE Systems can interfere with a due legal process and pressure the government into covering its arse then it’s worth dropping your MP a line asking him or her why they’re not supporting this action if they haven't signed this.

For example my MP, Dawn Butler of the Labour Party, hasn’t so I think it’s worth asking her why she’d support a corrupt government defending a corrupt company, a company whose business is largely funded by my taxes.

Is she an apologist for government corruption? I think we should be told…

Training Day…

It is Monday morning and I am very stiff – and not in a good way…

This is because yesterday was a full day of seminars and grading at the hapkido academy and I don’t think there is a single part of my body that does not ache.

Things got off to a gentle start with a three-hour ki seminar then it was grading time. As I wasn’t grading I played opponent to several people who were so I was merrily thrown around for an hour.

The day ended with a three-hour seminar on kicking and ground fighting. The kicking was tiring enough but the ground-fighting seminar was just brutal and it saw me get choked between the thighs and knees of several women, including the ever-fragrant OWWLOW (Other Woman Who Loves Other Women).

Then I went to the pub and got a bit pissed and made my way home with my body very stiff and bruised but my general demeanour very relaxed and fluid.

It was about halfway home that I realised I’d just paid money to get beaten up by various women. I may well be some type of pervert…

The Science Of Sleep…

I went to see The Science Of Sleep with the Missus at the Curzon Soho at the weekend.

For those not in the know the Soho Curzon is a very trendy cinema that shows foreign arthouse movies that draw a very hip and chic crowd. And me. Sometimes…

Although going here to watch films with meaningful silences and subtitles can sometimes be a drag, there is a plus side – and that plus side is that some arty films are French which means they must have sexy actresses. It’s like a rule and this film adhered to the rule and boasted the services of Charlotte Gainsbourg who sounds French but is actually English.

And it was a win double because the male lead was Gael García Bernal (of Bad Education fame) so both myself and the Missus had eye candy to view. Bernal is actually a lucky fella because he is on the wife’s Allowed List alongside Johnny Depp and Christian Slater. Gainsbourg is now also on my allowed list alongside Ani Difranco and Mary Shelley. Although because Shelley is dead I feel I should have another pick.

Anyway the film, directed by Michel Gondry who helmed Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind, was quite a treat. It’s an offbeat love story about a man who can’t distinguish between his conscious and unconscious states. It sounds utter cock but it’s very sweet and bizarrely uplifting. It’s also visually quite stunning.

Worth a look…

Confessions Of A Diary Secretary…

ITV had a stab at political satire last night with its own take on the infamous affair between Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott and his diary secretary Tracey Temple.

This comedy-drama took the form of diary recollections narrated by Temple, played with a nudge and a wink by former Shameless sexpot Maxine Peak, which took her from her first days working for the DPM to the end of the affair and her subsequent move away from the office of DPM (although she’s now back working there).

John Henshaw, the landlord from Early Doors, playing a slightly depressed Benny Hill took the role of Prescott and he was suitably coarse with a hint of a heart but with very little sign of the calculated intelligence that Prescott watchers insist the man possesses.

Pippa Haywood of Green Wing fame also added some class to proceedings as Prescott’s chief aide.

But overall it was a bit of an odd product.

Henshaw and Peak were pretty good in the key roles but the show could never decide if it was political satire (there were some nice touches such as Temple putting a gifted kimono into a cupboard at the DPM’s offices where a pair of cowboy boots were also hung up) or a bawdy, knockabout comedy (the script had double entendres that would have shamed Dick Emery or Robin Askwith in their 1970s pomp).

But it was amusing if not hilarious and watchable if not gripping and ITV should have a pat on the back for at least trying something a bit different that had no soap stars or tacky game show element. Probably…

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…

Fight Corruption!

Remember the Serious Fraud Office (SFO) investigation that was called off?

You know, the one where UK arms manufacturer BAE Systems used its influence on the UK Government to put pressure on the SFO to scrap its inquiry into corruption and bribery because the Saudi government threatened to cancel a lucrative arms contract?

That’s right, the one that was quite big news before the whole Big Brother race row blew up and made any other news redundant?

Well if you happen to think the fact that a private company like BAE Systems – who sell arms to brutal and impoverished regimes and whose business dealings are actually funded by the UK taxpayer – can force Blair and his chums to over-ride a due legal process is pretty disgusting then you can do something about it.

As mentioned some time ago on this blog, the Campaign Against the Arms Trade (CAAT) and civil liberties group Cornerhouse are mounting a legal challenge to this decision and they need funding to help.

So if you’d like to play a part in fighting government corruption, or just like to play some part in giving Blair and his cronies a bloody nose, then visit the CAAT website (www.caat.org.uk) to find out more.

All donations welcome.

