A comment from a friend on a previous post has reminded me of my early ambition; to be a DJ. And I used to make tapes. These were no ordinary tapes of a few favourites all jammed onto a cassette, no, these were carefully constructed 44 minute programmes of music. Some of them had spoken introductions, others didn't. Most of them were themed. One 'special' I made was a show all based on 'track 6'. I spent hours making sure that the tape was lined up just so, and that the next track came in carefully on the beat, and oh, I was good!
Do you have any idea (yes, probably) how hard it is on one of this little portable tape recorders and a stereo that had a lid that you had to close before it would play? In the end, of course, I found out how to by-pass that little trick, but at the beginning it added a layer of complexity that I didn't need, for it was hard enough on the old steam driven equipment to be found in my bedroom.
I got really clever at rewinding the tape to the best place I could, then popping out the cassette and using a pencil to rewind it just the right extra amount so the tracks blended. Most of the recording was done by 5-din plug connection, but sometimes when I wanted to talk over a track I had to use the little in-built mike on the tape recorder. I can remember taking a lot of pride in talking just the right amount so I didn't crash the vocals. As I recall Deep Purple's Speed King gave me a lot of problems talking over the rather quiet intro, which then explodes into heavy rock life. It took about seven goes to get it right.
Oh the joys of those hours. I should have been revising I expect. But as I KNEW this was my career: a DJ focusing on album tracks of popular recording artistes of the 1970's, revising seemed immaterial. After all, no DJ needed exams, did they? Sadly, this one did.
The fundamental flaw in my career as the ultimate rock album DJ was never sending a tape in to a radio station, or applying for a job in radio or indeed expressing any interest in the field at all, outside my bedroom.
By heck there were some great radio shows made then though. And that John Peel wasn't bad either.
Stand easy.
Wednesday, November 30
Pink Floyd owe me
I don't know why this should suddenly come into my head, but the first single I ever bought was Sandie Shaw: Puppet on a String. Of course I have spent the last umpteen years telling people it was Blackberry Way by The Move, but it wasn't.
The first album I ever owned was Sgt Pepper. It was given to me by a friend called James Macdonald who had been given two for his own birthday (11, 12?) and kindly passed one on to me. I didn't tell him that we had not the means to play it. He now is in America. Perhaps it was my ingratitude. I was unaware of music, and had no idea who the Beatles were. I never really caught up with them. As far as I was aware the only entertainment in the whole world was Radio 4 or live theatre. One of these was A GOOD IDEA, and one of them was a complete bore.
Now of course I am unable to miss The Archers for more than a few days, without getting severe abdominal cramps and a strong desire to ring my mother.
As a consequence of my sheltered upbringing, my copy of Sgt Pepper is virtually unplayed and has all the inserts and everything intact and almost untouched. The corner has been a little nibbled by woodworm, but that only makes it look like a Traffic album (they were always farting about with the cardboard on their sleeves, viz Low Spark of High Heeled Boys). I soon widened my scope from Eurovision songs. I failed entirely to buy Congratulations.
Telly didn't arrive until I was in my teens, and by then I had a little stereo, and had developed better taste (than Sandy. Although I manage to retain every annoying word in my head. It's as good as La La La by Kylie. Eye-eeee, wonder if one day that you say that you love me madly I'd gladly be there like a puppet on stri-ing).
I have no recollection of what my first album purchase was, but I suspect it was David Bowie (Ziggy) or Elton John (Goodbye Yellow Brick Road). And I would say it cost £1.20. I had an allowance of £6 per month (guilty absent father) plus of course obligatory top ups when the bank said I was overdrawn (shouldn't have been a guarantor should you, old chap!).
Since then I have amassed a little over 600 albums on vinyl and CD. Some are duplicates. With the advent of iTunes I now have duplicates of those too, on my Mac. And they say musicians are worried about royaties.
Can I get a refund from each of those 'artistes' whose work I have bought in more than one format? This is only partially a joke. Some I have had on Vinyl, CD, MD and now MP3 or 4. Santana, Bowie, Pink Floyd, Stones and others - you owe me money.
Stand easy.
The first album I ever owned was Sgt Pepper. It was given to me by a friend called James Macdonald who had been given two for his own birthday (11, 12?) and kindly passed one on to me. I didn't tell him that we had not the means to play it. He now is in America. Perhaps it was my ingratitude. I was unaware of music, and had no idea who the Beatles were. I never really caught up with them. As far as I was aware the only entertainment in the whole world was Radio 4 or live theatre. One of these was A GOOD IDEA, and one of them was a complete bore.
Now of course I am unable to miss The Archers for more than a few days, without getting severe abdominal cramps and a strong desire to ring my mother.
As a consequence of my sheltered upbringing, my copy of Sgt Pepper is virtually unplayed and has all the inserts and everything intact and almost untouched. The corner has been a little nibbled by woodworm, but that only makes it look like a Traffic album (they were always farting about with the cardboard on their sleeves, viz Low Spark of High Heeled Boys). I soon widened my scope from Eurovision songs. I failed entirely to buy Congratulations.
Telly didn't arrive until I was in my teens, and by then I had a little stereo, and had developed better taste (than Sandy. Although I manage to retain every annoying word in my head. It's as good as La La La by Kylie. Eye-eeee, wonder if one day that you say that you love me madly I'd gladly be there like a puppet on stri-ing).
