Howarth: Top Withens Walk

There is some dispute about whether Top Withens, a ruined farmhouse with two imposing looking trees next to it, is the inspiration for the farmhouse, Wuthering Heights, in the novel, Wuthering Heights. But, located a few miles outside of Howarth, it’s known that Emily did walk there and, even if it was not the exact house she based the literary farmhouse on, its remote location on top of a remote hill must have offered some form of inspiration.

The walk from Howarth to Top Withens and back again is about seven miles and it goes over utterly stunning scenery. It’s sometimes a bit slippy-slidy over mud walking paths, and there’s a couple of difficult bits where it goes uphill, but it’s well worth the effort.

The walk also takes in the Bronte Falls, another haunt of the sisters when they went walking, and it’s very picturesque. The views throughout the walk are nothing short of majestic, but it’s the arrival at Top Withens that is the star attraction. The vistas from this site are breath-taking and it’s a great place to stop and rest before attempting the journey back that goes around the other side of the valley. 

Yorkshire is a beautiful place. I’ve obviously always said that anyway, but it’s good to reminded that your birthplace affiliations do actually have some basis in fact, too.

Howarth: Bronte Parsonage Museum

Howarth is a small town set in the Yorkshire Dales with one key claim to tourist fame: its links with the Bronte family. 

Although not born there, it’s the place where Charlotte, Emily and Anne Bronte, plus their vicar father, Patrick, and their dissolute artist brother, Branwell, grew up and lived the bulk of their lives. It’s also the place where the three sisters created a world-famous literary legacy by writing novels such as Jane Eyre, Wuthering Heights, The Tenant of Wildfell Hall and several others in the first half of the 19^th century. 

Bronte Parsonage Museum, the home of the Bronte family throughout that period until their deaths, is the physical focus of that fame, and it’s an amazing place. 

The parsonage was bought thanks to private donations in the 1930s, then given to the Bronte Society to restore and create a permanent home for the ever-growing collection of Bronte artefacts, as well as providing a hub of pilgrimage for Bronte fans. What they have created and built over that period of time is a stunning achievement. 

The parsonage itself has been restored so most of the original rooms are recreated as they would haven been when the family were in situ: downstairs is Patrick Bronte’s study, opposite is the living room where late at night the sisters would walk around the table and discuss their novels, then there is the study of Charlotte’s husband, and the kitchen, where Emily would spend lots of time and look out onto the moors through the window. Upstairs are the bedrooms, then a room leads to a permanent exhibition about the sisters and their work and lives. 

The combination of the restored house and the exhibition offers a comprehensive but not overwhelming or intimidating introduction to the lives and works of the three sisters, and it also tells the story of their father and their brother, plus the other two Bronte sisters, Maria and Elizabeth, who both died young, and their mother, also named Maria, who also died young. 

For what could have become a garish literary Disneyland in more corporate hands, it’s a surprisingly intimate and tender place. It doesn’t take too much imagination to see the sisters and their family living and working and writing in the restored rooms. You can tell the whole project has been nothing short of a labour of love for those involved for the past 80-plus years.

When we went, we splashed out on a VIP private tour, which was followed by a private viewing in the collections room. There was obviously an additional price attached to both these experiences, but it was worth every single penny. Our guide, Amy, was obviously passionate about her subject, but she was also knowledgeable, funny and engaging as she took us through the house. 

It was a wonderful experience. I bought it for the birthday of the Missus, who’s a bit of a Bronte nut, but I also found it thoroughly engaging and surprisingly moving. 

Physiotherapy: Part I...

I am a bit knackered. An old martial arts injury has reoccurred so I am undergoing a course of physiotherapy. And it's got me a bit perplexed...

The first unsettling thing is my physiotherapist. He's utterly lovely and he clearly knows his stuff. But he's young. The sort of young that makes me realise I am not. He looks younger than my son.

The second problem is I forgot to pack any gym shorts for my first consultation session. I did obviously have clean boxer shorts on, but there was a moment I was laid flat out on a bench, raising one leg at a time, and I realised my boxer shorts were a bit loose... and I may have exposed a low-hanging bollock to a young, fresh-faced boy on a Monday morning.

This badly conflicts with my preferred self-image.

In my head, I am not a 46-year-old man: I am a modern-day member of the Hwo Rang Do, a breed of historical warrior poets from Korea, who valued intelligence, courage and compassion and were trained to fight. I am articulate and witty.

