Happy New Year...

It's getting towards the New Year so I'm already planning 2015 and reflecting on 2014.

Should anyone care, here are my highlights of the past 12 months:

TV: Emmerdale remains the best-written thing on UK TV. Yes. Emmerdale. That soap that used to be about farming. Set in Yorkshire. And, once upon a time, was only shown on Tuesday and Thursday dinner-times in the YTV area. But it is consistently brilliant. To retain that level of quality for six episodes every week over 52 weeks every year is an astonishing feat. Coronation Street is the second-best-written thing on British TV. It manages to maintain its quality, humour and drama for five 30-minute episodes over 52 weeks every year. It's an astonishing achievement to do that. Other good stuff I've seen this year has included series one and series two of Nordic Noir thriller The Bridge, and series one and two of The Vikings. There hasn't been an awful lot else to write home about. That, however, may change when I catch up with series two of Brit thriller The Fall. EastEnders wins the award for most consistently awful TV show of the year: bad scripts, poor plotting, terrible character development... It's a year to forget in Walford. Doctor Who also needs a kick up the arse. But, like Enders, that's also been on the slide for a few years now.

FILM: X-Men: Days of Future Past and Guardians of the Galaxy were bit hits at From Beer to Paternity Towers. Yes, the X-men movie wasn't as good as the original comic story it was loosely based on, but it sort of hung together, while Guardians of the Galaxy was just an utter blast from start to finish. I'm majorly excited about the new Avengers movie, Age of Ultron, which is out next year, too.

RADIO & PODCASTS: Fighting Talk, the Radio 5 Live sports comedy quiz, remains a must-listen, while the Richard Herring Leicester Square Theatre Comedy Podcast has been a source of utter joy this year. I will be paying to money to Richard Herring for this. It's wonderful. I'm amazed it's still free. Other shows I've enjoyed dipping into have included Private Passions, a sort of high-brow Desert Island Discs, on Radio 3, and I'm loving waking up to Breakfast on Radio 3 in a morning since buying a digital alarm clock radio. I don't know enough about classical music and this is a good way to learn more without making a massive effort. The Grapplearts podcasts have also been a good and interesting source of BJJ information this year.

MUSIC: The Kate Bush gig at Hammersmith was a thing of utter beauty and joy and was quite possibly my cultural highlight of the year. The Gaslight Anthem gig at Alexandra Palace and Arcade Fire at Olympia were also fabulous. Seeing The Buzzcocks at Guildfest was also very good. CDs I loved this year include Get Hurt by The Gaslight Anthem

THEATRE: The one thing that absolutely knocked me on my arse this year was Ballyturk by Enda Walsh at the National. Intriguing, bizarre, funny and moving. And I still haven't quite figured out exactly what it was that I saw either. The other thing that I found really moving was John & Jen. This musical two-hander was put on by a theatre company I'm involved in, but it was was really engaging and captivating and took me totally by surprise.

COMEDY: Stewart Lee was as excellent as ever. The comedy highlight of the year, though, was Sara Pascoe. Intelligent and funny. I just wish I'd seen the entire show.

BOOK & COMICS: American Vampire and Batman, both by Scott Snyder, have been brilliant this year. I've also been won over by the Warren Ellis run on Moonknight. The relaunch of Electra also looks promising. The book that's really stayed with me this year has been Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell, a sort of pop science, history and sociology book about social trends as epidemics. It's an interesting read. I'll be dipping into more of his stuff.

PERSONAL HIGHLIGHTS: Visiting New York at the start of the year, visiting Cornwall at the end of the year, competing in my first grappling tournaments at the age of 45, having a successful readthrough of my most recent play, retaining my health and my sanity in an ever-more-demanding workplace. It's been OK as a year. 

For You, Buddy...

A good friend lost his ten-year-old boy to leukaemia earlier this year. 

Throughout the two-year battle with the disease, his son had shown immense courage and a refusal to let this horrible disease get the better of him. The friend and the friend's family had shown a similar courage throughout what must have been a horrendous ordeal.