I have no recollection of what my first album purchase was, but I suspect it was David Bowie (Ziggy) or Elton John (Goodbye Yellow Brick Road). And I would say it cost £1.20. I had an allowance of £6 per month (guilty absent father) plus of course obligatory top ups when the bank said I was overdrawn (shouldn't have been a guarantor should you, old chap!).
Since then I have amassed a little over 600 albums on vinyl and CD. Some are duplicates. With the advent of iTunes I now have duplicates of those too, on my Mac. And they say musicians are worried about royaties.
Can I get a refund from each of those 'artistes' whose work I have bought in more than one format? This is only partially a joke. Some I have had on Vinyl, CD, MD and now MP3 or 4. Santana, Bowie, Pink Floyd, Stones and others - you owe me money.
Stand easy.
Tuesday, November 29
Great picture
Sent to me and taken by my sister who's in India...
... and she retains the copyright: so hands off.
.
... and she retains the copyright: so hands off.
.
Monday, November 28
Chlamydia - an increasing scandal of our times
The statistics for Chlamydia are a bit puzzling. If you go here, they tell you that the rate of infection has grown by 222% since 1995. And that this is more than double the growth of any other STD. Incidentally the second biggest ‘growth’ STD is gonorrhoea, but that declined by 10% in the 12 months 2003 – 2004. Chlamydia grew by 8% in the same period.
And according the The Times this week, that acceleration continues unabated. Here’s what the august journal says (25 Nov 2005): “Chlamydia, one of the commonest (STD), recorded a 9 per cent rise, with 104,155 new cases last year. Chlamydia screening among the 16-24 age group has found that about one in eight is infected, though only a minority is aware of it.”
But whatever the figures, I think the end result is clear: it’s no exaggeration to say that Chlamydia is one of the bigger of the serious issues facing society.
What is Chlamydia? Here’s what the Dept of Health says about it on their own website here “Genital Chlamydia trachomatis infection is the most commonly diagnosed bacterial sexually transmitted infection in genitourinary medicine (GUM) clinics in the United Kingdom. The number of diagnoses of uncomplicated genital chlamydial infection in GUM clinics has risen steadily since the mid-1990s. The prevalence is highest in sexually active adults, especially women aged 16 to 24 years and men aged 18 to 29 years. As most people are asymptomatic, large proportions of cases remain undiagnosed. Untreated genital chlamydial infection may have serious long-term consequences, especially in women in whom it is a well-established cause of pelvic inflammatory disease (PID), ectopic pregnancy and infertility. The annual cost of Chlamydia and its consequences in the United Kingdom is estimated to be more than £100 million.”
It’s fair to conclude from this information that Chlamydia is on the increase. Further, it’s our fastest growing STD today. You might draw the conclusion from this that Chlamydia is a difficult little bug to shift: that a cure is hard, and prevention harder. And that’s the scandal. Nothing could be further from the truth. It’s easy to cure, and with a little sense, easy to prevent. But the pain and heartache this little microrganism is settled in to cause in some of those hundred of thousands of (mainly) girls who have it now is a national disgrace. If it was your daughter, or sister, or someone you knew - and because it is so prevalent (one in eight 16-24 year old women. One in eight!), you probably know someone affected - you would want something done. And the shame is that prevention and cure is really quite straightforward.
Let’s examine the status quo. Even though it is a ‘silent’ disease (ie. virtually symptomless) Chlamydia is simple to diagnose. There are two common types of test, one lab test which takes about one to two weeks and is very accurate, and one in-surgery test which takes about ten minutes and is marginally less accurate. We are talking very high 90’s in percentage terms for both tests. Naturally both test cost a little to instigate; the lab test a few tens of pence, the in-surgery test maybe a pound or so, per patient.
For men, it is less simple, and the main test involves shoving a cotton-bud like item up the urethra: uncomfortable, and so, not surprisingly, many men refuse. There is also an in-stream test, for bother genders, but it is the least accurate at the moment. However, history shows that if the market developed, competition among diagnostic companies would soon improve the quality of the tests.
So that’s easy then, you test sexually active girls who are under thirty and men who are symptomatic. You get the results in about ten minutes and that’s an opportunity, instead of twiddling your thumbs and whistling while you are waiting, to talk through some of the risks of STDs including our dear friend Chlamydia, and safe sex in general. Because, apparently, we have message fatigue. So it needs drumming home. Meanwhile the test result shows positive or negative and treatment can be chosen as appropriate.
Only that’s not what happens.
If a test is carried out at all (and I’m talking about tests in GPs practices, not under the government STD screening programme), it is most likely to be the lab test. So the results are back in what, a week or so. And that means that the patient has to make another appointment, remember to come back, and be interested in the result. But they don’t feel ill. Remember 70% of infected people show no symptoms. And they are presumably shagging away in the interim possibly infecting a new partner, or worse more than one, with no knowledge of their STD status and, likely, little or no discussion about safe sex. If they knew about safe sex, and practised it they are unlikely to have picked up Chlamydia in the first place.
If someone has Chlamydia it is easily dealt with. A prescription of appropriate antibiotics for seven days should clear it up, and prevent its most damaging consequences which include pain and infertility from blocked fallopian tubes. And at the moment there's only one way round those if you want to get pregnant: IVF.
