Jamie’s...

It's Notting Hill Carnival weekend so that means just one thing at From Beer To Paternity Towers... me and the Missus are getting the fuck out of town so we don't have to put up with thousands of tourists parading down our street screeching whistles and acting like they've just had their first pint and it's made them very pissed.

So we had a few days in Brighton and while we were there we went to Jamie Oliver's restaurant in Brighton which is called Jamie's.

I must confess that I have been through several stages with the mockney chef geezer. I quite liked him when he first arrived on the telly chef scene as he was very much part of that whole cool Britannia thing. And he was chatty and chirpy and it even encouraged an idiot like me to try cooking dishes I'd never thought about.

But within a year or so he was absolutely bloody everywhere. His books took up entire aisles in bookshops, he seemed like he was on several telly channels all at once, he was advertising this and promoting that...

In fact being Jamie Oliver or one of his beautiful friends who got invited round to sample his food seemed like the lifestyle dream everyone wanted... thus making anyone who couldn't aspire to that feel a bit shit and a bit useless. And as one of the shit and useless who wasn't beautiful I went off him pretty rapidly.

But then he came back with his frankly brilliant 15 show, then his School Dinners show, then his Ministry Of Food show, and rather than Jamie the brand you started to see Jamie the chef who actually cared and wanted to make a difference (as well as a few quid) and I was back in love with him.

So it was with mixed feelings that I ventured into one of his chain restaurants with the Missus when we went to Brighton but I'm pleased to report the place, the service and the food was bloody brilliant. And it wasn't massively expensive and they serve a great Bloody Mary.

And, even better, the Missus loved it so that's an easy birthday or Xmas present sorted out.

On the negative side, though, Brighton does still have a gay sex shop called Prowler. I reckon that's terrible branding. They may as well just call it Rapist and have done.

Brazilian Jiu-jitsu: Basic Techniques...

Fabio Gurgel's book offers a simple-to-understand and easy-to-read introduction to the world of Brazilian Jiu-jitsu.

It mainly covers basic techniques and it's no-nonsense in its approach while the photos are clear and the information concise. Even better it assumes the reader has no knowledge or experience in ground-fighting or grappling.

A user-friendly read which makes a complex subject easy to understand.

Dead End...

I've just spotted this story in the Goole Chronicle, the local paper from my home town of Goole.

This is, of course, the paper that also reported other such gems as the mobility scooter pensioner who robbed the local post office, the man who was spotted having sex with a horse by a train full of schoolchildren, and the adulterous Muslim doctor who prayed to Mecca before he had sex with his love rat patient.

'A former Goole resident's dying wish was to have 'I would rather be in Goole' engraved on his tombstone in a Somerset cemetery.

Kenneth Richardson was born in Goole but moved to Banwell in North Somerset more than 30 years ago.

He died aged 78 in February this year and after his death his solicitor revealed the strange request in his will to surprised members of the Banwell parish council prior to his burial.

Acting on his behalf, solicitor Jenny Brading, of Powells Solicitors, sent a letter to the council which said: "'He was born in Goole and his place of birth remained of great importance to him. His will was supported by a letter of wishes in which he stated that he wished to be buried in Banwell and for his tombstone to be engraved with the epitaph."

At a recent meeting councillors in Banwell granted Mr Richardson's last request, providing the word 'Frankly' preceded it.

The clerk to the council - who is also called Ken Richardson - explained that the council originally rejected the first request because they thought the phrase would offend some people. They made the suggestion to add the word 'Frankly' as they believed that this phrase was 'less offensive'.

Kenneth Richardson, who had no close family, left his entire estate to Save the Children and the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children.'

I'm liking this...

Results...

The Boy got his A Level results this week and he did well so he is off to the university of his choice to study film and tv production at the end of September.

We're obviously delighted for him and we've spoilt him rotten since he got his grades. I also think he's really looking forward to the new life, the new environment and the new challenges that lie ahead – and, more importantly, studying something he loves doing for three years.

The Missus, however, is starting to realise her little boy (who is in reality an 18-year-old young man who stands at 6ft and towers above her) will be leaving home and it will just be me and her.

