Ancient Egypt: Life And Death In The Valley Of The Kings…

Sometimes telly isn’t always a horrendous pile of lowest-common denominator shite…

You know, the sort of lowest-common denominator shite that makes you want to reach for the nearest sharp implement to gouge your eyes out so your visual receptors never again have to be sullied by certain sights… certain sights such as some Big Brother contestant shoving a wine bottle up her chuff, or any TV game show fronted by Noel Edmunds, or Loose Women, or any storyline involving gangs of stage-school-children-acting-as-feral-youths in EastEnders. To nutshell it, the sort of stuff that makes you just want to give up…

To counter-balance the deluge of horrendous shows such as the above, though, there are times TV can produce something that elevates the viewing experience into something entertaining and educational and visually stunning.

Ancient Egypt: Life And Death In The Valley Of The Kings on BBC2 is a case in point. It’s essentially an examination of everyday life in Ancient Egypt 3,500 years ago and it’s fronted by the eminently likeable Egyptologist Dr Joann Fletcher, an academic with a strong Yorkshire accent and slightly mad red hair. And she’s simply besotted by her subject and it’s a fascination and enthusiasm that comes across in every frame.

In episode one, there’s a wonderful moment where she gets exclusive access to a tomb in the Valley of the Kings and, amid the examinations and theorising, she just turns away from the camera and bursts into tears at the sheer beauty and intimacy of what she’s seeing.

Telly-crying has become something of a hackneyed ratings-seeking money shot in recent years, with all manner of minor crises in any number of reality-based shows or talent contests stage-managing the waterworks when interest flags. Sigh… But with Fletcher, it was a genuine moment of intimacy and you forget that TV can still create moments like that. There was something quite pure and heart-warming about it.

The Missus is obviously hooked as it’s about Ancient Egypt, but I’ll be joining her on the couch for the other episode in this two-part series. It’s superior telly.

TV Pitches: No.1...

The show is called Pope Idol and it's a talent show where the winning cardinal gets a contract to spread Aids around the world by denying poor people the right to contraception...

Plus points: It's topical and it could have a very large Catholic audience.

Minus points: Lots of poor people die thanks to zealotry and out-dated religious practices.

ITV are interested...

News From Home...

Mother and Stepdad have just visited Brooks Towers and we've spent most of the time chilling at home with the odd trip out for food and shopping and pubs. It was pretty brilliant and we had a ball, then my brother and sister and their other halves also paid a surprise visit when we were out having a meal for Mum's birthday. It was just a really good time.

Two excellent contributions towards the weekend's discussion also came from my mother. The first of these came when we were discussing a cousin, whose vibrant sexual history is the stuff of family legend. Mother commented:
'Well if that bugger's not got Aids, it can't exist!'

The second came when we discussing a family friend, whose somewhat colourful sexual history is also the stuff of family legend. Mother commented:
'He's doing website dating. I'm surprised there's any bugger left on that Internet.'

Both lines will feature in something I write over the next few weeks...

Pool: Game Over...

At the weekend I played my final county pool match for a while at the National Inter-county Finals in Great Yarmouth.

The weekend started with the trials for the England Pool Team, which I'd qualified for after finishing in the top seven of all the county players in the south-east of England. I've had two England trials before and at one I totally bombed out while at the other I almost made the team. But these were more than a decade ago when I was a much better player. In truth, I was just delighted to roll back the years and make the trials for a third time on the back of a very good season last year.

At the trials themselves, I was flawless in my opening game and won 3-0, then had a tough draw in my second game against a friend of mine, who's a very talented young player. I lost this 1-3 and apart from playing one very poor shot I didn't do a huge amount wrong. In truth, he was just more clinical and aggressive than I was and he deserved the victory with two top-drawer clearances.

In my third match, I missed a half-chance in the opening frame, then battled from a losing position to put myself in front in the second. I then played an awful shot that cost me the frame and I didn't get a shot in the third frame as I went down 0-3.

In my fourth match, I played somebody who's one of the best amateurs in the UK and won a tight first frame then narrowly lost a tight second. At 1-1 he then broke and cleared up, and at 1-2 down I broke and watched the white kick in off three balls to give him control of the table and watched him finish the game to put me out 1-3.