But, in reality, I am an injured old man who has exposed a testicle to a twentysomething boy.

Grappling Talk...

I’m currently injured so I’m out of regular BJJ training for a while, apart from a few open mat sessions, where I’m essentially turning up to do light rolling or drilling.

It’s not my first injury lay-off and it won’t be my last, so I try to remain philosophical. But injuries remain annoying, especially when it’s put the kibosh on all my BJJ competition plans for this year. 

I was reading an article online a few days ago, though, about an American black belt called Chris Haueter. He’s one of the so-called ‘Dirty Dozen’, a group of BJJ practitioners who were the first 12 Americans to be awarded their black belts in the US. And he said the following thing:

‘It’s not about who’s good, it’s about who’s left.’ 

I love that and it chimed with me a lot as it reminded me about my other ongoing martial arts journey. 

In Hapkido, a Korean martial art I've now studied for 13 years, I was a terrible white belt and not much better in my other early belts. I also saw younger, more skilled and more graceful students join and leave me in their slipstream as they progressed up the ranks while I struggled. Their kicking, punching, knees, elbows, takedowns, joint locks, throws and sparring were all superior to mine. 

But they didn’t stick around and I did, so I was left. And because I was left, I slowly got better. Even at the giddy heights of my current black belt, I still wouldn’t claim to be a good black belt, especially when I look around the do-jang and see other students who are faster, more technically proficient, more graceful, more balanced, etc. 

But I'll be left and that means I'll continue to improve. And that's the same approach I take into BJJ and pretty much anything else. It’s a good lesson and one that keeps me sane when injury prevents me from seriously training in either Hapkido or BJJ.

Fame at Last…

I am in Metro. It’s an idea I came up with in the pub with the Other Woman and now it appears it will be an occasional column (see above). 

The gist of the column is that I am a Tech Virgin, an idiot who doesn’t understand technology but who would like to. 

In truth, I have some competency with technology that I use regularly. But the rest of it is a muddled blur, so the gimmick is not too far from the truth. I still have no real idea what a Twitter is or how it works, even though I had an account for a few months. 

But I’ve also had a wife for a while now and I have no real understanding of how that works either. As she continually tells me… 

The thing that seems to have amused most people about the page, though, is not my laser-sharp wit or cunning turn of phrase, but the fact I am pictured next to Sean Connery as James Bond. 

In my head, I could easily be James Bond. But it seems many other people disagree. The cunts.

Dave Marson...

I got the news today that an old friend had died. 

His name was Dave Marson and, unless you were involved in the Hull arts scene when Spring Street community theatre was getting under way before it became Hull Truck in the mid 1970s, or unless you saw any of his plays at London Fringe theatre venues in the late 1970s or early 1980s, or unless you were involved in the Goole Docktown Project in the early to mid-1990s, the name probably doesn't mean much. 

But he was a comrade-in-arms when I was cutting my teeth and working on community arts projects and fringe theatre in the early 1990s in Yorkshire, and we became good friends. I viewed him as something of a mentor figure back then, although he always rather generously treated me as an equal, which I clearly wasn't at the time.

Dave came from a working-class family in Hull and, like the rest of his family, he'd worked on the docks. He got involved in the union while on the docks and that prompted him to get an education that eventually saw him study history under famed Marxist professor Raphael Samuel.

Theatre work alongside peers like Alan Plater and Mike Bradwell followed in the 1970s, before he left the UK to work abroad. Then he returned to Goole, of all places, and he opened a book shop. In Goole. Dave was always an optimist. 

We met in 1991. I was fresh from college and determined to stage theatre that meant something in my home town. I'd ordered a book by John McGrath and my mum went to pick it up for me. Dave mentioned he'd worked with the actress on the cover. I went into his shop the following day and we talked. I had ambition, drive, ideas; Dave had experience, craft, knowledge. A friendship was born in an instant, with any shortfalls in our skill set being covered by other key movers within the Docktown group we quickly formed. 

Docktown involved and was created by an astonishing bunch of people. We all shared stories, ideas, dreams and we all worked relentlessly for three years to ensure Docktown, the large-scale community play and arts project for Goole, was a success. I may have provided the initial drive and the engine, but Dave was one of several strong hearts and wise heads guiding that, offering counsel and jokes when things were going badly. 