The Last King Of Scotland…

A newly qualified Scottish doctor turns his back on life running a small-town practice with his dad and heads to Uganda where he finds himself the personal doctor to Idi Amin.

The doctor (James McAvoy) is seduced by the power then gradually horrified by the brutality of Amin’s regime and seeks a way out, a way out only offered by an irksome British diplomat – if he murders Amin.

It’s a brilliant and engrossing drama and McAvoy proves he’s well worth his elevation to major features.

But it’s Forest Whittaker (always a strong performer in anything from Jean-Claude van Damme movies to the massively under-rated Jim Jarmusch drama Ghost Dog) who steals the show as Amin. His performance is a truly amazing piece of work, the sort of thing that stays with you a long time after the final credits have rolled.

If he doesn’t win the best actor Oscar for this role the Academy has no credibility. Not that it probably has all that much anyway (Tom Hanks a two-times winner for god’s sake!).

Anyway it’s very good.

Blair Must Go!

I was watching Question Time last night and Nicholas Soames MP was one of the panellists.

Soames is very much a Tory’s Tory. He represents the rural constituency of Mid-Sussex, he served as Minister of State for the Armed Forces from 1994-1997, until recently he was Shadow Defence Secretary and he is Executive of the 1922 Committee, a sort of latter-day Hellfire Club for whip-'em and hang-em Tories. He is also President of the East Grinstead Target Shooting Club and a Member of the Council for the Protection of Rural England.

Land, the defence industry and country ways. If ever a man epitomised what Tories see as the virutes of Englishness and the rest of us view with some suspicion he is that man.

He also has the unfortunate look of a Hogarth character who has eaten several children and is steadfastly refusing to pass them.

So basically I shouldn't like him very much. At all. Ever. But last night I found myself agreeing with pretty much every point he made about the failings and arrogance of Tony Blair.

Sorry Tony, but if things are so bad I'm agreeing with an arch Tory like Soames then it really is time to go...

24...

Me, the boy and the missus are eating breakfast. Suddenly the music for 24 comes on and an advert for the new show begins. The boy is a big 24 fan and discusses this when the missus asks him what series it is.

‘It’s the sixth series.’
‘Is that 24:6 then?’
‘Yes.’
‘I only saw the first series. I got bored halfway through the second.’
‘When I first heard about it I thought all the series followed on from each other. I didn’t realise they were all set about six months apart… But that makes sense otherwise Jack Bauer would be having a really shit week.’
‘It would be a good tag line though…’
‘What? It’s Wednesday, there’s terrorists and Jack Bauer is absolutely shagged so he’s having a nap!’
‘Yeah. Something like that…’

The boy’s comedy potential continues…

Matthew Bourne's Swan Lake: Part Two...

Me and the missus are leaving the ballet having seen Matthew Bourne’s Swan Lake.

The twist with this production is that the group of swans, which is usually danced by an all-female troupe, is played by men... beautifully toned and muscular men in fact… the sort of beautifully toned and muscular men who could turn a straight man gay. Easily.

Anyway it was a stunning production and the missus is very moved…

‘That was beautiful.’
‘Yes. It was. It’s just that…’
‘What?’
‘Did you notice the fat swan?’
‘He wasn’t fat.’
‘He bloody was.’
‘He wasn’t. It’s just that every other swan had muscles on muscles and he was merely well toned.’
‘He looked as though he’d eaten all the swan pies.’
‘There’s no such thing as swan pies. And he was my favourite actually.’
‘Yeah. Mine too… Let’s hear it for the fat swan!’

I applaud. The missus stares at me. I stop. The missus continues in her adoration of the male swans.

‘And they all moved so gracefully. Such grace coupled with such power…’
‘It’s a bit of an odd story, though, isn’t it?’
‘How do you mean?’
‘Well it’s about a man who wants to shag a swan.’
‘He’s not really a swan.’
‘He had a swan costume.’
‘It was a fantasy.’
‘So he goes around dreaming about shagging swans.’
‘He was disturbed.’
‘And male swans too. Are some swans gay?’
‘In the original ballet it’s a woman.’
‘Gay or straight it’s still some nutter wanting to pop his Toby up a swan.’
‘Toby?’
‘Yes...’
‘What’s a Toby?’
‘It’s a name for… a man’s…’
‘And who exactly calls it a Toby?’
‘Lots of people…’
‘It’s just you isn’t it?’

Pause.

‘Let’s hear it for the fat swan!’

Matthew Bourne’s Swan Lake: Part One…

The missus is a sucker for ballet and she likes Matthew Bourne so we are now in the habit of going to Sadlers Wells whenever he has a show on. And Saturday night we saw his version of Swan Lake.