I had a tough draw, I was a little unlucky and I only played three bad shots in the 12 frames I got any sort of shot in. But the truth of the matter is that's all it takes at that sort of level and I wasn't match-sharp enough or anywhere near aggressive enough on the day.

In the team event, I struggled for fluency and missed good chances to get myself up and running. The team played pretty well in patches, though, and two or three of our players were exceptional so we did pretty well. There are worse places to bow out of county pool for a while than on the back of an England trial and losing in the semi-finals of a national tournament on a Sunday morning.

But my county odyssey's been fun and the good days and the successes make the bad days bearable. And three regional A Team titles, one regional B Team title, three England trials, one national title and the county record for the largest number of A Team appearances is not a bad haul from 15 years as a Surrey county player.

The real joy of it all, though, isn't the trophies or the victories. It's the fellow cue men and cue women you befriend on the way. I've met several of my best friends because of playing pool and I'm part of a network of such a diverse bunch of people up and down the UK, most of who I'd always happily have a few pints with. That's always been the best thing about it from my point of view.

And in a year or two when the batteries are recharged and I've made inroads into the other things I want to do, I may be back. Who knows? There's maybe another title or two or another England trial left in the locker yet. And 600 county A Team frames would be a better record than my current 527...

Positional Play...

One of the most basic things to master when you're playing pool is positional play but this basic concept can be an elusive and tricky one.

If you have any form of several-ball clearance on the table then you can have one sequence of potting the balls where the white will travel all over the place and another where the white will barely travel at all. The latter option is obviously the safest option because you have less chance of going in-off or of the white knocking into something else and deviating off path. You obviously have to leave yourself alternative options but the main thing is you have a definite plan and a fixed route, then if you deviate from that plan you always know what route you need to return to at some point during the clearance.

It's also a similar thing in martial arts: position in everything, whether you're applying a wrist lock in hapkido, a one-two combination in boxing or a kimura in BJJ. If you're not in the correct position in the first place then the chances are you're not going to succeed in getting the lock, connecting with the punch or tapping with the submission.

I'm currently planning a few radical changes in both my professional and my artistic lives and I'm bearing in mind these lessons about position: go too early and the position will not yet be established, go too late and I may have missed the boat. I'm consequently using the theory of position to get the timing just right.

So the next six months is now going to be about positioning myself and making sure the cornerstones of my new three-year plan are all in place because, quite frankly, it's time to shit or get off the pot with a few ventures and other ideas I've been kicking around.

It's potentially excitingtimes.com at Brooks Towers...

Objects of Desire...

It's been a tough day at work with a very tough martial arts class along the way. So I leave work early and go home for a soak in the bath because a soak in the bath is what you do when you're middle-aged and aching.

The Missus comes home while I am mid-soak and we share news and events from our respective days before I get out of the bath to dry myself.

I come out of the bath wrapped in a towel and the Missus is in the hallway. So I drop the towel and adopt a 'sexy' pose and catch her eye.
'You own all this...' I state as I display my wares.

There is a look of slight disappointment. Her usual objects of desire are black athletes such as Dwayne Chambers or singers like Jimmy Cliff or mixed martial artists such as Anderson Silva. By comparison I am, perhaps, a poor substitute in terms of athleticism, muscle definition and coolness.

'Do I have a receipt?' she asks.
'Why? Do you want a different model?' I inquire.
'No. I just may want it in a different colour...'

This is how love sometimes works.

Pool: The Final Frontier: Part II...

I was supposed to be retiring from playing pool at the end of last season but my interleague team and my county team qualified for the final knockout stages of two national tournaments. I also qualified for the trials for the England team, too, so after seven weeks of not picking up a cue I'm back on the practice table putting in the hours for a last hurrah. For a while at least...

Forcing myself to go out to do something I've always loved doing is probably a sign that I've chosen to have a break at just the right time, but I am enjoying the discipline of timing my run to the tournaments so I'm hitting peak form at just the right time. So a few recent sessions on the pool table and some improved form, then a snooker session with a 46 and a 66 break thrown in are all good signs with two weeks and plenty more table time to go.