So the most likely thing to happen is that some young women, especially those who attend a clinic, are sometimes given a dose of cheap generic antibiotics costing maybe 30p. But where is the motivation to take them: you are given them for something you may not have and don’t understand?. So, although I have no evidence for this, logic says that most courses won’t get finished. They probably hang on to them for next time they get a cold. Or the clap. And what’s more both partners have to take it. And if s/he has more than one partner, or one takes it and the other doesn’t … it is a fatally flawed policy. And transparently failing our 16-30 sexually active population.
I think this is a serious scandal. More than 100,000 people are getting infected each year with something so potentially damaging and devastating to their lives. To say nothing of the on-cost of resolving the pain and infertility issues in these women later in life.
But there’s more. What about the morals of handing out doses of antibiotics as prophylaxis? Let’s talk about SARS or MRSA shall we?
And so what’s the government doing? A decent policy instigated now should, in about 15 years see Chlamydia reduced to the ranks of insignificance where it belongs. But this government, and this is straight from the horses mouth, are not interested in anything with a longer window than four years. And that’s official. So they’ll keep banging out £100 million per annum, and looking forward to an ever increasing bill than cure their people, our friends and relatives of a disease that is easy to deal with.
It makes my blood boil. The government primarily, and may I say the medical profession for allowing this outrage to continue unabated, should all should be hanging their heads in shame.
Happy Christmas.
More info on Chlamydia here: www.netdoctor.co.uk and here www.nhsdirect.nhs.uk
You can buy self-tests if you are concerned (and if you have had a new partner who's exact sexual history is unknown to you, and I mean very exact, or more than one partner this year, you should consider a check). Or visit your GP and ask to be tested. They will do it, but I'd love to know how they do it and what else they offer you. Or you can visit any GUM clinic and your GP will not be informed. Find them at the Society of Sexual Health Advisors here.
And please, always Practise Safe Sex
And according the The Times this week, that acceleration continues unabated. Here’s what the august journal says (25 Nov 2005): “Chlamydia, one of the commonest (STD), recorded a 9 per cent rise, with 104,155 new cases last year. Chlamydia screening among the 16-24 age group has found that about one in eight is infected, though only a minority is aware of it.”
But whatever the figures, I think the end result is clear: it’s no exaggeration to say that Chlamydia is one of the bigger of the serious issues facing society.
What is Chlamydia? Here’s what the Dept of Health says about it on their own website here “Genital Chlamydia trachomatis infection is the most commonly diagnosed bacterial sexually transmitted infection in genitourinary medicine (GUM) clinics in the United Kingdom. The number of diagnoses of uncomplicated genital chlamydial infection in GUM clinics has risen steadily since the mid-1990s. The prevalence is highest in sexually active adults, especially women aged 16 to 24 years and men aged 18 to 29 years. As most people are asymptomatic, large proportions of cases remain undiagnosed. Untreated genital chlamydial infection may have serious long-term consequences, especially in women in whom it is a well-established cause of pelvic inflammatory disease (PID), ectopic pregnancy and infertility. The annual cost of Chlamydia and its consequences in the United Kingdom is estimated to be more than £100 million.”
It’s fair to conclude from this information that Chlamydia is on the increase. Further, it’s our fastest growing STD today. You might draw the conclusion from this that Chlamydia is a difficult little bug to shift: that a cure is hard, and prevention harder. And that’s the scandal. Nothing could be further from the truth. It’s easy to cure, and with a little sense, easy to prevent. But the pain and heartache this little microrganism is settled in to cause in some of those hundred of thousands of (mainly) girls who have it now is a national disgrace. If it was your daughter, or sister, or someone you knew - and because it is so prevalent (one in eight 16-24 year old women. One in eight!), you probably know someone affected - you would want something done. And the shame is that prevention and cure is really quite straightforward.
Let’s examine the status quo. Even though it is a ‘silent’ disease (ie. virtually symptomless) Chlamydia is simple to diagnose. There are two common types of test, one lab test which takes about one to two weeks and is very accurate, and one in-surgery test which takes about ten minutes and is marginally less accurate. We are talking very high 90’s in percentage terms for both tests. Naturally both test cost a little to instigate; the lab test a few tens of pence, the in-surgery test maybe a pound or so, per patient.
For men, it is less simple, and the main test involves shoving a cotton-bud like item up the urethra: uncomfortable, and so, not surprisingly, many men refuse. There is also an in-stream test, for bother genders, but it is the least accurate at the moment. However, history shows that if the market developed, competition among diagnostic companies would soon improve the quality of the tests.
So that’s easy then, you test sexually active girls who are under thirty and men who are symptomatic. You get the results in about ten minutes and that’s an opportunity, instead of twiddling your thumbs and whistling while you are waiting, to talk through some of the risks of STDs including our dear friend Chlamydia, and safe sex in general. Because, apparently, we have message fatigue. So it needs drumming home. Meanwhile the test result shows positive or negative and treatment can be chosen as appropriate.
Only that’s not what happens.
If a test is carried out at all (and I’m talking about tests in GPs practices, not under the government STD screening programme), it is most likely to be the lab test. So the results are back in what, a week or so. And that means that the patient has to make another appointment, remember to come back, and be interested in the result. But they don’t feel ill. Remember 70% of infected people show no symptoms. And they are presumably shagging away in the interim possibly infecting a new partner, or worse more than one, with no knowledge of their STD status and, likely, little or no discussion about safe sex. If they knew about safe sex, and practised it they are unlikely to have picked up Chlamydia in the first place.