I think she's quite worried by this. I sometimes catch her staring at me with a look that exudes both love and desperation. I imagine it is how serial killers look at their prey before the knife goes in. But I could be wrong...

Sex Machine...

It's official. Women find me irresistible. I am eye candy...

After last week's bumper week of a woman chatting me up in a karaoke bar and another one giving me the wink in Pret A Manger I have now had a third woman giving me the eye.

This happened yesterday when I was outside in our front garden pruning our rose Steven. Steven is a very hardy rose and got his name as he's had all manner of mishaps but has still survived. Hence the nickname Steven as in Steven Seagal as in Steven Seagal of Hard To Kill fame.

Anyway, I was in the front garden pruning Steven and a very attractive jogger jogged past, slowed down, gave me a lovely smile then jogged on. So I did what any red-blooded man would do... I ran in the house scared and reported it to the Missus.
'It's happened again...'
'What?'
'Another woman has given me the eye!'
'Where?'
'Outside... I was pruning Steven and I got a smile... from a jogger... a female jogger...'
'Do stop going on...'
'The sideburns have to go. They are making me irresistible to women. I'm a danger to myself...'
'What were you doing? Were you talking to yourself?'
'No...'
'Where you singing to yourself?
'I might have been...'
'And did she say anything?'
'No... I was singing and I looked up and she sort of smiled...'
'Then she ran away?'
'It didn't happen like that...'
'But she ran away?'
'You think I'm care in the community, don't you?'
'Trust me... They'd never classify you as care in the community...'

Fatal Attraction...

I have never been chatted up by a woman before. Not ever...

In fact the only person who has ever chatted me up before was a gay Chinese antiques dealer called Billy who made his move when I was naked and getting dried after going swimming one dinnertime. At the time I thought he was being friendly when he was standing close to me also naked and getting dried and asking me if I worked out and what sort of bars I went to and if I fancied a drink.

My girlfriend at the time thought it hilarious when I told her I'd made a new friend and pointed out the glaringly obvious thing that I'd missed...

So I was equally stunned when myself and several of my pool-playing colleagues went out in Brighton after a county poool match and a very attractive woman came up to me and started talking and asking me about myself and started what I can only describe as stroking me and being generally affectionate...

So we talked for a while as my colleagues, who'd been trying to crack onto her and her friend, watched my embarrassed and half-witted attempts to play it cool. And when I realised we were officially nearing pre-mating ritual land I managed to slip my parental and marital status into the conversation. She then told she'd got married four weeks ago and was out with her mum and her sister celebrating – because her son and his girlfriend had just had a son.

So the demagraphic of people who find me attractive is gay Chinese men and grandmothers. It's official. I am eye candy...

Exquisite Bodies...

'In the 19th century, despite the best efforts of body snatchers, the demand from medical schools for fresh cadavers far outstripped the supply. One solution to this gruesome problem came in the form of lifelike wax models. These models often took the form of alluring female figures that could be stripped and split into different sections. Other models were more macabre, showing the body ravaged by "social diseases" such as venereal disease, tuberculosis and alcohol and drug addiction...'

I'm a big fan of the Wellcome Collection and its latest exhibition, Exquisite Bodies, which runs until 18 October, is yet another small but perfectly formed gem hidden among the vast treasures of the capital's much grander museums and much better publicised gallery spaces.

Although it's not a massive event it manages to be gruesome, fascinating and educational all at the same time and, even better from a personal perspective, the story of the Victorian gallery owners who displayed this work but were closed down because some of it was considered obscene could well be the kernel of an idea for a new play about the Victorians and their attitude to sex.

Also running alongside Exquisite Bodies is Diary Drawings: Mental Illness And Me, an exhibition of some 159 drawings by artist Bobby Baker, which chronicle her descent into and subsequent efforts to deal with mental health problems. It sounds quite grim but it manages to be accessible, uplifting and funny.

Both these exhibitions are well worth a look and entry is free to both.

Burns Night...