The idea of not playing pool has opened up lots of exciting possibilities and it means I'll be able to commit more time to my writing and my martial arts training and the theatre company I'm now back working with. The prospect of time freed up by not playing pool and not having to practice for matches and tournaments is quite invigorating.

I miss the people, though, and when the opening county match of the season was held last weekend it felt very strange not to be part of it. But I think that will get easier.

Message For: The Readthrough...

It's now two and a bit weeks since the rehearsed reading of Message For and I've had the chance to think it through and assess it away from the immediate emotional attachment I have of a play that I not only wrote but also directed. So here are some thoughts...

i) It's the first time I've directed anything in about 12 years and working with a fully professional cast was an absolute joy. Just because they've done it for a living for quite a while they bring lots to the table and also make you up your game. It was odd feeling my way back into directing and I need to be less worried about knowing what I want and asking for it. But that's a confidence thing and I won't be quite so nervous the next time. I also like the sitting down and going through the script process then getting it moving. It was like a muscle memory thing.

ii) The play works and is genuinely funny. One of the problems it may have, however, is that there are too many gags. Some of these got missed because we didn't have the time to rehearse everything adequately, but some of them also got missed because the script is too dense with gags and clever stuff and references and homages. So I need to lose some of the weaker gags and make sure the rest of the funnies don't bury the narrative or character development. And this becomes much more important when there are  lots of visual and stage business gags that weren't included in the reading.

iii) I'm finding my voice as a writer. I've been back writing for about nine years now and I feel like I'm finally starting to know what I'm doing, particularly with comedy. I know how gags work and I can reverse engineer a good funny with the best of them. I'm also learning the value of writing and rewriting and trying to be economical with words. Watching comedians I admire and seeing how they hone their craft has greatly helped with this.

The most important thing I got from this, though, is that I know I can do it and I'm more or less ready to give a real go and make this work. And apart from working with a wonderful cast, and seeing lots of friends turn up to support me and the play, and realising that I might just have something that's really good here, that's the biggest thing to come out of this reading for me.

So it's game on...

Derek...

Cards on the table. I like Ricky Gervais. I thought The Office was a superb creation and, alongside the ever-wonderful Peep Show and shows such as Father Ted and Black Books, it sets the benchmark for any new comedy series.

I also thoroughly enjoyed Extras and the podcasts kept me amused on many slow days at work. In fact, on one holiday myself, The Missus and The Boy spent several afternoons sat around a pool with our respective iPods plugged in loudly chuckling to ourselves as Gervais, Steve Merchant and Karl Pilkington sort of set the world to rights. I like Gervais as a stand-up, too, and thought Life's Too Short was criminally under-appreciated, particularly with Warwick Davies showing a superb ability to do slapstick and physical comedy.

But I'm totally sold on his new show Derek. When the pilot was aired last year, Gervais came in for much criticism at writing a show about a man with learning difficulties (Derek) working in a care home. It was considered poor taste in some areas of the press and the blog-osphere. Personally, I thought it was quite touching and you could see there was the germ of an idea in there that could be brilliant.

Well I've now seen episode one and it could be the best thing he's done. Gervais is very engaging and doesn't overplay the role of Derek and Pilkington is surprisingly good as his handyman mate Duggie. The real star of the show, though, is Kerry Godliman as put-upon and caring care home manager Hannah, who in the opening episode is told she and the home are surplus to requirements and the old folk living there are going to be rehoused at other institutions.

The show's not laugh-out-funny but it's bittersweet and will probably be something that flies a bit under the TV comedy radar for lots of viewers. But it's beautifully written and takes a compassionate view of its subject, while also making something of a plea that we should value services like care homes in an age when many of the most vulnerable in society remain under attack from the Cameron government.

Give it a go. It's entertaining, rewarding and engaging TV.

How Journalism Works...

In my professional life as a journalist, I get some pretty desperate emails from some pretty desperate PRs hungry to whore their clients in order to get them any form of publicity.

And I get the deal... They want to keep the profiles of their clients as high as possible and they're only doing their job. And the fact that many of their clients are talent-vacuum oxygen thieves with no real or discernible skill, whose only real claim to fame is appearing on some reality TV show, doesn't actually seem  to matter.