To nutshell this it tells the story of a psychologically disturbed prince who’s starved of affection by his cruel mother. Not comfortable in his public role of a prince and starved of real love, he’s on the verge of suicide when he sees/dreams about swans at play in a lake and falls for one of them, thus deciding not to top himself.

Now happy that he has a reason to live he carries on as a prince but eventually loses his mind yet again because he can’t have the female object of his affections and he ends up trying to shoot his mother. Instead he shoots the girl he once/possibly still loved.

He’s then carted off to an asylum where he sees/imagines the swan coming to save him but the bird gets killed by his swan peers for deserting the pack (or whatever groups of swans are called).

The story sound utterly bonkers and it gets a bit more bizarre when one of Bourne’s main twists (apart from drawing parallels with our own royal family and the paparazzi) is that the swans are an all-male ensemble.

It’s a stunningly beautiful and moving evocation of repressed emotion, loneliness and denial versus the redemptive power of love and the imagination. Or it’s about a nutter who wants to bum a swan. You decide…

The Trial Of Tony Blair…

There are times when Channel 4 should be thoroughly ashamed of itself.

This year’s Celebrity Big Brother is a case in point. But if you turn TV into a zoo then sometimes you may not like all of the species on show, especially when some of them offer a stark reminder that at heart a lot of Brits are thick, racist fuckers.

You know, the type of thick, racist fuckers who assume that everyone from a Middle Eastern country – or sometimes somewhere that just sounds vaguely Arabic – is a suicide bomber or a terrorist. And if they’re not exactly from around there then anywhere near will do. Where you from again Shilpa? Bollywood? Well it’s near enough…

But there are good reasons this climate of hatred and racism has been allowed to grow in the UK at this present time – which brings us nicely onto Tony Blair and his role as American lapdog and arch bomber of Iraq.

For although Channel 4 should be lambasted for Celebrity Big Brother, it should also get some praise for producing and screening drama like The Trial Of Tony Blair.

In this 90-minute one-off Robert Lindsay portrayed Blair in the year 2010 when he stands down as Prime Minister and begrudgingly hands over the reigns of power to Gordon Brown.

Lindsay’s Blair is essentially a vain man seeking reassurance that he’s secured his place in history as a politician of stature and dignity, while at the same time being haunted by the bloodshed he’s caused in Iraq, being pursued by the Hague for war crimes and seeking redemption through the Catholic church.

This drama sees Blair failing in his post-PM life as the big UN job never materialises and the scenes of him pottering around a huge Thames-side office as he waits for the phone to ring are bizarrely quite moving.

There’s also a wonderful scene where a publisher rejects his memoirs because Blair refuses to acknowledge the gulf between how he sees his legacy in print and how everyone else sees it in reality. There’s also a smart scene where Blair and his wife end up in the casualty department of a hospital waiting treatment and he is forced to see how rundown the service has become.

The drama ends with Blair betrayed by his US allies and by Gordon Brown as he is indicted to stand trial in the Hague.

It’s an entertaining but not fully satisfying 90 minutes. By humanising Blair to such an extent and focusing on his tragedy (ie. He’s basically a decent man who made a very bad decision over Iraq) viewers aren’t faced with the reality that he is also a ruthless politician who has ridiculous amounts of blood on his hands.

It’s a trial that didn’t really call him to account. A bit like hanging a former dictator for one crime when he should have had to face justice and be called to account for so much more.

It almost makes Big Brother not very important. But if Blair isn’t sorting out the culture of hatred he’s helped create then a so-called responsible broadcaster should at least not be perpetuating it – and that’s why Channel 4 should be called to account…

Blasted…

Playwright Sarah Kane cut quite a swathe through 1990s British theatre. Her stark and often brutal plays, including Blasted, Cleansed and the posthumously produced 4.48 Psychosis, earned her a loyal following – and made her the subject of blistering attacks from a right-wing press shocked by her scripts’ graphic language and violence.

Well that’s basically what I knew about Sarah Kane before last night and, as anything that upsets the Daily Mail is usually good enough for me, I headed to Soho Theatre confident I was in for a good night, especially as this version of Blasted was being produced by Graeae Theatre.

And Graeae didn’t disappoint with a smartly staged and interesting production with strong performances, particularly from Gerard McDermot as racist, misogynist journalist Ian and Dave Toole as the un-named soldier who rapes Ian and sucks his eyes out before shooting himself.

Kane includes stage directions as spoken dialogue and Graeae included this on a projected backdrop so it became part of the audio-description. This helped emphasise the Spartan dialogue and the backdrop also played film of a signed interpretation of the play which added a haunting quality to the production.

Sadly it was the script I had major problems with. They were a few funny lines and the power struggle between Ian and his young lover was tightly written but after that it was just violence and brutality metaphorically hammering home the point that Kane’s world view is one without love, hope or redemption.