Myself and the Missus attended the funeral. To be perfectly honest, it was a day I dreaded ever since hearing the news of the child's passing. At the same time, though, there was never any question that we weren't going to be there. 

Funerals are never good things at the best of times. But when it's a parent burying their child, the circumstances are about as bad as it can be. Of course, you're there to lament the loss and support the parents. But how do you offer words of comfort in those circumstances? What can you possibly say to offer salve to the wound of where a life used to be?

The service was incredibly moving and, from the church, we went back to a church hall for a get-together, where the father had done a slide show of pictures of his son, so those who didn't really know him could get a sense of him. And there were pictures of him with his family, pictures of him as a baby, pictures of him with various celebrities. The over-riding sense was here was somebody who was just up for life. 

And there were pictures of him with his father, both before he got ill and while he was ill. And you saw the love. It was an almost tangible thing. And you realise that is the thing that's left, it's the thing that remains. The love. And some people never have that or don't know how to give that. But here it was just such an evident thing. 

I remain genuinely devastated for the son's death and for my friend's loss. But I'm pleased that legacy of love remains. The older I get, I realise love is the only thing that really matters any more.

And I hope that love provides comfort at Christmas. Because I know that will be a hard time for him and his.

Thinking of you, buddy. And lots of your friends are, too. Even if they don't directly say it.

TV PItches: No.2...

I'm putting the finishing touches to a new TV project. 

It combines the nation's love of prime-time ballroom, tango, waltz and samba, and its current fascination with ridiculing and demonising the poor, the unfortunate and the unemployed. 

It has a competitive element and it's set on a poverty-stricken housing estate over-run with drug dealers and C4 documentary makers. 

It's call Strictly Scum Dancing. 

It's a sure-fire winner. 

Any TV execs out there? Let's talk...

Nightclubbing...

As a 45-year-old man, my days of going clubbing are a thing of the past. Unless I'm on a night out with my pool-playing friends. Then I am in real danger of forgetting this is the case and that it should probably always remain the case.

We generally end up in such places if we've been out and we fancy a late drink. And this was the case, recently, when several of us descended on a local nightclub in Guildford. It was an entertaining evening as we were out for our friend's 40th birthday. 

This was a genuine hoot, even when it got slightly messy, with him too drunk to stay in the club and a couple of other friends expressing their concern at this to the security staff, who were actually very lovely and professional.

The most disturbing aspect of the evening, though – apart from the other men around my age who seemed to be there to secure themselves a much younger lover – were several young boys who I found arguing in the toilets with the attendant. 

They were clearly educated and were dressed in what looked like fashionable and expensive clothes, and they were arguing with the toilet attendant about religion. They were also drunk but seemed to take great delight in mocking the poor man and bamboozling him with theories of narrative fiction and the idea of religion as a fictional construct. 

Then, on the way out, one of them said the following sentence to his friend. 
'Dude. I CAN'T believe you were arguing with the brush-down man! Duh! What were you thinking?!' 

It was at this point in the evening I should have grabbed the over-privileged little twat by the throat and told him to keep his patronising comments to himself, before asking him when the last time he worked for a minimum wage was. I was then going to ask him whether the privileged name for toilet attendant was 'brush-down man' because I had no idea what the proper title was. But he seemed to.

Sadly, I didn't do either. But I should have done. I did, however, enjoy the sight of him getting rejected by at least three young women over the following 45 minutes. They maybe found him equally repellent. 

And it meant I didn't have to follow him home, kidnap him and cut shit off him with gardening shears to teach him some manners.

Footballers...

Over the past few years, my viewpoint towards most Premier League footballers has become one of contempt and disgust. Their outrageous earning power, their seeming contempt for normal codes of behaviour, their seeming existence in a moral vacuum…

I obviously realise this is a hugely bigoted view, but I'd sort of fallen for the tabloid stories and exposes as the norm rather than the exception.

This year, however, I've seen two examples of things that have made me re-address this view.

The first was at the funeral of my friend's son. The child was a mad Chelsea fan and, while undergoing treatment, he had gone to Stamford Bridge and met the Chelsea players and had formed something of a bond with several of their stars. This is obviously something most clubs take part in, but the genuine concern and subsequent relationship built went above and beyond what you'd expect.