If someone has Chlamydia it is easily dealt with. A prescription of appropriate antibiotics for seven days should clear it up, and prevent its most damaging consequences which include pain and infertility from blocked fallopian tubes. And at the moment there's only one way round those if you want to get pregnant: IVF.
So the most likely thing to happen is that some young women, especially those who attend a clinic, are sometimes given a dose of cheap generic antibiotics costing maybe 30p. But where is the motivation to take them: you are given them for something you may not have and don’t understand?. So, although I have no evidence for this, logic says that most courses won’t get finished. They probably hang on to them for next time they get a cold. Or the clap. And what’s more both partners have to take it. And if s/he has more than one partner, or one takes it and the other doesn’t … it is a fatally flawed policy. And transparently failing our 16-30 sexually active population.
I think this is a serious scandal. More than 100,000 people are getting infected each year with something so potentially damaging and devastating to their lives. To say nothing of the on-cost of resolving the pain and infertility issues in these women later in life.
But there’s more. What about the morals of handing out doses of antibiotics as prophylaxis? Let’s talk about SARS or MRSA shall we?
And so what’s the government doing? A decent policy instigated now should, in about 15 years see Chlamydia reduced to the ranks of insignificance where it belongs. But this government, and this is straight from the horses mouth, are not interested in anything with a longer window than four years. And that’s official. So they’ll keep banging out £100 million per annum, and looking forward to an ever increasing bill than cure their people, our friends and relatives of a disease that is easy to deal with.
It makes my blood boil. The government primarily, and may I say the medical profession for allowing this outrage to continue unabated, should all should be hanging their heads in shame.
Happy Christmas.
More info on Chlamydia here: www.netdoctor.co.uk and here www.nhsdirect.nhs.uk
You can buy self-tests if you are concerned (and if you have had a new partner who's exact sexual history is unknown to you, and I mean very exact, or more than one partner this year, you should consider a check). Or visit your GP and ask to be tested. They will do it, but I'd love to know how they do it and what else they offer you. Or you can visit any GUM clinic and your GP will not be informed. Find them at the Society of Sexual Health Advisors here.
And please, always Practise Safe Sex
.
Honourably
I didn't see the new girl, or the old girl. But she and I are now in talks about thinking about considering progress. So that's something I suppose.
Tuesday, November 22
What to do
Unbelievable. My girlfriend (girl! At our age? It's not seemly) wants to pick up again. She dumped me rather than make changes to her life. Now it seems the changes may be being made. Although, I don't know that. She hasn't said as much, but I have been very clear that we can't go on as it is. So perhaps this is talks about thoughts of maybe considering the issue of having a chat about the possibility of addressing thinking about maybe discussing talks that consider, from a remote position, the concept of making changes.
She is so resistant to any change, no matter how slight (and when I say resistant I mean teflon coated), that her inability to move on maybe, in itself, an indication of refusal to change. So she's coming over tomorrow to have me cook supper while she watches Trinny and Susanah, cries and gets to have sex too. I'm OK with that. I quite enjoy T&S. And sex. I'm deeply shallow. But at least I know to wear deep V-neck T-shirts, and have permission not to tuck my shirt in.
But in the meantime another girl has asked me out. And I said yes. And it's supposed to be this weekend. I was free when I said yes, I may be free again when we come to going out. Obviously if I'm not I will tell her and cancel. I don't know her yet, we may not even get on, but we may. Clearly I owe her honesty. But I don't know what the truth is anymore. Or how I will react to what the unchangeable one may say. But what she says and what happens are often two different things. So I suspect for once I am going to act unimpulsively and wait to see what happens. After all I'm not going out with the new girl until the weekend, so that gives me time to sort out where I'm going with the old girl.
Who'd have thought it, at my age?
And who'd have thought that eventually I would get around to calling my old girlfirend the old girl. It's true, but deeply patronising too. Sometimes it just has to be done. There is an ice floe; we are struggling with cooling, not warming, round here.
She is so resistant to any change, no matter how slight (and when I say resistant I mean teflon coated), that her inability to move on maybe, in itself, an indication of refusal to change. So she's coming over tomorrow to have me cook supper while she watches Trinny and Susanah, cries and gets to have sex too. I'm OK with that. I quite enjoy T&S. And sex. I'm deeply shallow. But at least I know to wear deep V-neck T-shirts, and have permission not to tuck my shirt in.
But in the meantime another girl has asked me out. And I said yes. And it's supposed to be this weekend. I was free when I said yes, I may be free again when we come to going out. Obviously if I'm not I will tell her and cancel. I don't know her yet, we may not even get on, but we may. Clearly I owe her honesty. But I don't know what the truth is anymore. Or how I will react to what the unchangeable one may say. But what she says and what happens are often two different things. So I suspect for once I am going to act unimpulsively and wait to see what happens. After all I'm not going out with the new girl until the weekend, so that gives me time to sort out where I'm going with the old girl.
Who'd have thought it, at my age?
And who'd have thought that eventually I would get around to calling my old girlfirend the old girl. It's true, but deeply patronising too. Sometimes it just has to be done. There is an ice floe; we are struggling with cooling, not warming, round here.