I am laid in bed with the Missus and she is admiring my sideburns so I seek to reassure her that I will be keeping them for some time yet.
'It's fine. I haven't got bored with them yet. In fact I quite like them.'
'They suit you.'
'I think so too...'
'They frame your face and make it look less severe...'
'I don't have a severe face...'
'You do. You have a face of extremes...'
'What exactly does that mean?'
'Well... you have a tiny mouth and a massive nose and totally crapped eyes but the sideburns frame it all and make it look more... normal.'
'You really do view me very much as a work in progress, don't you?'
'Yes. And you're not anywhere near finished yet...'

I give her a hard stare to show my disaproval. But it's not a severe one...

My Missus The Ninja...

It's a standing joke at From Beer To Paternity Towers that even though I am the martial artist and the boxer, the Missus remains the most dangerous member of the family...

Recently she has also developed Ninja-like skills of instigating then ignoring an argument and letting it drop before I even know what's going on. This has become known as one of her Ninja arguments because I don't know where they come from or how they mysteriously manage to vanish and leave no trace but they do exist.

A case in point was our recent trip to the cinema to see The Hangover. We arrive a few minutes before the film is due to start and I am stood in the queue for popcorn and drinks while she returns from the loo.

So I am quite happily waiting when she appears at my side with the following question.
'Why have you not got drinks and popcorn from the self-service kiosk?'
'Because I can get them here and they'll do it for me...'
'But there's a queue and it will save us time.'
'It will save us about 30 seconds...'
'I'm only trying to help...'
'Well you're not – and don't always assume that just because I choose to do something one way that your way is automatically better.'

This all seemed innocent enough but two sentences later I am on the receiving end of a barage that accuses me of drinking any drink we get to eat in the cinema, eating all the popcorn we get to eat in the cinema and of engineering the argument in the first place so I could fulfil my secret wish to buy nachos which she hates as she has to listen to me eat them. Then to top it all off I've apparently got the arse with her!

Then 30 seconds later it's all gone and for all intents and purposes her outburst could never have happened. But I know the Ninja argument crept in, did its damage then left again. And behind her contented eyes is the look of a stone-cold killer with shuriken in one hand and a katana in the other...

Gilbert And George...

The Missus took me to see the latest Gilbert and George exhibition Jackfreak.

It's on at two venues, one is the achingly fashionable White Cube in the equally achingly fashionable Hoxton and the other is a gallery in Mason's Yard just off Piccadilly Circus.

The shows are essentially Gilbert and George's take on ideas of English identity, which in their eyes are bound up with ideas of religion and sporting achievement and warfare and even a bit of nosey neighbour paranoia. The pieces themselves are huge and each rectangular picture is comprised of framed square panels which when combined with their use of illuminated colours make it look a bit like a stained glass window.

And that's quite apt because some of this work borrows iconography from religion and uses it to playfully examine ideas of religion in national identity.

It may sound dull and academic but it's not. Gilbert and George are very funny and quite happily take the piss while respectfully making relevant points on all manner of subjects through their art.

Although the Missus is a long-time fan it was my first time at a Gilbert and George exhibition and I found the scale of their work impressive. But, more importantly, it was funny and accessible. Well worth a look...

Lights, Camera...

The Boy is making his first proper short film as a writer and director and I've been roped in to co-ordinate the fight scene.

It is 11 years since I have directed anything and now I have a couple of recent drama school graduates to put through their paces and block in a fight scene I plotted out with the Boy the night before.

Several of the Boy's friends have also been drafted in as film crew members so I have the double pressure of not making a tit of myself in front of them and embarassing him and, more importantly, remembering how to break down an action sequence into its component parts then put it together so it functions as a coherent whole.

And to put it frankly I am bricking myself.

Surprisingly, though, it actually goes OK and I remember that I can actually still do this, expecially when the two guys involved turn out to be really up for it. It almost makes me nostalgic for the life of play directing and producing I was once part of instead of the somewhat lonely path of writing I have now embarked on.

Once I've done my bit I fade into the background and watch the Boy do his stuff. He works well with the actors and he knows what he is doing and what he wants.