It was grim without the humour, interest or eloquence of a Howard Barker and brutal without the style or epic sweep of an Edward Bond, both of who have covered similar thematic territory about the loss of humanity and the depravity of humankind but in a more dramatically affecting way.

This is the first Kane play I’ve seen and the others may be better but it had a feeling of the emperor’s new clothes to me. I can see why young theatre radicals would possibly think it was – and possibly still is – something challenging but for me it was essentially a badly written play whose only saving grace was a strong production.

Ten Years On…

The missus whisked me away to Bath at the weekend to celebrate our first decade together.

We had originally planned to visit my family in Yorkshire to see my new niece for the first time – until we found out that the cheapest return rail travel was £150. Each. And as £300 is roughly what I paid for me and the missus to visit and stay in Barcelona for three days last year, I felt a little aggrieved at forking out the same money for us to sit on a grotty GNER train to Goole.

So with an unscheduled free weekend the missus pulled out all the stops and on Friday told me we were going away. So the following day I found myself on a train (this time costing a mere £20) with the missus heading to Bath.

And it was pretty splendid...

The Roman Baths were fabulous and easily worth the £11 entry fee and the new Spa complex was also worth the £20 entrance to have access to a rooftop open-air pool, an indoor pool and a very swanky sauna room.

We also visited the tiny Jane Austen Museum, which was quite a bizarre as she apparently hated the place despite setting two of her books there. Even though I find Austen very tedious as a writer I really liked the museum with its very enthusiastic and very sweet young woman guide and it’s no-frills exhibition and tearoom.

In many ways it’s the Rocky Balboa of Bath fighting against the much bigger and much flasher Apollo Creeds of the Roman Baths and the multi-million-pound Spa.

The most amazing thing, though, is the fact that the missus has put up with me, my ceaseless egotism and my crackpot ideas for so long.

It could be love. In fact it probably is…

Out Of Site…

Myself, the boy and the missus are at home. We have a new broadband provider and we are keen to finalise the name of our domain which will provide us all with new email addresses. The discussion is not going well.

Then the missus hits on what she thinks is a winning suggestion…
‘How about @tintin.com?’
‘That’s rubbish,’ replies the boy.
‘But it’s comics and we all like some sort of comics.’
‘It’s not proper comics, though, it’s some weird Belgian thing.’
‘It’s only one of the most famous comics in the world.’
‘I’m not having an email address that had my name followed by some weird Belgian thing…’

Silence. So I make my first suggestion of the night.
‘How about @sexdwarf.com?’

The boy stares. The missus gives me that look which is half-bemused and half-what-the-hell-have-I-married before asking me to repeat my suggestion.
‘Say that again…’
‘How about @sexdwarf.com?’
‘Do you think it appropriate that a 16-year-old boy has an email address that has his name followed by @sexdwarf.com?’
‘But he might have a thing for dwarves and end up with several really short girlfriends. Then we’ll probably be doing him a favour…’

The missus stares. The boy is suppressing laughter. I continue, addressing the boy…
‘I mean, do you think you’ll have a thing about dwarves?’
‘It is funny…’

Great. I may have won this round.
‘…but it’s also clearly also the suggestion of an idiot.’

Bugger. Finally the missus has another suggestion.
‘How about @Iammarriedtoanidiot.com?’

Fortunately the boy intervenes.
‘But I’m not married to the idiot. You are…’

Thanks. I think. The debate goes on…

Sports News…

It’s been a week of sporting excellence at From Beer To Paternity Towers with the punchbag taking such a severe beating on Sunday that it split in half.

I’d like to pretend that this is down to the sheer power I can unleash when in the right mood, but more realistically it’s because I bought a cheap one and it’s had three years of wear and tear.

The real sporting highlight of the weekend, however, was the start of the BDO (British Darts Organisation) World Championship at Lakeside.

Bizarrely there are two world darts championships with the PDC (Professional Darts Council) event held a week before the Lakeside one and screened on Sky. But as FBTP Towers has a ban on all things Murdoch-owned we have to settle for the BDO event on the BBC, which is essentially inferior in darting quality as all the top payers in the world play in the other one.

It’s a bit like all the top actors in the world committing to one TV station and all the top am-dram actors starring on another. The difference in quality is that noticeable…

There are still joys to be had, though, at the BBC event with Ray Stubbs, a man who always looks like a rabbit caught in car headlights, and Bobby George, a sort of Donald Trump for blinged-up chavs, doing their best to make it all sound utterly gripping.

And there’s also the joy of the roving female reporter who talks to the protagonists in the players lounge. Her name escapes me but the poor girl is great entertainment value as she quizzes various players on how and why they lost.