Monday, November 21
Oh the joys to come
What's up and coming? Only some eternal questions, that's what. Like why, on some days, when you are bored and 'next blog'ing are all the blogs that come up in a language I don't speak? And ruminations on the nature of love. And what about Tescos? Every one used to 'love Tescos'. But I remember when it was a grotty little pile 'em high sell 'em cheap high street store. Is it destined to return whence it came? And other fundamental questions. Like are we really still in love with Tesco, or has the relationship gone sour because we're being abused? None of likes to be taken for granted. Is it a case of where goes M&S, so Tescos is bound to follow?
Oh yes, all this and more, is upcoming on this amazing wonderful blog. Plus, don't forget, my own brand of low res, low creativity photography. You are so blessed.
But, take my advice, don't hold your breath.
Oh yes, all this and more, is upcoming on this amazing wonderful blog. Plus, don't forget, my own brand of low res, low creativity photography. You are so blessed.
But, take my advice, don't hold your breath.
Thursday, November 17
Children In Need
The time has come, as the walrus said, to gently take Terry Wogan outside, stand him up against the BBC wheely bins, and shoot the obsequious old toe-rag.
Radio 2 is a bit of a mess anyway, with its early evening schedule clashing head on with its daytime and later evening output, and its Sundays are just a waste of electricity. But this week its really been showing-off its capacity for the crass.
I am sick enough of Wogan's blethering idiocy on his morning show, and so The Son and I sometimes try Radio 1 on our dangerous drive down the A34 of a morning. This morning was typical, except today I noted the times. We tuned in at 08:22 and heard the last three lines of something by Oasis. By 08:39 when we arrived at school we had heard one other song. That's 17 minutes and one song. And rather too much of Moyles and. Odd. Punctuated. Sentences. With. Obtrusive silences in. Them. On average that equates to about four songs an hour. For a music station? And so The Son suggested we don't bother with Radio 1 again. It's a shame because he's really into his music, and is exactly the age that Radio 1 should be trying to attract. Anyway, I always do what he says, so we won't.
But we do want some music in the mornings, and local stations tune in and out and spit fire at us as we swoop up and down the hills around The Ridgeway, so we end up with Radio 2. And this morning we both got increasingly irate. I've not seen The Son quite so wound up, but for a young chap he's got a fine head on his shoulders. He was fulminating about some arse spending £9,000 on a ticket to the Footballer of the Year award. As The Son said, paying ten times what something is worth doesn't make it worth any more, so what's the point? It's just a sop to the conscience of the obscene riches of some people (it's not obscene to be rich, but it is obscene to be lulled by this tripe and salve your conscience this way). If you want a ticket, buy one and if you want to give to charity, give. But that paled into insignificance for some utter contemptible sef-agrandising prat who paid £40,000, yes £40,000, to appear with the oleaginous Wogan on the Christmas edition of Who Wants To Be A Millionaire. It makes the giving conditional, therefore it is not giving, it's buying and the whole thing is sick.
Now I realise that I sound like an old curmudgeon (so what, get your own blog, and you can too) and worse, I could sound like I don't approve of Children in Need. Actually I do approve, but I also believe very strongly that we shouldn't have children in need of anything and we certainly shouldn't have to rely on charity to provide rescue for them when they get into need. That is society's job. Well, a civilised one. But today I wonder - this is worse than anything that we saw in the much derided 80's and 90's under what people call Thatcherism.
And nor do I criticise a guy for spending vast amounts of moolah if he has it and wants to. But if he wants to give to charity, go ahead and give. And while you're at it, surely it is better to give to established charities like Barnardo's that has been working quietly away for many years, than to some disgraceful sleb fest, based on all that is gross in our reality TV, sick society. If it's real giving, why not do it quietly, with thought and care. You can be tax efficient about it too, and increase the benefit to the charidee of your choice. But don't fall for the pandering to the worst kind of filthy greed and vanity that Radio 2 has been flogging today. It's sick. And the way Wogan kept gloating about how the bids had gone up over the years made it even more gross.
If people gave this money because they wanted to support a charity then that's fantastic but they don't. They want the greedy stuff for themselves, and somehow that makes it sick. And, frankly, empty. They are being manipulated to give obscene amounts for what? Vanity. Even the music auction, where people make modest promises of a few pounds is OK, as is the £1 lottery running for various prizes. But the sick auction of made-up prizes so that lazy rich slebs and not-slebs can pat each other on the back and pretend they are making a difference? Do me a favour. It's the worst sort of golf-club mentality and deeply shallow vanity. What's wrong with giving quietly and efficiently? Why do you have to have the pant-wetting excitement of hearing your name read out on Radio 2 by a fat Irishman who is way, way past his sell-by-date?
Please, please get rid of the Charidee Okshun. It is so obscene that even Radio 2 producers must be feeling a little nauseated today, in between spending too much on champagne because they bust last years total. The whiff of hypocrisy is strong over Broadcasting House. Still, I suppose that means it fits right into this 21st century world we live in.
And yes, yes, I know there is an off button, and I exercised my right to use it. As I do most mornings when it's Wogan.
It's always such a relief when Johnny Walker stands in for the Tired Old Geezer.