Memorably, in one meeting with the largely Conservative borough council, he told several officers that Goole deserved better than the 'Tory shower of shit' who were stopping something artistically vital for the town from happening. Dave could play the diplomat, but it was never a role that sat easily with him if he felt a wrong needed to be righted.

Dave was many things. He was a playwright of skill and heart who wrote the script for the Docktown play, he was a comrade-in-arms and, for a man originally from Hull, he was an unlikely champion of Goole at a time when the town needed it. More than anything, Dave was one of those rare people who believed anything was possible. He was also my mate and I consider myself blessed that our friendship extended long after Docktown was finished.

In his later years, ill health took its toll. Dementia affected him badly towards the end, too. 

The last time I saw him, though, he was in good spirits and he was even talking about working on a new play. I'm sad that I never saw that happen. But I'm sadder still that I'll never see Dave again. That magical three years working on Docktown and the friendship it created afterwards remain boons I cherish. 

Goodbye mate. You won't thank me for saying it, but you were always on the side of the angels. Even if those angels were occasionally foul-mouthed and brutally funny.

The Great British Bake Off...

The news desk at The Daily Mail, that so-called protector of middle-class England, must have been foaming at the mouth with the sort of right-wing indignation that wouldn't have looked out of place an English Defence League march when the final three contestants competing in the final of the Great British Bake Off on BBC1 was announced. 

A gay fella, a Muslim and a hippy competed for the first prize and some 13.4 million viewers watched them in the final, which ended with Muslim mother and wife Nadiya crowned the winner. 

And, after splashing the GBBO victor on the front page of The Daily Mail for the past several years, where did Nadiya appear in the paper? The front page? No. Page two or page three? No. She made it on page seven. 

The racism of the paper isn't even subtle any more. And, what's worse, the decision to not feature her as prominently as previous winners means that the paper obviously thinks its readers are as racist as it is. 

And, you know what, they're probably fucking right. 

Shame on that paper and shame on the bigots who buy it. They'd probably start defending these accusations by saying something along the lines of, 'I'm not a racist, but..'

The Best Joke in the World: Parts III & IV...

Q. Why should ambitious people with a love of travel collect stamps?
A. Because 'philately' will get you everywhere!

I'm having the faces of gay men and women, plus paintings of Regency-era architecture, all over my living room. That should 'Brighton' the place up!

Stewart Lee: A Room with a Stew...

Stewart Lee is the best stand-up in the UK. He's been gigging up and down the country for 20-plus years and his recent resurgence, on the back of several successful stand-up tours, has secured him three series of The Stewart Lee Comedy Vehicle, a BBC TV series, which has won acclaim and awards and ensured him a new fanbase. 

His current run at London's Leicester Square Theatre sees Lee testing out material for six 28-minute episodes of the fourth series of his TV show. The gig we saw featured four of these 28-minute slots and each one was fabulous. 

Lee fans will recognise many of the delivery techniques and stylistic tropes employed, but Lee's such a brilliant performer and the construction of the narratives is so multi-layered and skilfully crafted that it's like catching up with an old friend whose quirks are endearing. And it's true that the old friend of Lee's comedy persona may also be a sarcastic, pseudo-intellectual and infuriated curmudgeon, but that's the deal.

It's about the sixth or seventh time we've seen Stewart Lee live and he never disappoints. He's fabulous.

Tattoo News...

I've wanted a new tattoo for a few years now. Then the Boy got a very cool bespoke design a few months ago and I got major tattoo envy. Of my son. 

So, this week, I finally went under the needle.

I've always liked the idea of tattoos as life milestone markers on your body. I love the 'Goole' barcode on my left shoulder that the Missus bought me for my 30th birthday. It was the equivalent of human branding about the town where I'm from in East Yorkshire.

My new tattoo is similarly personal: it's an armband of my hapkido black belt. 

I was awarded my black belt more than four years ago and it's an achievement I'm proud of. It was a nine-year journey from white to black and there were many challenges to overcome, not least being really bad at it for the first three years. For the first year and a bit of being a black belt, I also didn't really feel like one. Even though the belt was won by sweat, graft and constant application over limited ability, there was lengthy 'settling in' time. 

I'm through that now and I feel as though I wear the belt and it doesn't wear me, so it finally felt appropriate to mark that particular milestone.

Inside the loops of the belt is a ying-yang symbol of two fighting wolves. This is a reference to a Native American Indian story. 