A sample conversation yesterday went:

‘So why do you think you lost?’
‘I didn’t hit enough trebles twenties and I missed lot of doubles…’
‘Have you learnt anything from this defeat?’
‘Yes. I need to hit more trebles twenties and more doubles…’

You get the impression that interviewing darts players, who as a rule don’t have the most extensive vocabulary and breath-taking conversational skills in the world, wasn’t the first job on her list when she got hired as a BBC reporter. But she gamely plugs away and surely deserves some sort of medal for her efforts.

Also adding his own touch of idiocy is commentator Tony Green.

The PDC event has Sid Waddell, quite possibly the greatest commentator ever. At anything. Anywhere. In the world.

But if Waddell is the Sinatra of commentary then Tony Green is a poor man’s Vince Hill. And this wouldn’t be so bad if he didn’t spend most of his time trying to convince all and sundry that this is the ‘real’ world championships rather than the real world championship’s poorer cousin which by some fluke of contracting happens to have prime-time terrestrial TV.

Having written all this, though, myself and the missus will still be watching at any given opportunity. It really is that addictive.

And at least the behemoth and Fit Club star Andy Fordham (pictured above) is still in the event and he’s always good value.

Strong Stuff!

I watched the World's Strongest Man a few nights ago with the American muscleman Phil Phister (pictured above and pronounced 'fister') competing.

There's an event called Fingal's Fingers where the strongmen have to erect long cabers (the fingers) from a lying position and the commentator spent several minutes describing how 'Phister has an excellent technique for getting those fingers right up in the quickest time possible...' and how 'Phister gets those fingers up with such ease...'

I thought I’d died and gone to double entendre heaven!

Steve Reich…

My journey into the world of classical music continues apace with the discovery of modern classical composer Steve Reich.

As well as looking good in a baseball cap, which is a decent achievement for a young chap in my opinion so it is massively impressive for a man of 70, he has a highly addictive line in repetitively rhythmic, minimalist music with a bit of electronica thrown in.

My favourite piece of his so far is called Different Trains in which he takes a nostalgic look at the constant train journeys of his youth in Forties America then compares them to train journeys taken by other Jews around the same time in Nazi Europe. It’s part-autobiography and part-Holocaust memorial and it’s unnerving and moving stuff.

I’m also quite taken with Reich’s Music For 18 Musicians and I’m sure the rest of Phases, his retrospective five-disc CD collection, will grow on me in time.

Apart from listening to Reich, the new year also kicked off in fine style with me finishing a draft episode of a new and quite bleak sitcom. And I’m now working on a new radio sitcom so the new-year-more-writing resolution is holding good so far!

Crappy New Year…

Me, the boy and the missus went to visit one of my friends who’s moved outof the smoke for the sunny climes of St Albans today.

He and his wife have a three-year-old son who basically looks on me as an intellectual equal and today has christened me Uncle Poo instead of Uncle Paul.

Rather sadly I now know this will stick and it will now always be Uncle Poo.

Welcome to 2007. I hate *kids…

* I don't really.

Don Juan In Soho…

I like Patrick Marber. I liked him on various Steve Coogan and Chris Morris TV shows and I liked his first stage play, Dealer’s Choice. And even though I wasn’t a massive fan of Closer, his award-winning four-hander that later became a hit film, I could see that it was a well-written piece.

And Don Juan In Soho is a similarly well-crafted animal. Adapted from Moliere’s play it transports the infamous sexual libertine to contemporary London. Here he woos, seduces and marries a virginal and pure wife then dumps her once he’s had his wicked way.

Her non-too chuffed brothers then threaten revenge unless this creature of utter ego and passion can repent his ways and save himself. Magnificently, of course, Don Juan can’t do this because it would mean denying who and what he is so he ends up knifed dead in the street by the vengeful siblings.

Staged in the intimate Donmar, the play is well-acted and well-directed. Marber’s dialogue and humour are as sharp as ever and Rhys Ifans is eminently watchable in the title role as the man admired for his lust but also damned for it.

But for all its production excellence and strong cast the play isn’t a major piece of work. At its best it’s an admirable attempt at saying something important about living and experiencing life rather than watching it go by. At it’s worst it’s knob gags disguised as philosophy.

It’s still not a bad evening out, though.

Merry Xmas: Part Two…

The neighbour up the road continues to annoy the shit out of us and everyone else in the street with his constant boom-boom, house-shuddering music whenever he’s leaving or parking up his silver BMW. So today I decided to head outside and have a friendly word.

I was very reasonable and very calm as I asked him if he wouldn’t mind turning his music down. In response I got a load of mouth about him playing his music any ‘fucking volume’ he wanted to whenever he wanted to.