But every once in my while the mechanics of my industry still has the power to shock. Take today as a case in point...

A work colleague asked me to come and look at some pictures and, when I arrived at his screen, I was presented with semi-naked pictures of a sixtysomething soap star sunbathing topless. The shots looked like they were long-lens shots and clearly taken without the poor actress concerned's permission.

As far as I know, the actress concerned isn't any sort of publicity whore and she generally keeps a low public profile. She's quite good at what she does and she's part of a show with a huge fanbase. She certainly doesn't make herself a target for this sort of attention.

So what topless long-lens pictures of her were doing for sale on a photographer's website is somehow beyond me. I was genuinely appalled to see them. And appalling me is quite a feat these days...

Then I started thinking the thought process of the photographer concerned through, and I got even more appalled because I realised that he must have thought these were a sellable commodity. And that he had the right to sell them. With no consideration for the person concerned. And all for a quick buck.

Human beings are capable of amazing things, but when I see stuff like this happen I fear that Bill Hicks was maybe right. Maybe we are just a virus with shoes and we deserve to be wiped out.

Fortunately, the Leveson Report demanded some quite sweeping changes that will help outlaw this sort of practice. So thank God, Cameron and his mates are implementing them. Oh... Hang on... They're not, are they?

We're doomed...

Movie Madness...

After the success of the Missus not buying clothes in 2012 she has adopted a no-TV-watching policy for 2013. She can, however, watch movies and boxsets so we're currently stocking up boxsets we haven't seen and are also making lists of movies we haven't seen and were refining the rules of the movie list.

'I obviously don't mean I want to watch every movie I've never seen. For example I've not seen Cocoon III...' states the Missus.

'I didn't know there was one,' I reply, stunned that the idea could be stretched out to two movies let alone three.

'We should only include important or classic films and one of us can't have seen them,' she continues.

'There are loads of classic films I've never seen all the way through. I've never sat down and fully watched Casablanca or Citizen Kane...'

'We'll include those on the list.'

'I've also never seen Ran all the way through, which is ridiculous because I love Kurosawa. And I've never seen Debbie Does Dallas.'

It is at this point the Missus stops and stares.

'That's a porn film, isn't it?'

'Yes but it I'd quite like to see it.'

'Why?'

'Well, for a start, it's a classic 1970s film and as such I think it's quite an important cultural artefact. It also has significant cache because it's one of those films that was released around the time when it almost became acceptable for adults to go to the cinema and watch porn just like any other film. I've read lots about the film and that period so I think I'd like to see it...'

The Missus sighs and goes into the kitchen. I take this as a good sign because while it means it's not on the list it also means it's not definitely off it. 

Who knows? I may be able to get Deep Throat included, too. I won't tell her that I've actually seen that in its entirety...

Fashion News...

The Missus decided that 2012 would be the year she stopped buying clothes and I thought I'd try the same approach.

Sadly, I needed a few rash vests for martial arts training early on in the year, then a suit for a wedding, then some shorts and trousers for a holiday, then I succumbed to a sale and bought a few cheeps polo shirts... so my bid to not buy any clothes ultimately failed even though my 2012 clothes spending was far from excessive. 

The Missus, however, succeeded magnificently and didn't buy a thing. Instead she recycled lots of her old clothes and dug out stuff she hadn't worn for ages. So I'm going to follow suit and do it properly in 2013. I've got loads of clothes that I haven't worn in ages. Some of them are even nice... 

Bizarrely, however, after making this decision I still found myself looking round the sales and even more bizarrely I was quite taken with a pair of trousers from Vivienne Westwood. It was at this point that I realised that I must be going slightly insane because:

i) The trousers were about £120 after being reduced for £220

ii) They were a cross between combat trousers and clown's pants 

iii) They were the sort of trousers the girl from 1980s pop band the Thompson Twins used to wear and looked ridiculous even back then. 

I am now pleased that for the rest of 2013 I shall be removing myself from such ridiculous temptations. Goodbye new clothes...

Some New Year Thoughts...