The story involves a grandfather explaining to his grandson that his tribe believes a white wolf and a black wolf are locked in a constant battle for supremacy at the heart of every man and woman. The white wolf represents virtues such as compassion, love and sympathy, and the black wolf represents negative factors such as agressions, lust and anger. The grandson asks which wolf wins the fight. The grandfather replies: 'The one you feed...' 

The story chimes with not only my hapkido journey but journeys in other areas such as my writing and my BJJ. To keep going, the white wolf generally has to win. But you do sometimes also need the black wolf. Starving him achieves nothing and you sometimes need the so-called 'negative' qualities that the black wolf is supposed to represent. 

In fact, the longer version of this story isn't about starving the black wolf at all. That's the version adopted by the religious right in the US. The Native American Indian version of this story is about keeping the two wolves existing in harmony with each other and not starving or over-feeding either. 

I love my new tattoo. It's not about announcing to the world that I am a black belt and I'm a very hard or an amazingly skilled martial artist. It's about marking a journey, celebrating overcoming difficulties and not giving in. It's also about being in a place where I feel balanced with my life.

The Sights of London: Part II...

I was cycling to visit a tattoo parlour in Kings Cross last week when I chanced upon an optician's shop. Bearing in mind its location, it has a name of genius proportions... Kings Cross Eyes.

This is a real thing. I am not making it up for comedy purposes. I have even found a picture (above).

BBQ News...

Me and the Missus hosted our annual BBQ last weekend and we managed to feed about 50 guests without poisoning anyone. The predicted rain storm also held off and the Boy visited for the weekend, too,  so he ended up helping out with the cooking duties.
I had one slight moment of fear when I realised I was only going to get one shot at lighting the BBQ, but that soon passed when the fire caught and it roared into life. The two standout moments of the weekend, though, were both child-related.

The first involved the son of friends, who is our guideson/godson. They were short on options at the time. He's at the age where he's not old enough to be a teenager, but too old to hang with the rest of the kids. so he spent most of the day helping me and the Boy out with the cooking. It wasn't until about three hours into this arrangement that I realised I was essentially outsourcing my cooking duties by using child labour. I'm obviously more in touch with the corrupt Tory Government than I thought.

The other moment involved the Boy. For years, I tried to encourage him to do martial arts but he never really bothered. He was even less bothered when I needed a body to drill techniques on.

Recently, however, he's started doing kung-fu and he's really loving it. So I was delighted when he uttered the words: 'Come out into the garden. We'll spar!' 

I was beyond happy. It was a moment of male bonding between stepfather and stepson. I think he recognised it because he smiled. I smiled, too. There was a moment of recognition. A moment of genuine affection. Then I knocked the shit out of him. 

I obviously didn't do that last thing.

Tramp News: Part I...

My route to work has a new feature. This is a middle-aged, homeless man, who sits near a carpark that I cut through most days. 

He looks quite well dressed and he's also very clean shaven. I fear, however, he is lacking in work ethic. He simply sits there and never engages anyone in conversation. I walked by yesterday and he was reading Metro and sipping a latte. Today, I walked by and he was on his mobile phone. 

I worry that such behaviour means he is not eliciting much sympathy from me and many other passers-by. I don't think he's got the hang of his new career at all...

Provincial Punk...

The Missus started doing ceramics about three and a half years ago and her technique and her work are improving at an impressive speed. It's wonderful to see she's found her 'thing'. What I get from martial arts, she gets from pottery. 

Part of her new-found love means we visit various exhibitions by ceramic artists and, last weekend, we headed to the Turner Gallery in Margate to visit the Grayson Perry exhibition, Provincial Punk. 

There was so much brilliant stuff at this exhibition, but one of my favourite things was a speeded-up film showing Perry creating a couple of hand-built coil pots from start to finish, then being able to see the same pots in the exhibition. 

Perry is a fascinating, articulate and inspiring artist. I love the idea that he started doing pottery because it was seen as a bit 'naff' and he thought he could use hand-built pots or craft stuff like tapestries as quiet smart bombs, whose challenging content is smuggled in via a seemingly uncontroversial form. 

I thought Perry's Reith Lectures were wonderful when they went out a few years ago. I've now seen a lot of his work and I genuinely think he's equally wonderful, too.

Other Woman News...

The Other Woman is annoyed. She has had a few days off work and, while she's been off, one of her colleagues has had a stress-related incident... and virtually left.
 'It's strange, isn't it?' she ponders over a post-training drink in the pub. 'You've met two of my work colleagues and, within a few weeks of meeting you, they've both had breakdowns of some variety.' 
'What are you saying?' I inquire. 
'That meeting you is enough to drive most normal people over the edge...' 