It got a bit heated from his point of view and it was very bizarre because I wasn’t in the slightest bit worried he would hit me. In fact part of me was actually hoping he’d take a pop so I could say I acted in self-defence. But he scuttled off into his flat, which he shares with his fellow BMW-owning, loud-music-playing, bad-wig-wearing partner, as quickly as his dented macho pride would allow.

I fully understand noise pollution is one of the prices of living in Central London but the man is clearly an ignorant twat of the first order and I will be having more words with him over the week. My plan is to wear him down with reasonabless. I’ll report back on this…

It was quite refreshing to know that Kensal Green, however, was not the only potentially dodgy neighbourhood in London this Yuletide because Walford is clearly another area with many troubles of its own.

The Christmas EastEnders saw the demise of E18 matriarch Pauline Fowler who died because:
i) she got a clump from her former daughter-in-law, then lesbian ex-daughter-in-law and now daughter-in-law-to-be-again Sonia
ii) she died of a broken heart after realising what a miserable old bag she’d become to her family and friends
iii) the actress Wendy Richard had had enough of them destroying the legacy of a once-great show and her once-believable character and decided to get out before it went further downhill

To say the Christmas EastEnders was the worst thing on TV would be an exaggeration. But probably not much of one. At all.

To see Bradley’s dad Max suddenly declare he really fancied his son’s former girlfriend Stacey Slater and always had done was writing of the worst kind. It was loads of exposition to explain why nobody had noticed it before and a purely convenient coupling aiming to grab ratings rather than make any real stab at proper character-based drama. The sort the show used to do when it was in its glory years.

You can almost hear the EE script conference:
‘We need a shocking affair…’
‘Sonia could be a lesbian.’
‘Done it.’
‘How about Max getting it on with his son’s ex-girlfriend?’
‘Brilliant. Hang on. Haven’t we done something like that before?’
‘Not recently but Corrie have.’
‘Did it go down well?’
‘Yes. Really well.’
‘Right then. We’ll nick it…’

The Max and Stacey affair, the death of Pauline, Minty and Garry dressing up, Devil child Ben (he who was laid next to and staring at a stuffed pig’s head during the aborted Beale wedding a few weeks before) and Phil’s new bird Stella, Billy and Honey…

A bit like my neighbour it was all hot air and noise with no reason or substance to motivate behaviour. Bring back Eldorado. All is forgiven…

Merry Xmas: Part One…

…James Brown is dead!

Well that was the news that greeted me after unwrapping a veritable mountain of presents from the missus. Highlights of these, in case you’re interested, were the complete Laurel and Hardy on DVD and tickets for Amy’s View by David Hare.

But the death of James Brown was announced as soon as I put Radio 4 on and it brought a smile to my face – not because the great man had died but because the radio announcer reported his death in a cut-glass, highly polished accent then went on to list the following tracks in the same accent:

‘He was famous for songs such as Papa’s Got A Brand New Bag and Sex Machine…’

The death of the Godfather of Soul reported in the most soul-less and non-funky accent on earth. What a tribute…

Maybe It’s Because I’m A Londoner…

I love a good book and any reading matter on my adopted home of London is always welcome as I familiarise myself with its history and quaint customs, such as racist cab drivers and miserable-as-fuck-shop-assistants.

My current tome is entitled London: Wicked City: A Thousand Years Of Prostitution And Vice by Fergus Linnane. I’m only just getting into this but already it’s throwing up wonderful script ideas because for large parts of its early history the Church actually controlled and profited from prostitution in the parts of London where it was permitted.

In the Middle Ages prostitutes were known as Winchester Geese because the Bishop of Winchester controlled and took taxes from the trade of prostitution in Southwark. My favourite snippet so far, though, is that one Middle Ages lady of the night went by the delightful soubriquet of Clara Clatterballack.

And this information came in very handy when the missus and myself were walking home last night discussing cycling.

‘It’s got cold. Maybe I need to buy some long cycling shorts. They look ridiculous but I bet they keep you warm.’
‘Or you could just cycle to work in your work clothes. Lots of people do.’
‘I don’t want to sit at work in my sweaty cycling gear.’
‘Maybe you just sweat more than is normal…’
‘I don’t sweat more than is normal. I just sweat when I exercise.’
‘But cycling is hardly exercise!’
‘I cycle 40 miles a week. That’s proper exercise!’
‘Not really…’
‘Sorry I forgot. You’re an expert on exercise!’
‘I’m just stating that it’s not really proper exercise and it shouldn’t make you sweat that much.’
‘Sod off Clatterballacks…’
‘What?’
‘Nothing… It’s French. It’s a term of endearment…’

I think I got away with it.

The Zen Of Cycling...

I was biking home the other night and I noticed how many people sped past me. I also noticed how many of these people were either much older or much fatter than me.