But then I remember he is now no longer the Boy. He is 18 and hungry to achieve and he has that confidence of youth where absolutely anything is possible.

I watch him work and although the child is still very much there he's also a grown-up and all sorts of worries and worst-case-scenario anxieties about him heading off to university fade away.

I now know he'll be OK when he leaves home in a few months to study film production, both on the course and off it. He's gonna be just fine...

Happiness...

I look in the mirror
Big nose, thick specs
And now
sporting sideburns.

In looks at least
I am
every inch
my father’s child.

I remember
when he looked
pretty much
like I do now.

I have an image of him,
still on the docks
and playing football,
though not semi-pro any more.

I often wonder
did he ever regret
not taking the chance
to play the game he loved as a pro?

Was he really
happy enough
with a marriage
and us?

I smile and realise
That I am now
the same age
as he was then.

And rather
than just accepting
this happiness
I feel my ambition kicking in.

But maybe he knew that
failing at something you want
is more painful than succeeding
at the less you accept.

True Romance...

Me and the Missus are relaxing at home. She is talking:
'You're an utter lunatic and you can be a real spastic... but I do quite like you at times.'

After 12 and a half years together she is finally mellowing towards me.

Who says romance is dead?

Black Belt...

I passed my last grading for my red belt, black stripe last year and it's taken me a good six months to revisit all my old techniques and reach a decent enough standard to enable me to start learning new techniques for my black belt grading (expected some time in late 2010).

There are 20 black belt techniques to learn in all, which then combine with the other 90-odd techniques that I've learnt for all my previous belts, plus the 10 forms and all the hand strikes and kicks and knees and elbow strikes and special hand techniques and punching combinations and board breaking and sparring...

If I think about it to much it can all seem quite a long way off and quite daunting. But then I remember I can actually do some of this stuff and some of it I'm even quite good at. And the stuff I'm less good at I need to tackle like I tackle everything else: dismantle it, understand it, repeat it and learnt it.

I did this with my hand strikes at the start of last year. They weren't good enough so I went off to box and I'm now quite confident, sometimes over-confident, when it comes to using my hands. And that's because I dismantled it, understood it, repeated it and learnt it.

I'm now doing a similar thing with my kicking on my weak left side. I've added a sidekick drill to my weekly routine and soon I'll add a roundhouse kick drill to that. Then I'll do the same with my forms and anything else I'm weak on.

I finally feel like I'm seeing faint glimmers of light at the end of the tunnel on this black belt lark and I'm starting to feel like I'm going to get it rather than hoping I may get it.

Application beats talent every time. I need to remember that – in hapkido and in many other things...

Not OK!

I've just chanced upon a copy of celeb-trash magazine OK! For those who have not had the pleasure of OK! it's like a poor man's Hello! which obviously makes it very poor indeed.

But what do you expect. It's published by Richard Desmond, the same bloke who publishes the now lamentably awful Daily Express and the shockingly poor Daily Star and who also owns a veritable gamut of porn channels such as Red Hot 40+ Wives and Red Hot All Girl.

So essentially we know it can only be barrel-scrapingly awful. So barrel-scrapingly awful in fact that if I ate nothing but prunes and dried fruit for a week then sprayed the contents of my arse over an empty sheet of newsprint it would probably look better and be a more interesting read than OK!

But today's copy of OK! reached a new low in bad taste. Under the banner headline 'World Exclusive: The Last Picture' was a half-page shot of the dying Michael Jackson with an oxygen mask attached to his face obviously breathing his last. Then on the side of the page the masthead read 'OK! With all out love and prayers. The official tribute issue. Michael Jackson. In loving memory.'

Now I have little interest in defending the alleged multi-kiddy-fiddling pop star but for once I actually felt sorry for him. His life was a bizarre circus and now, thanks to OK!, his fans can see him breathing his last on their front page.

To quote the now-dead prince of pop. 'Who’s bad?' Clue: OK!

Victory!

The search to find the perfect cue is finally over and, post willing, my new but very old Riley Tombstone cue will be arriving next week.

I chanced upon it on ebay but I'm somewhat sceptical about buying cues on ebay after I bought a similar cue and it wasn't quite as advertised.