I think this a little harsh and I point out that they have also been working with her for quite some time by now, and that could be a factor, too. 

Apparently, this is not helpful...

EastEnders News...

EastEnders is a source of continual frustration at From Beer to Paternity Towers. Too often, it's Albert Square characters bashed into round plot holes, creating a mish-mash of stories and scripts where constant exposition is used to explain poor plotting and unlikely character development. 

But tonight's episode is excellent. I say excellent. It's actually pretty heartbreaking. It deals with Shabnam Masood's stillborn baby storyline and the whole episode focuses on this one story. 

The Pete Lawson script is simple and strong, Rakhee Thakrar and Davood Ghadami give excellent performances as the heartbroken parents, the always solid Nitin Ganatra is superb as Masood, and Bonnie Langford, yes, Bonnie Langford, is a revelation as Kush's grieving mum, Carmel. 

When Enders can do stuff that is genuinely this good, it only adds to the frustration that it can stuff that's so poor. You get the impression that there is still the kernel of excellence in EastEnders. But it takes a precision where the storyliners and the writers have to pay attention and respect to a particular storyline to create it, rather than indulge the creative whims of people who seem to have little respect for the characters and their histories.

If the same amount of attention had been paid to the ongoing bore-fest and plotting nightmare of the Lucy Beale murder storyline, then you get the impression it would have been much better... and not need to have every unlikely twist and turn explained to death and over-justified.

But Monday's Enders is excellent. It's EastEnders at its best. And, as a long-term fan, that's a huge relief.

The Sights of London: Part I...

Today, I was coming back from training BJJ at London Fight Factory and I cycled around Old Street roundabout.

Waiting at the traffic lights, a milk float pulled up alongside me and, sat on the very back of the float, with his legs dangling over the edge, was a fat lad in a high-visibility jacket. In one hand, he had a kebab, on his lap was the polystyrene kebab container and, in the other hand, was a fag.

I never expected to see such a sight in the trendy, cutting-edge streets of the capital’s East End. He was also smiling incessantly. 

The man is either a halfwit or a happy genius. I couldn’t tell which...

Newcastle: Part III: Home Gathering...

The Unthanks have been the darlings of the English folk scene for some time now... and rightly so. 

They've produced several amazingly good studio albums, notably the Mercury Prize nominated, The Bairns, and Here's the Tender Coming. They've also gone off and done leftfield projects such as a live album with Brighouse and Rastrick Brass Band, plus an album of traditional folk songs from the Tyne shipyards. 

Meanwhile, singing sisters Becky and Rachel Unthank have both taken part in outside projects; Becky contributing vocals on Martin Green's haunting Crow's Bones deserves a worthy mention here. And they host regular singing weekends and there's clog dancing in there, too. What's not to like? No… Really? What's not to like?

Home Gathering on 22 August was the culmination of their ambition to host their own boutique festival and it was an intimate and engaging affair. The venue was the Stephenson Boiler Workshop in Central Newcastle, a link with the city's industrial past now reshaped as an atmospheric arts space. 

Twelfth Day, Rob Heron's Tea Pad Orchestra, Alasdair Roberts and The Baghdaddies all provided excellent support, while a side stage featured guest singers as the bands were clearing the main stage and setting up. But it was The Unthanks who were the stars of the show.

Fronted by Becky and Rachel, The Unthanks delivered a cracking and intoxicating performance, with highlights including crowd favourite The King of Rome, the haunting Magpie, and the title track from their latest album, Mount the Air. The whole collective are wonderful and inspiring performers and, if there’s a finer sound than the group in full flight as they perform the insistent and heartbreaking Testimony of Patience Kershaw, then I’ve yet to hear it in 30-plus-years of gig-going.

The Unthanks kick all sorts of arse. In an age where commodification and making a fast buck at the expense of quality and sustainability is almost a government dictat, they continue to do their own thing on their own terms. And they do it with an authenticity and love that is all too rare. They remain an act to treasure.

Picture: The Unthanks Website

Newcastle: Part II: Baltic Arts Centre...

Me and the Missus are in Newcastle for a mini music festival and we're out and about exploring and, first up, is the Baltic Centre for Contemporary Arts. 