I was also in class recently and I noticed that even though I have attained quite a decent level and a decent belt at hapkido there are many people in the class who are both lower belts than me yet are much faster or quicker learners than me.

I was pondering these issues earlier today and realised these separate issues are actually the same issue and have the same twofold root.

i) I am not as competitive as I used to be. At one point I would have taken the overtaking cyclist as a personal affront to my manhood and charged past the perpetrator leaving them with nothing but the dust from my tyres while thinking something derogatory. It was the same with hapkido for a while.

ii) I enjoy hapkido far too much to actually do anything about my worries that people are better than me. In fact in terms of hapkido I enjoy the journey too much to worry about when I arrive at the destination. The same is generally true of cycling.

This could mean I have reached a point of understanding and possible spiritual maturity.

Now if I can only stop making knob jokes at any given opportunity…

New Labour – Old Corruption…

So Blair and the Labour government have stopped an SFO (Serious Fraud Office) investigation into an alleged bribe to Saudi officials paid by BAE Systems in order to secure a lucrative arms contract.

That would, of course, be the same BAE Systems who are massively subsidised by the UK taxpayer and the same BAE Systems who are part of an arms industry that is also massively subsidised by the UK taxpayer.

And that would be the same SFO whose investigation was also funded over two years by the UK taxpayer and the same SFO who had secured new and damaging information about what went on and who paid whom.

In short BAE were busted and Blair and chums saved their bacon by interfering with a due legal process.

Sadly the level of complicity between Labour and big business will not be a surprise to anyone who’s read any Mark Curtis or Nick Cohen, or to anyone who has watched or read Mark Thomas, or to those who have followed the work of groups such as Amnesty International or CAAT (Campaign Against the Arms Trade).

But even though I qualify on all the above points I must admit I am a little surprised at the blatant chutzpah and obvious political expediency of this decision, by the fact that they clearly don’t care if people add two and two and make a very reasonable four.

It is a startling demonstration of the arrogance of power – and it’s quite disgusting.

Fortunately the CAAT and Cornerhouse (a civil rights group) are legally challenging the decision to halt the SFO inquiry so there is still hope BAE will be properly exposed.

Whatever the outcome, though, Blair must go – and take his legacy of corruption, war and illegally empowering big business with him. This is corruption the end of the Major government would have been proud of...

Sex And the Chippy…

The boy is at school, the missus is busy putting together newly delivered furniture and I have just come out of the bath before going to work. I've checked myself out in the mirror sans bath and I think I’ve lost weight after several months of cycling so I walk into the living room to seek confirmation.

‘Do you want to see me naked?’ I ask confident that my newly toned body will impress the missus.
‘No. I’m building cabinets,’ she replies without even looking up.

Crestfallen is not a strong enough word for it…

Seasons Gratings!

My martial arts teacher is a woman named Tammy Parlour. Saboumnim Parlour, to give her proper title, runs the London branch of the Wol Ge Kwan Hapkido Academy where I train.

But when it comes to gradings she invites the founder of the academy, Master Gedo Chang, from the main school in Chicago to conduct events.

As he visits the UK three times a year I’ve been fortunate enough to grade under Master Chang and attend his seminars and without doubt he and Saboumnim Parlour are two of the best teachers I’ve studied under. Ever. Anywhere. At anything.

Master Chang also lectures on his visits and one of his favourite subjects is how ki exercise, which is a bit like tai chi, yoga and meditation all rolled into one, works.

To do this he uses a jar full of water which has dirt at the bottom and a lid on the top. Then at the start of the lecture he takes the clear jar, shakes it and disturbs the dirt which mixes with the water so nothing can be seen through it.

He then goes on to explain how the stresses of life can make the human mind a bit like the cloudy jar as it too is a thing that can possess utter clarity but too often it has everyday worries polluting it.

He then settles the jar at the side and begins demonstrating ki exercise techniques and explains how the combination of slow movements, regulated breathing and meditation helps settle the mind so it can metaphorically resettle the dirt at the bottom of the jar.

By the end of the lecture the dirt in the actual jar has generally settled back to the bottom and the water is clear again. It’s a wonderful illustration of a complex idea.

Anyway it was bearing this in mind that I signed the class Christmas card for Master Chang. In my head I meant to write ‘the dirty water in my jar is becoming much clearer, many thanks’.

But as it was following a very tiring lesson and there wasn’t much space on the card I cut some corners and ended up writing ‘my dirty jar is much clearer, many thanks’.

Sadly I wrote the word ‘jar’ like ‘jam’ so my philosophical message of thanks to the most respected man in the academy read ‘my dirty jam is much clearer, many thanks’.