Fortunately – and by total coincidence – I know the guy I'm buying it from and, even better, he is a former cuemaker who originally learnt his trade at Rileys so he knows what he's talking about and is also a straight-up bloke to deal with.

I tried to explain how excited I was by this purchase to a work colleague who happened to around at the time. I tried to explain why it was so important to me and enthused about how it was something with a bit of history and... to be quite frank she just looked blank.

Maybe I need to keep my obsessions to myself in the workplace. Having said that she should thank her lucky stars I didn't start talking about 1970s pornography or Victorian erotica.

But who knows? She may have liked that...

Stock...

I am in rewrite land for my current play, Stock.

It's an odd time because it's like the first day of the football season where everything is possible and this could be the breakthrough script...

But it also depends on how much work I put in on it because it's important I learn lessons from previous drafts of previous plays and work hard to try to get this one as right as I can before I send it off to my usual list of potential theatres.

I'm aiming to send it out by the end of July. So here's hoping...

Movie Madness..

I am in the curry house with the Missus and the Boy and we are discussing films and I give an opinion on something with which he disagrees... then he backs up his opinion by claiming that he's seen more films than I have. Cue argument...

I try to explain to him that he can't have done this as I also love films and have been an avid movie viewer since my early teens and, as I've also got an extra 22 years on him, it's highly unlikely his claim is accurate. But he still doubts my veracity so we decide to settle it mano-et-mano by naming all the films we've seen in alphabetical order.

We begin with the letter 'A' and are still going strong 50 movie titles beginning with 'A' later, until it's my turn and I'm struggling so come up with anything.

So I plump for 'Ass-turbators'.

The Boy looks at me then carries on with his next entry and I then offer 'Ass-turbators II'. The Boy stops me.
'What exactly is Ass-turbators?'
'It's an adult film...'
'You mean porn?'
'Yes...'
'You can't include porn films!'
'They're still films...'
'They're not allowed in this, though...'
'You let me have Aunt Peg earlier...'
'That's because I didn't realise it was a porn film...'
'It's beautifully lit and acted actually. It's not just a porn film...'
'Pick another movie beginning with A...'
'Ass-turbators III?'
'You're an idiot...'

Storm Warning...

Me and the Missus are travelling into work and she's telling me about her recent trip to some flash eaterie the day before – then mentions she also bumped into a work associate on the trip.

During this explanation I switch off for a bit and when I tune back in she’s still talking.
'...but sadly she's having a rough time of it at the moment because she’s splitting up with her husband.'
'The friend?'
'Yes.'
'Is he a dirty, no-good love rat?'
'No... but they've been together for ages and she's gradually decided he's a bit of an arse who's not amounted to anything so she left him.'
'So she left him beause she's an arse and a low achiever?'
'Yes...'

There is a pause and she looks at me before she continues.
'I'm sure it's probably quite common...'

The Perfect Cue...

I recently spent just under £400 on a new pool cue made by John Parris, the country's best cuemaker who also makes cues for Ronnie O'Sullivan.

So it was with some trepidation that I joined the Other Woman and the Other Woman's Real Fella for an afternoon on the snooker table on Saturday to give the cue its first proper road test.

For a player of any decent standard getting a new cue is a big deal as it feels very odd and it takes a while to get used to because it's not what you've been using or are used to feeling in your hand. Even subtle differences can take time to adjust to.

Consequently I was pretty rubbish for large patches of the afternoon.

Fortunately I know this cue migration from my current cue, which is a bit short, to my new cue, which feels a bit long, will take some time and I am prepared for a long haul of mediocrity before I make the switch on a permanent basis.

In the meantime, though, I am still searching for one of two models of an antique cue I have had my eyes on. This is because I am convinced that if I get my hands on one of these cues it will be like the comic strip Billy's Boots and I'll magically become the half-decent player I once was after being inspired by the spirits of all those old players who have used the cue before.

Or I just may spunk another large amount of money on an old cue and sit in my office looking at it. Like I currently am with the last one I bought. And the one before that...