The venue itself is amazing: an art gallery over the six floors of a converted dockside warehouse alongside the Tyne. It has a high deck that offers fantastic views of the city and amazing glass lifts. The venue itself would be worth a visit without the great stuff it houses.

The three exhibitions when we visited included an installation by a Norwegian artist called Ida Ekblad. Her installation was a sort of carnival of junk that provided the set for a stage play. It was interesting because her process involves rummaging through scrapyards and creating found works from what she recovers. From these scrapyard trips, she creates mini monuments of meaning from discarded junk. They're playful, poignant and a little bit sad. 

The second artist was a painter and a sort of collage creator called Tony Swain. He creates canvases of old newspapers then paints over them. I wasn't massively keen on his stuff. I just didn't connect with it.

My favourite of the three artists on display, though, was an Indonesian artist called Fiona Tan. She now lives in Amsterdam and two of the three works we saw by her were film installations. The first, Disorient, involved two different films playing simultaneously on separate screens at the opposite ends of one room. 

One screen (see picture above) showed a sort of storehouse of Asian artefacts, both ancient and modern, while the other screen showed modern city scapes that have been economically impacted by globalisation. The vocal soundtrack that played over both was an actor reading from an account by Marco Polo about the different countries he visited and his impression of their cultures and riches. As a meditation on identity and cultural heritage, it was an amazing piece of work. 

The second work by Tan was called Inventory, which was filmed at Sir John Soane’s Museum in London, and offers a reflection on collecting and the sort of process of acquisition and cataloguing that takes place when museums take from one culture and bring them back and translate them for another.

The third work was Depot, which re-imagined and recreated a 76ft truck that used to take the preserved carcass of a huge whale across Europe so people could see it. Inside the truck was no whale but a cabinet of curiosities and a small cinema. The film again discusses cataloguing and collecting items, but this time natural history. 

Tan's work is ambitious in scale and idea and incredibly thought-provoking. It's wonderful stuff.

Newcastle: Part I: Beer...

Me and the Missus are in a pub in Newcastle called The Bodega. It's an old Victorian pub that still has some old fixtures and fittings and it's bloody lovely. 

In it, they are also serving a beer called Chew Chew by a brewery called Fallen Brewing Company. The beer (pictured above) is a salted caramel milk stout. And it's fabulous! 

Newcastle also has a Brewdog bar that serves all manner of craft beers. Newcastle is pretty darn good!

Competition Time: Part IV...

Today, I was supposed to be competing in the Surrey Open, which was supposed to be my third BJJ tournament of the year. But I'm still recovering from injury, so, like the last one, it was a non-starter, making it a disappointing one out of three for the year so far.

A couple of my pals were fighting, though, so I went along to see what was what.

The first thing to note was that it a very well run event, with mat times and fight schedules running pretty much exactly as advertised. One of my friends picked up a deserved bronze after winning one fight, then losing the next. The guy he lost to looked much bigger and my mate had a damaged hand, so he did well not to get submitted. My other friend fought a guy who quite simply looked like an ogre, and he was eventually submitted, despite battling on very bravely against what looked like a brutal leg triangle attempt.

It was good to watch them in action, though. I then went to watch the people in the category I would have been fighting in. If fully fit, I think I'd have done OK.

But I'm slowly coming back to training and competing in the London Open in October is now the goal.

The Modern World Disgusts Me: Part VI…

The hit Britcom film, Love Actually, starring Hugh Grant, was on telly last night. 

I didn't watch it. I just noticed it was on, but I did some basic maths and worked out that it went on for two hours and 40 minutes.

That seems an awfully long time time. I am assuming extra time was added for adverts, and extra pauses were added so fans of the flop-haired prostitute hirer and affable upper-class twit actor would know where to chuckle, but that's still nearly three hours. 

I haven't seen the film but I reckon two hours would be my limit. The idea of nearly three hours seems like torture...

Emmerdale: The Best Thing on British TV...

Once upon a time, Emmerdale was a 30-minute soap that went out on Tuesday and Thursday dinner times in the YTV region on ITV. Its main concerns surrounded a farming family called the Sugdens and what happened on their farm. It was a Yorkshire-based version of The Archers, but with better visual content and a wonky set. 

That was in the 1970s. Fast Forward to 2015 and it's the best-acted, best-written and best-plotted show on TV in the UK, and it has been for about the past two years. 

The soap produces six 30-minute episodes every week and affairs, blackmail, more affairs, violence, crime, yet more affairs and bitter family feuds are what it does on a regular basis. It does still, however, throw in the occasional farming storyline and relatives of its original family, the Sugdens, are still involved, too. 