There are times I should fire myself…

On Religion…

The thought of going to a ‘topical’ or ‘theme’ play usually makes me want to wretch. Actually that’s an understatement. Imagine how the average Daily Mail reader would react to a bukkake film featuring a Princess Diana lookalike and you have a better idea of how it makes me feel.

I’ve seen too many earnest plays exploring the whys and wherefores of murders, rapists, extremists and the like that are both glib in their examination and pat in their conclusions. David Hare and his verbatim theatre plays on topical subjects are one of the few exceptions to this because he’s an excellent writer and far too intelligent to come down on the easy side of the glib answer. But the rest of them? Urghh!

On Religion at Soho Theatre, however, is a timely play discussing religious fanaticism and faith that succeeds on every level.

Written by Mick Gordon, one-time associate director at the National, and philosophy professor AC Grayling it describes itself as a ‘theatre essay’. But don’t be put off. It’s academic meat in no way detracts from a thoroughly absorbing 90 minutes.

The play examines the whole issue of faith and religious idealism through a family of staunch anti-religion figurehead and university lecturer mother Grace, stoic Jewish dad Tony, one-time lawyer-turned-priest son Tom and his pregnant girlfriend Ruth. And it’s through the interaction of these four characters after a tragic death that discussions on faith and religion emerge and various arguments are wrestled with.

Gemma Jones brings intellectual muscle and conviction to the role of Grace, Elliot Levey is convincing as the son Tom who turns his back on defending the guilty to argue for a more understanding religion, and Priyanga Burford is superb as the girlfriend caught in the middle of the warring family.

For me the best performance was that of Pip Donaghy as the understanding and stoic father Tom, who acts as the touchstone of love and tolerance for the family. But it’s very much an ensemble piece where each works off the other in a beautifully orchestrated manner.

It’s a very human play about a very complex issue and it succeeds as a theoretical discussion, a highly wrought and emotional piece of drama and a cleverly directed play.

On Religion does what good theatre should do. It engages the brain and engages the emotions and it asks questions and avoids easy answers. It’s the best play in London this year (and probably next year too as it ends on the 6th of January 2007).

Worth £12.50 of anybody’s money.

Tornado News…

A tornado hit Kensal Green about five streets from FBTP Towers yesterday.

A few people were injured, several houses suffered millions of pounds worth of damage and gangs of roaming journalists and TV producers eager for news stories and footage had to go without their lattes and toasted ciabatta sandwiches for several hours as the high street was cordoned off.

‘It’s a disgrace,’ said one BBC cameraman. ‘I’ve covered genocide in Rwanda and even there we managed to rustle up a decent Mocca and falafel in pitta bread.’

In related news a typhoon also hit Croydon and wiped out four entire blocks. It caused £17 worth of damage.

Bag Lady...

From Beer To Paternity Towers has recently undergone some decorating and tidying up and this means the missus has had to clear some of her old shit out of the house. And, horror of horrors, this means she has had to rationalise her bag tree.

For the uninitiated the bag tree is a many-branched old coat stand that houses her myriad collection of shoulder bags, handbags and other-use bags (her term not mine). Before she set about rationalising this bizarre item I counted how many bags it was providing refuge for and the number was 46. I have seen department stores with fewer.

She did, however, send several for recycling and seemingly threw many more out and it suddenly became less of an obstacle to pass on the stairs. For about a week...

But then I noticed bags started turning up in other places (such as on the back of doors and on coat hooks elsewhere in the house). Take the episode of Star Trek with the Tribbles and turn the madly breeding little furball creatures into handbags and you have the right idea of what seemed to be happening in the house.

Myself and the boy are close to drowning in bags.

Fortunately help may be at hand as she has now bought two very expensive new bags so her need to fill up the house with cheaper versions may have been abated for a while.

Or it may just have reached an expensive new stage and me and the boy will soon be out on the street as our places are taken up by her two new chums from Mulberry…

Tracks…

The train home from London to Yorkshire,
Used to be exciting:
First time back from college,
Bringing the college girlfriend home,
Returning to see newborn babies
And finally back with my wife,
Though grandma preferred the college love
And told the wife so. She took it well.

But now it’s a chore,
A reminder of a past no longer mine.
Yet by some fluke of blood
I’m still related to them:
The gamblers, the never-left-towns,
The alcoholic brother
Overkeen to follow his father’s
Stumblings into the drunkard’s grave.

Little bruv, of course, has done well.
The slick sales patter
That talked a thousand knickers into surrender,
It’s now made him a wealthy contender.
Nice car, nice house, nice kids
When he could have hit the skids.
And now he even earns more than me.
The shit.

Of course, there was a time
I was close to my kin,
Keen as mustard to do the right thing.
Not so much now though...
Because like stops on a Tube
Distance happens in stages
And now I rarely call, haven’t written in ages.
We’re just too far apart on the tracks…