The other example was the commemoration of the Hillsborough disaster. This was a genuinely moving experience and you could see how involved all the fans and all the players were.

There are times that sport, and particularly professional football, can be a grubby business, where the high ideals expounded about sporting excellence promoted on the pitch aren't matched by behaviour away from it. But there are also times when sport and its sportsmen transcend that world and are capable of amazing acts of compassion and kindness.

It's good to be reminded of these things. It's just a shame it takes tragic events to begin this realisation. For both me and them...

Smug Bastard News...

I have tickets to see the Foo Fighters at Wembley next year. 

I am beyond ecstatic...

Fit...

I have a few days off work so I ventured to a dinner-time BJJ class. I've been away from any serious martial arts training for a while with an injury and I'm just starting to tentatively return again.

My instructor was pleased to see me, then pointed to my stomach and suggested I'd piled the weight on in my absence. 

The class was fab but I got ruined at sparring. It was good to be back. 

Even if I am fat...

The Gaslight Anthem...

Myself and the Missus ventured to Alexandra Palace in that London (over-crowded and busy place where we used to live) to see The Gaslight Anthem. 

The Gaslight Anthem are an American new wave/punk band the Missus got into about the time of their breakthrough second album, The 59 Sound, in 2008. Now we're both fans and we've seen them a few times since. 

The New Jersey outfit were touring the UK to promote their fifth and newest album, Get Hurt, which is a more mature and mellow affair than their rockier two opening two albums or their more sophisticated third and fourth albums, American Slang and Handwritten. 

With a growing back catalogue, the Gaslight Anthem as a live act can now weave several newer or slower songs into their set, before kicking in when the band goes into attack mode and launches into their more well-known, high-energy tunes.

Because they've spent so much time touring and building a fan base since 2006, they're a fantastic live act and, in lead singer Brian Fallon, they have a great frontman and a genuinely gifted songwriter. 

The band have already produced five really strong albums and, somewhere along the line, they'll 'do a Green Day' and produce something like American Idiot that resonates worldwide and turns them into global superstars. 

Until then, however, I'm delighted I can still get tickets to their gigs.

Not Good People: Part II...

I have a rehearsed reading of a new play in few days so I'm polishing the script and tinkering. I'm still aware the play needs a bit of layering and it also needs a small, trim but it's pretty much there. I can write. I'm actually not bad with words.

Then, last night, the Missus came out with the following sentence while trying to stab e with a fork:
'I'm not cunting well kissing you, you fucking shite-hawk!'

I'm maybe no so creative with words after all...

Romance News...

Me and the Missus are laid in bed. We are doing what young people call 'chill-axing'. But I'm restless and consequently I'm wittering.
'You see, all you have to do is occasionally feed me, fuck me and let me go out once in a while, and I'm sorted.'
'I suppose you're quite low maintenance,' she comments, not really paying much attention.
'I don't watch much out of life...'
'You're very loyal, too. It's something I've always liked about you,' adds the Missus. 
'Yes.'
'And you do enjoy walking, too.'
'Yes.'
'Low maintenance, loyal, likes walking and sometimes demands food and sex...You'd make a very good dog.'
'But dogs are stupid?'
'Yes. You'd make a very good dog...'

Not Good People: Part I...

I have a reading for a new play in three weeks. The play will be ready by then, but it currently needs a bit of editing and trimming to get rid of the more hectoring elements. 

It needs a final scene, too. But overall, I'm pretty pleased with it. And I've pretty much got my dream cast to perform it, so I'm looking forward to it. 

The play is called Not Good people and it's sort of about apathy and engagement with politics. Writing it has been quite good for me because I tend to work out my own thinking on things while I'm writing and it's given me a bit of a kick up the arse about my own political engagement.

With work hectic and my martial arts training becoming increasingly more important, it's easy to forget there's a wider world out there that you are part of and should more fully engage in. And, who knows, this may be the start of me reconnecting with the political again in a more active capacity.

Of course, it may also not be because I've had a cracking idea for a new commercial comedy as well. But we'll see.