Radio 2 is a bit of a mess anyway, with its early evening schedule clashing head on with its daytime and later evening output, and its Sundays are just a waste of electricity. But this week its really been showing-off its capacity for the crass.
I am sick enough of Wogan's blethering idiocy on his morning show, and so The Son and I sometimes try Radio 1 on our dangerous drive down the A34 of a morning. This morning was typical, except today I noted the times. We tuned in at 08:22 and heard the last three lines of something by Oasis. By 08:39 when we arrived at school we had heard one other song. That's 17 minutes and one song. And rather too much of Moyles and. Odd. Punctuated. Sentences. With. Obtrusive silences in. Them. On average that equates to about four songs an hour. For a music station? And so The Son suggested we don't bother with Radio 1 again. It's a shame because he's really into his music, and is exactly the age that Radio 1 should be trying to attract. Anyway, I always do what he says, so we won't.
But we do want some music in the mornings, and local stations tune in and out and spit fire at us as we swoop up and down the hills around The Ridgeway, so we end up with Radio 2. And this morning we both got increasingly irate. I've not seen The Son quite so wound up, but for a young chap he's got a fine head on his shoulders. He was fulminating about some arse spending £9,000 on a ticket to the Footballer of the Year award. As The Son said, paying ten times what something is worth doesn't make it worth any more, so what's the point? It's just a sop to the conscience of the obscene riches of some people (it's not obscene to be rich, but it is obscene to be lulled by this tripe and salve your conscience this way). If you want a ticket, buy one and if you want to give to charity, give. But that paled into insignificance for some utter contemptible sef-agrandising prat who paid £40,000, yes £40,000, to appear with the oleaginous Wogan on the Christmas edition of Who Wants To Be A Millionaire. It makes the giving conditional, therefore it is not giving, it's buying and the whole thing is sick.
Now I realise that I sound like an old curmudgeon (so what, get your own blog, and you can too) and worse, I could sound like I don't approve of Children in Need. Actually I do approve, but I also believe very strongly that we shouldn't have children in need of anything and we certainly shouldn't have to rely on charity to provide rescue for them when they get into need. That is society's job. Well, a civilised one. But today I wonder - this is worse than anything that we saw in the much derided 80's and 90's under what people call Thatcherism.
And nor do I criticise a guy for spending vast amounts of moolah if he has it and wants to. But if he wants to give to charity, go ahead and give. And while you're at it, surely it is better to give to established charities like Barnardo's that has been working quietly away for many years, than to some disgraceful sleb fest, based on all that is gross in our reality TV, sick society. If it's real giving, why not do it quietly, with thought and care. You can be tax efficient about it too, and increase the benefit to the charidee of your choice. But don't fall for the pandering to the worst kind of filthy greed and vanity that Radio 2 has been flogging today. It's sick. And the way Wogan kept gloating about how the bids had gone up over the years made it even more gross.
If people gave this money because they wanted to support a charity then that's fantastic but they don't. They want the greedy stuff for themselves, and somehow that makes it sick. And, frankly, empty. They are being manipulated to give obscene amounts for what? Vanity. Even the music auction, where people make modest promises of a few pounds is OK, as is the £1 lottery running for various prizes. But the sick auction of made-up prizes so that lazy rich slebs and not-slebs can pat each other on the back and pretend they are making a difference? Do me a favour. It's the worst sort of golf-club mentality and deeply shallow vanity. What's wrong with giving quietly and efficiently? Why do you have to have the pant-wetting excitement of hearing your name read out on Radio 2 by a fat Irishman who is way, way past his sell-by-date?
Please, please get rid of the Charidee Okshun. It is so obscene that even Radio 2 producers must be feeling a little nauseated today, in between spending too much on champagne because they bust last years total. The whiff of hypocrisy is strong over Broadcasting House. Still, I suppose that means it fits right into this 21st century world we live in.
And yes, yes, I know there is an off button, and I exercised my right to use it. As I do most mornings when it's Wogan.
It's always such a relief when Johnny Walker stands in for the Tired Old Geezer.
Tuesday, November 15
John's stale (it comes together in the end)
John sat down with a sigh. His legs were heavy, and the ball of his left foot throbbed. He passed a weary hand over his face, and shrugged his overcoat from his shoulders. It fell across the back of his chair. He sat for a moment, doing nothing, thinking nothing, feeling nothing. He was tired. It had been a long day pounding the streets handing out leaflets for the newest bar in town, marketing it. That’s what he did, and this was how he had decided to help his latest client: hands on. The design was done, the words written and the flyers published. The plans were in place and the newest bar in this little corner of Britain was open for business. In most ways his work was done, but the results would come over the next week. His objective was simply to fill the bar, and move on to the next project. If only life was so simple.