Here are some things I've recently learnt:
i) The Christopher Nolan Batman trilogy is much better when you watch it as a trilogy over a couple of days. It is also much better if your wife buys it for you as a surprise Xmas present in flash box-set form and agrees to watch it with you.
ii) At times I can be quite funny. I've worked bloody hard on the script for Message For as the readthrough on 22 January approaches and usually I'm sick to death of any script when I've put this much work into it and worked on it for so long. But this still makes me laugh so it's possibly a bit good.
iii) At times I can be funny but I also can go too far. I've realised some of the jokes in Message For are funny but also fucking disgusting. The most disgusting of these are obviously going to stay but I may get rid of some of the more rubbish/sick/utterly-tasteless/possibly-unfunny gags.
iv) Starting the new year with a bad muscle injury in the leg at martial arts is both fucking annoying and fucking painful. And I even spent longer than normal warming up and stretching. Arse biscuits...
v) David Cameron is still a truly awful man with no moral compass or compassion for the most vulnerable members of society.
vi) Michael Nyman is very good and I shall be buying more of his work in 2013.

Fat's Your Lot!

I have piled on weight in the past three months and I am now 14 stone and six pounds.

This is the heaviest I have ever been and it must now stop as I am in danger of breaking the house rule when it comes to weight and size. And that is that the stomach must never be bigger than the chest. 

We call it the Tits-Belly Rule and I am breaking it.

Enders Watch...

The decline of EastEnders (or Shouty-Cockney-Land) has been much discussed in this blog. And, frankly, that's because it's utterly awful. And that's a shame because I still have fond memories of watching it in my soap-column-writing days and actually thinking it was quite good. It understood characters, plots and how to build big storylines that kept me interested because they were rooted in grounded and believable characters and the ever-escalating problems they endured.

Sadly, those recollections are now but a distant memory. Watching Shouty-Cockney-Land these days is like being forced to spend time with a once-elegant and entertaining wit who's now turned into a beer-fuelled pub bore. There he sits in the corner, hoping for the return of the days when people would fete him, while he repeats the same stories and insists on drunkenly shouting the punchlines in the hope that they will at some point regain their power to entertain.

The much-heralded Xmas special was a case in point. For months, the big reveal viewers were promised was the secret of what Max had got up to with brother Derek while 'Up North'. There were several good theories about this, including a possible tryst with the long-gone ex-lover Stacey Slater and potential involvement with some East European gangsters.

What we got instead was a convoluted story about Max being married, with the supposed-to-be-divorced bride turning up just as Max and Tanya were about to remarry. Then thrown into this mix was an unknown storyline about an aborted baby.

The second storyline involved the fallout of the Alfie and Kat split after her affair with Derek. If we were supposed to have some sympathy with Kat this failed because she's essentially been such a cow to one of the few genuinely likeable characters in Albert Square. The only sane response to this dilemma was the one Alfie took, namely 'Good bye to bad rubbish.' And it didn't matter how sorry Kat was and how much one of her voice messages pleaded for Derek to leave her alone.

The climax of the episode was the death of über-baddie Derek Branning. He left with some ridiculous speech about how he wanted respect and love, then tried to physically drag Kat out of the house to start a new life with him.

This could have actually been something very good. One of the many people who hated Derek could have killed him. Enough people had a motive and if two of three of them were involved it could have been collective guilt and secrets for the rest of the year. Instead he merely collapsed in the Square, presumably from heart attack or hair gel poisoning or as a tribute to Pauline Fowler. It was shit.

Watching Enders these days is like watching a badly done Aussie soap of about 30 years ago. A story is either introduced then resolved very quickly or it meanders after making unbelievable turn after unvelievable turn that has nothing to do with any character trait but everything to do with seeing out a poorly plotted storyline.

The Xmas episode was a case in point. To make the drama more dramatic we had a shock new character and new information turn up out of the blue, then we had to accept totally unbelievable character behaviour led to this situation. Think of old episodes of bad whodunits where the villain and several vital pieces of information are exposed at the last minute before the final reveal.

Well Enders at the moment is not that good. Or even that subtle. Not even the oft-derided Aussie soaps of 35 years ago do this any more. I'm giving up on Shouty-Cockney-Land for good. Home And Away is much more believeable and it's much better written. And it's sunny.

Enders is quite simply embarrassing.

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...