I'll post a scene from the play in the next day or so. See what you think...

Fact of the Day...

Tits-out model, entrepreneur and feminist icon to gullible teens Katie Price (or Jordan as she used to be known) is currently promoting her 42nd book. 

I find that astonishing because a crueler person may suggest it is 41 more books than she's actually read and 42 more books than she's actually written. The latter, of course, may well be true.

Is it more depressing that:
a) She has achieved this? or b) There is clearly a market for this?

I don't know. Should I weep over this or secretly admire her chutzpah?

Holiday: Part III…

St Ives had some great stuff and the highlights for me were:

i) The Leach Pottery, which housed the original workshops where the father of the British pottery movement, Bernard Leach, produced work and essentially founded a movement linking British arts and crafts to the millennia-old Japanese pottery industry.

ii) The Hepworth Museum and Studio (above), where the Wakefield-born sculptor worked in St Ives, and the attached and quite intimate gardens, which displayed quite a lot of her work.

iii) The beaches, the scenery and the coastal walks. Quite lovely.

iv) The Tate, which was much less impressive than either of its London counterparts but still quite inspiring in a much more small-scale and provincial way.

V) A seal. I saw one of these quite close up swimming among the rocks. It was totally unexpected and really wonderful. This one small but amazing thing was probably my highlight of the entire holiday.

We also ventured into Penzance to visit Penlee House, which is another art gallery with an attached museum and gardens. The exhibition on here featured a painter called Leonard Fuller, who was one of the fathers of the St Ives art community. He was a portrait painter trained at the Royal Academy, who saw action in World War One, then came to St Ives and set up an art school with his wife and a former Army colleague.

Hugely influential in the local area, he then broke away from the more traditional school he set up to form a school more allied with modernisn, which included Barbara Hepworth among its members. Fuller lived into the 1970s and continued to contribute to both schools and was awarded a major award for his contribution to the arts alongside Hepworth.

Penzance itself was a bit grim, although most holiday places probably look a bit shit out of season and in the rain. The exhibition at the Penlee, though, was well worth the visit.

Holiday: Part II…

Me and the Missus are in St Ives for a few days. As per usual when travelling with the Missus via Reading, we have experienced a two-hour delay and a six-hour journey is now taking eight hours.

On the plus side, as we travel through Cornwall, it is kicking-out time at school and lots of quite posh children are getting on and off the train with musical instruments.

I turn to the Missus and comment: ‘We’re surrounded by musical youth and we are passing the Duchy on the left-hand side. If only we had a song to remember the occasion…’

She sighs and gives me a look that is part-pity and part-despair. 

I feel guilty and immediately apologise.

‘I’m sorry. You could have married a funnier or a cleverer one. You must feel cheated…’

She smiles, before replying: ‘I’m not worried about funny or clever. I would have liked richer, though.’ Ouch!

Holiday: Part I...

Me and the Missus haven't had a proper holiday all year so we're taking a few days off and heading to St Ives for some chilling-out-innit time. 

And I've adapted a famous nursery rhyme especially for the occasion:
'As I was going to St Ives,
I met a man with seven wives:
He was a polygamist.'

I never said it was sophisticated.

UKIP...

UKIP have their first proper MP. This means British politics is in quite a bad state, even though I can only assume it's a protest vote.

But protest vote or not, it genuinely worries me that a majority of voters can genuinely think that a little Englander from a party of racists and homophobes is a candidate worthy of support.

At times, people and their stupidity makes me despair.

Competition Time: Part II...

My second martial arts tournament. I went to the event with three goals: to make weight; to survive a full five-minute round and not do anything reckless or stupid; and to watch what I could and learn from other people.

And all three were achieved pretty successfully. 

I even picked up a bronze medal after scraping through my opening fight, and I felt I could have maybe gone further if I hadn't suffered a rib injury two minutes into my semi-final. 

But I have no complaints. If anything, I probably over-achieved. It's a single step on a very lengthy journey and not the end destination. The key thing is I'm feeling less out of my depth at these events and I'm adding extra bits of experience.