He reached for his bag. It was new, a messenger he had bought in a fit of trying to make himself look like a successful advertising executive. But when you look like a cross between Homer Simpson's love child with Johnny Vegas and the brother of Phil Jupitus, looking cool, and indeed groovy, is not easy. He shuffled in his seat hoping his big tummy wasn’t too obvious in this darkened room. A waitress bought him a glass of something cold and crisp and white. The wine glass was slippery with condensation. But his life was filmed with condescension. If the bar didn’t fill, he wouldn’t get paid. Marketing by results his client called it. Extortion he called it, after all, he’d have done the work, and the client had approved all the ideas, and added a few of their own. But John’s choices were few and far between. None-the-less, part of his fee, if you can call it that, was as much to eat and drink in the new bar as he wanted. Ringtone, for that was it’s name – not John’s choice, but he had to go with it – was an old formula in a new place. A telephone bar. John had been weary at the very idea. He’d seen them a thousand times before; he’d even pulled in one in London: it was Carrie Fisher, he remembered, at least her look-alike. She had liked his voice with its natural depth and orotund vowels. He may not have got much in the way of certification from his posh education, but John had grown up among people who spoke well, and it had rubbed off. He was more Eton than Ealing, and on the phone where there were fewer inhibitions, his voice had charmed the pants off many, and literally off Carrie Fisher. She was a princess, he remembered. No spring chicken, but an outstanding layer. He smiled at his own joke. After all, it was unlikely any one else would now, and bad puns were harmless to all but himself.
From his bag he drew the day’s paper, The Times. He quickly read through the main news, picking at a story here and there, gleaning what he could from the headlines and foraging further when he felt it was required. Over the sport he lingered for a while, catching up on the news of his beloved team. He heard so little of them now, here in the sticks, but when he had been in London, he hadn’t been that interested: like Buckingham Palace, he thought, when it’s on the doorstep you never go, especially schlepping all the way up from Barnes. Too far to walk, too odorous by train and too unreliable by No 9. Especially if Hammersmith Bridge was the usual nightmare that he remembered. Although he had a rather good night shot of it he’d taken what, more than 20 years ago, on his first proper camera, that stood even now by his bedside.
When he reached the back he discarded the main part of the paper and spent far longer on section 2: the arts coverage. This is why he loved The Times, for it’s irreverent view of the arts. Even the stuffiest laureate could get a drubbing, but more than anything John was feeding his weakness. He was a killer addict. Killer SuDoku. He’d only recently understood the main tricks and twists that made it all make sense and now he was addicted. Every morning, rain, snow or sleet, he was at the newsagents with his 60p to catch up on the latest challenge from the masters. He warmed up with a mild, got to maximum revs with a fiendish and then braced himself for the killer. He knew the theory, but the practise was lagging behind, and silly mistakes still crept in. He needed to spend time on them. He was well into his fiendish, remembering the make-up of the 4’s across the puzzle when the phone on his table rang. He picked up the old fashioned handset and said ‘hi’. His eyes never left the puzzle as he concentrated on the pattern of the fours and thought about how the two’s fitted round them.
‘Hello?’ said a gruff, husky voice.
John didn’t move. His pen hovered over the puzzle and his eyes didn’t stray from the page. Across the room his caller was looking at the table where this curious man sat alone and engrossed. The low level table lamp, with it’s old red shade threw the light down, so the caller could see the paper and his hands, but not John’s face, or his eyes.
‘What are you doing’ John was startled for a moment and said without thinking ‘The crossword’.
‘Oh’, said the deep voice.
‘Yes’ said John, ‘The Times crossword.’
‘Oh my God,' said the voice, ‘how friggin intellectual are you, posh boy’ and with a click the line went dead.
John looked at his hand. It was trembling. He relaxed it and laid it flat on the page. His concentration was gone. He couldn’t get back to the SuDoku now, and knew that this interruption meant he had to do that really annoying thing of writing all the possible number in every blank square and, by elimination, arrive at the answer. But that was plodding and predictable. Sure, it easily lead one to the solution, but the point was to reach it by inspiration. As a punishment he started on The Times crossword, as he had tried to impress his caller with his erudition, and, because it was the easy crossword in T2, he filled in three or four clues without much effort. The phone burbled once again.
‘Ask me a clue, posh boy’ said the gruff voice. There was muffled coughing, and the voice came back ‘excuse me’.
John had completely failed to notice if the bar was empty or full. He wasn’t alert to these things on that night. His tiredness was bred into his bones over months of anxious worry and he couldn’t have cared one way or the other, so he had just done what he needed to and got on with things.
‘Come on, posh boy, give me a clue’.
John gently and with more care than he intended laid the receiver back in its cradle. The last thing he wanted was for some bloke to be making a pass at him. What was he, the only gay in the village? Sure, this little town was in Britain, but he wasn’t interested in re-ordering his genes so he could give some gay chap a thrill that night. He put his paper in his bag, collected his coat and made his way out of the door into the wet night. He hadn’t had his supper. He was tired, cold and alone, but tomorrow was another day. And after all, someone had seen something, he thought, that made him approachable. So maybe it wasn’t all bad news.
The next day was not so different that the detail is worth recording until, in the evening when John was sat at his table, in the corner, more or less in the dark, and alone, just as weary, just as footsore and just as stuck on the killer SuDoku, his phone rang. John glanced at his watch, it was past 9, and lifted the receiver. He cradled it with his shoulder and folded the page so that he could see the crossword (easy). He said ‘hi’ into the phone, and read the first of the day’s clues. It wasn’t with interest or excitement that he recognised the voice from the night before. 'Hello, posh boy’ he heard. ‘are you still stuck on the crossword?’
‘Er, no’ John stumbled over his words, ‘it’s today’s, and I’ve only just started’.
Shit, he thought. Why do defensive? It’s only some bloke, albeit he sounds a little less aggressive today, on a wind-up. Why bother with them, any of them. He remained silent. There was a long pause.