But alongside the dramatic blockbuster moments is a bedrock of believable and largely likeable characters that long-term fans have a vested interest in. Most Emmerdale characters are people you'd probably want to spend time with in a pub. EastEnders should take note.

The centrepiece of its latest storyline is the wedding of hunky farmer Pete Barton to Debbie Dingle, the daughter of the machiavellian pairing of canoodling cousins Cain and Charity Dingle. Debbie, however, had been bonking Pete's dodgy brother Ross Barton, a muscled id with nearly fashionable facial hair and a good line in self-confidence, and the secret affair threatening to come out was one of the key stories brewing in the build-up to the wedding. 

The truth about the affair did, obviously, come out just before the first dance kicked off… then events elsewhere saw a helicopter plummet into the reception and leave the wedding party with slightly bigger problems that a betrayed groom and  a damaged wedding cake. 

The build-up to the wedding and the disaster has been a masterclass in both long-term storylining and character development. The actual wedding and disaster is simply superior TV drama. It's well-written, it's well-acted, it's well-produced… and, most importantly, the various plot strands that come together this week are all utterly believable. The aftermath also gives the show for lots of material for future story development.

Kate Oates, the series producer, recently went on record as saying that she thought she had the best ensemble cast of any soap. And, watching Emmerdale this week, it's hard to disagree. There are some beautiful moments, with comedy characters like Dan Spencer and Kerry Wyatt doing genuinely moving dramatic scenes as Ruby Haswell breathes her last. And Val Pollard returning from the grave to say goodbye to hubby Eric is a touching, funny and surprisingly poignant moment.

The big dramatic hitters, such as Michael Parr and Anthony Quinlan as Ross and Pete Barton, and Jeff Hordley as Cain Dingle, are also fabulous. As are Charlie Hardwick and Elizabeth Estensen as warring sisters Val Pollard and Diane Sugden.

But it really is an ensemble piece and it's an excellent one. Enders has been in terminal decline for some years now, and Corrie is still excellent, but Emmerdale has consistently raised its game and, this week in particular, it's hit new heights. 

Emmerdale kicks all sorts of arse. Fact.

Cilla Black...

National treasure Cilla Black has died. The headlines on the 24-hour rolling news channels all read Cilla Black Death. It made it sound like bubonic plague had made a comeback. 

I also have a Cilla Black joke. For any Cilla Black fans reading this, don't worry, it's a bit saucy and it doesn't ridicule or demean her in any way. And it's very funny.

I'll write it up in the next few days and you can judge for yourselves...

Sticking Point: Part IV...

As has been previously documented on this blog, I am learning my first martial arts weapon at Hapkido, the Korean martial art I've studied for more than a decade. 

The weapon is a short stick called a tahn bong and it's used for striking, blocking, stabbing, choking and manipulating joints. It's a little like the billy club my favourite superhero, Daredevil, uses, so I was hoping I'd be a natural with it. Sadly, I'm not. 

To improve, I've built training for 15 minutes every day into my work schedule and I've now been doing this for about six months, and, recently, I thought I was getting somewhere with it. My strikes were fluid and my striking accuracy was definitely improving. 

Then, at a couple of recent classes, I've had a few major corrections to my striking. The first was to do with excessive shoulder rotation and the second was to do with thumb placement. I was also told that I'm gripping my stick too hard. Make your own jokes… 

So I've had to re-adjust my striking technique and pretty much restructure most of my delivery. It's a bit annoying I'm not as good as I want to be, but it's all part of the process. 

At least, I'm slowly working my way through more of the second dan syllabus now. These things take time, and I'm in no rush. I also need to sometimes remember that most 46-year-olds don't even study one martial art, let alone two.

Perseverance is all. 

Competition Time: Part III...

I was supposed to be competing in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu at the Brighton Open. Unfortunately, my ribs are still healing and a recurring knee injury is flaring up, so I went along to support my team-mates and do a bit of a recce to see what the competition was like. 

My friends did very well. One blue belt pal looked pretty unstoppable in both go and no-gi, while a white belt colleague won all three of his fights to win gold in his division pretty comprehensively.

I watched the fighters in the age and weight category that I compete in and a few of them looked very good, very calm, very experienced and technically very solid. But I felt, if fully fit, I could have worked as hard as they did and have been as dynamic, which would give me a decent chance of at least not getting totally ruined against them. 