I now need to recover from this injury as I have another event in three weeks. But I wanted to compete this year and, aged 45, I'm now doing that. I'm a very happy (if a bit of an injured) camper.

Kate Bush: Before the Dawn: Part II..

A seven-word review of Before the Dawn at the Hammersmith Apollo:
Beloved icon enchants fans with stunning show.

A five-word review of Before the Dawn at the Hammersmith Apollo:
Astonishing, beguiling and moving performance.

A three-word review of Before the Dawn at the Hammersmith Apollo:
Transformative, wonderful spectacle.

A one-word review of Before the Dawn at the Hammersmith Apollo:
Beautiful.

Kate Bush: Before the Dawn: Part I...

Very few things these days can reduce me to a nervous, fumbling teenager. I'm a battle-worn hack from a working-class town in Yorkshire, who's have seen a lot of stuff. I'm also not particularly star-struck after interviewing some big names over the years. But the impending Kate Bush concert that I'm going to has me all sorts of giddy. 

The only comparable artist to Kate Bush for longevity and influence is probably David Bowie. Unlike Bowie, though, Bush left the limelight at the height of her musical powers and virtually disappeared, only releasing music when she thought she had something worth releasing. 

So after the initial burst of albums, from 1978's Kick Inside and Lionheart, 1980's Never For Ever, 1982's The Dreaming and the seminal 1985 Hounds of Love, the output slowed down. Another two albums followed in 1989's The Sensual World and 1993's The Red Shoes, then came the public hiatus.

Some 12 years later, the double CD Aerial was released in 2005, followed by the Director's Cut in 2011 and 50 Words for Snow, also in 2011.

The decision to withdraw from the limelight and not play the whole celebrity game, plus her sporadic releases following that, certainly helped create an added mystique to Bush. The fact that she only toured once, in 1979, also means that these new concert dates have generated a disproportionate amount of publicity.

But there is also good reason for that. 

For a start, in an age where most celebrities will happily whore themselves out for any publicity, Bush and her career remain a great reminder that there are artists who are more interested in creating art than is making the next easy, greasy buck. The fact she had success and fame at such an early age, then slowly turned away from it, to focus on bringing up her son and enjoy her family life, gains her all sorts of kudos in my book. 

And the fact she continues to work and create on her own terms is inspiring for artists of all disciplines because it means it can be done. And maybe not all of us are Kate Bushes, but there's a lesson to be learnt there about creative drive and singularity of vision and focusing on what's important. 

At the end of the day, it may be only be music that Kate Bush is creating. But at its best, music can be a beautiful and inspiring and energising thing. And in a world that's over-populated by halfwits pushing appalling product, it's good to have somebody who can remind you that there are still things that are pure and focused and beautiful out there.

PS. And apparently Lily opens the concert. Happy days!

Comic Stuff...

I'm slowly wending my way back into the world of comics and, thanks to a very long train journey to and from Scotland, I finally got round to catching up with a few things I've not got round to digesting...

Batman: The Dark Knight Returns Parts I & II
The animated movies of the seminal Frank Miller comic books are, quite simply, pretty brilliant. They're incredibly faithful to the comics, the animation is wonderfully done and the voice artists, such as Pete Weller as Bruce Wayne/Batman and Michael Emerson as Joker, are excellent. Much as I enjoyed the flawed epic that was the most recent Batman film trilogy, directed by Christopher Nolan, the amalgamated film stories weren't a patch on these animated versions of the Miller tales. DC superhero movies generally suck but these two animated films were great. 

Moon Knight 
I'm a long-term fan of comic and novella writer Warren Ellis, and I'm loving the opening five comic books in this new series, with Declan Shalvey and Jordie Bellaire doing the artwork. So far, each book is a separate, self-contained tale and it's taking a 'B' list Marvel version of Batman as both superhero and detective and giving him real depth and a genuine sense of intrigue. Loving it. 

The Boys 
I'm a very late convert to this Garth Ennis and Darick Robertson series of graphic novels about an of-the-books team whose job it is to police the superhero community. It's foul-mouthed, it's dirty and it rips into characters and teams from both the Marvel and the DC universes. If you liked Preacher, you'll love this.