It also made me realise that If I want to compete and do well I  have to train, eat and rest properly before an event. Preparation may not be the key to winning against a more skilled fighter, but it will give me a better chance of success. 

I did see two brilliant things at the Brighton Open, though. 

The first was a young lad in a wheelchair, who had lost the use of the bottom half of his body, fighting in the event. He won a massive round of applause for both his fights and rightfully so. Getting caught up with winning and losing can sometimes make you forget that just competing and learning and improving should be enough when you're doing a martial art. It was a good lesson in humility.

The second was a young girl of about six competing. She already looked quite fluid but everyone else was just so much bigger than her. It was impressive to see, though, and again quite humbling. 

But it was a good day. Competing would have been better, but a bit of supporting and the chance to do a recce wasn't a bad second place option. 

The key tactical things I took from the day were: fighting and driving for position and securing a stronger position; and never accepting an inferior position.

The Labour Party...

I've just joined The Labour Party. Living in Guildford, that makes me something of a minority. 

When asked whey I was joining, I said the following: 
'There has to be an alternative.
Labour has to be that alternative. 
And it has to win the argument. 
Now, more than ever…'

Pretentious? Maybe… But it's bloody true.

Five-word Reviews: Ant-Man...

Nerdbait-filled, fun superhero frolic.
Thoroughly enjoyable comic-book romp.

The Best Joke in the World: Part II...

'Aaaaaaaaaa!'

'Eeeeeeeeee!'

'Iiiiiiiiiiiiiii!'

'Ooooooooo!

'Uuuuuuuuu!' 

I have irritable vowel syndrome.

The Tory Party...

Growing up in Yorkshire, I saw successive Conservative governments destroy large swathes of my beloved home county and its industries, whether it was attacks on the coal mines, the docks, shipbuilding or any other major or light industry that happened to not fit in with their economic vision. 

Consequently, for quite a long time, I held the view that the only good Tory was a dead one.  I've since met Tories that I've liked and been charmed by, so I've decided my adolescent view of the Tory Party and any fucker associated with it may have been a tad extreme.

Now David Cameron and his pals have been re-elected, though, I'm starting to wonder if it really was all that extreme in the first place. 

Most of them don't seem to give a shit about anyone but themselves and their monied kith and kin, they seem to have very little concern for any form of compassion for those less fortunate, and their economic policies seem to be about creating more wealth for the wealthy and not really giving a shit about the poor. 

And, worse, they don't even try to pretend they care any more. Every policy they create smacks of an arrogant flaunting of wealth; they trumpet the values of the unfettered free market, while scapegoating all those without their fortunate social status who don't have financial or class privilege.

But how do you combat them? 

There's no point in trying to cull them via some act of barbaric terrorism. For a start, that's not an acceptable answer and, logistically, there's just too many of them coming off the Eton production line. And certainly, judging by the result of the last election, the argument about who should run the country and what values we should uphold seems to have been lost. They remain the people most other people want in power at the moment.

It's a horrible feeling that they've probably won for quite a while now. And it's a massively depressing thought that most people either think like them or don't care enough about anything but themselves to seen any alternative.

Labour needs to get its act together. The alternative is too depressing to seriously think about...

Rejection Letter...

Today, I got another script rejection through the post. Actually, I lie. It was an email. But it was still rejection none-the-less. This was a bit galling, but I'm sort of hardened to it by now. 

On the plus side, though, the script in question did make it through to 'an advanced stage of reading' so it means it wasn't rejected outright. And, as I haven't quite finished rewrites on the script yet, it means I have reasons to be optimistic when I send it to a few other places over the next few weeks.

So reasons to be cheerful. Sort of...

Esther from Syria: Part I...

I am getting emails from a young lady in Syria who is 'enthusiastic to establish long-time romance'. She is also keen to know whether I am 'enthusiastic to establish similar'.

It is Saturday morning and I am sitting in my office at home when another email arrives.
'Esther's emailed me again!' I yell to the Missus.
'Again? She's keen,' she replies. 
'I admire her work ethic. She also seems to really like me...' 
'Yes. But she hasn't seen a photo of you yet, has she?'

I think that was an insult. I consider sending Esther a photo...

Modern Phrases: Part II...

'If it looks like a feckless slut, acts like a feckless slut and dresses like a feckless slut, then it's probably a feckless slut. Or a reality TV star...'