‘Am I annoying you?’ came the voice. John’s manners got away from him and galloped out of control before he had time to rein them in.
‘Not at all’ he said, ‘it’s always nice to chat’
Nice to chat?! God! What was he like? A public school twit, or a cogent, educated thinker. The question was rhetorical.
‘Perhaps you’d rather be left alone’
John hauled back on the reins a bit and the runaway stallion slowed to a canter. He thought for a moment about his state of mind, he is the most clubbable of men, a man’s man, ready with a pint and a quip, and his sharp tongue had earned him the nickname Willie many years before, named for the greatest satirist of the time, Willie Rushton, now sadly dead. But John felt he was changing. He was quietening down, finding that the back-slapping rugger-bugger personality he had adopted over many years was draining him. He wanted to be quieter, more thoughtful and, bugger it all, more interesting to himself as well as everyone else. He wanted, above all, some space to think and just to be. This interruption, welcome as it would have been at almost any other time as a saviour from isolation was instead an interruption and a nuisance.
‘Well’, he replied ’it’s been a long day and I could do with some supper and a bit of time with my paper’ But all he heard in reply was coughing, and the click as the phone went dead.
He looked up, but the bar was dimly lit and this deliberate design meant he could not really see if many of the tables were full, let a lone who was coughing. He could dimly make out the sound of someone hacking way over in the furthest corner, but the stereo was loud and Peter Gabriel was pounding away at his Sledgehammer, leaving little room for John to be sure whether it was coughing or not he could hear. He sighed. He listened for a moment to the song that he knew so well, and realised for the first time that it is about love. But the good news, he thought to get off the thorny subject, was that from where he was sitting the waitresses all seemed to be working hard, and that, he felt, means that the place is busy. But there was nothing he could do now if it wasn’t, so he finished his glass, gathered his things and left, ready to take his campaign into another local town the next day.
After the next day in the neighbouring town, the now familiar pattern established itself again. John arrived at about eight, straight from the bus, and shrugged his damp coat on the back of the chair. He reached into his bag for the paper, but his time he wasn’t so interested in the SuDoku. For some reason he didn’t get further than completing the easy. He had a quick go at the T2 crossword too, but even that palled. He threw it down on the floor, folded his arms and sat, staring into his glass of wine and contemplating his work so far. He felt different today. He was ready for more. And was just beginning to feel he might really look at the bar tonight and see how it was performing, when the phone range.
‘Hi, hello, this is…’ he paused, remembering, ‘this is table’ he looked quickly, ‘seven’.
'Hello table seven. You sound happier tonight’ It was a new voice, and this time it was female. It was atttractive: he knew instantly that someone with a voice like that was someone he could like.
‘Yes’ he replied, ‘I suppose I am.’ He thought.
'How are you?’ it seemed polite.
‘Much better thank you’
‘Oh good’ he said, not understanding why, but feeling he had hit the right note of politeness.
‘Have you had an interesting day’
‘Actually I have,' he said 'I stood outside Marks and Sparks handing out leaflets and admiring women as they chose their new undies, through the window’
‘Undies! You mean they chose their knickers through the window?’ The voice was amused, a catch in the throat.
‘No, no’ John was embarrassed and rushed ‘I mean I was watching through the window'.
'A voyeur?’ There was definite laugh in the voice now. Something in the voice made John sit up , He began to take much more notice. He liked the way the conversation was easy, it amused him and cut through his tiredness.
‘Oh I hope not’ he said ‘ merely an observer. Do you think they didn’t like me looking?’
'I don’t think they gave a flying … hoot’ came the reply. Quick and assured.
‘Enjoy your supper’
John was startled. A waitress put a well-intentioned salad in front of him. John looked round, still with the phone in his hand, but the gloom in the bar made it difficult. He was being observed, but he could see no one looking his way. He replaced the receiver and pulled the plate towards him. The phone murmured in its cradle.
‘Enjoy your salad’ said the voice.
There was a chuckle and click. He looked again, but there were no clues in the darkness. He was alone.
As the last morsel of chicken caeser transferred from John’s fork to his mouth the phone on his table warbled again. 'Was that good?’
He applied a napkin carefully to his mouth and with his free hand pushed the plate away.
‘Do you know’ He said, reaching for his wine glass, ‘it was’.
He took a mouthful and swallowed. There was silence.
‘Hello?’ he said.
‘Hello.’ she said.
There was another pause. Anxious to fill it, but worried about being thought forward John considered what to say. Something was piquing his interest. He liked the voice, the care, even careful, way with words.
“Have you eaten yet?’, he said. Good, he thought. Neutral, but interested. As good a start as any.
‘Oh Posh boy, is that all you can think to ask me?’ John sat bolt upright in his chair. Posh Boy? How…? Who …? He looked around, and as he did so thought he heard a smile down the phone.
‘Is that… was that …? Oh my goodness’, he said. ‘Have you had a cough?’
‘Yes’, she said, ‘but it’s gone now. And it’s not a smoker’s’
‘No’ he said, ‘it was all yours’.
She chuckled.
‘I’m sorry,’ he went on ‘ I’ve just realised something and I’m most terribly sorry. I .. I don’t quite know what to say. I’m in shock’
‘Do you need a doctor?” that smile in the voice. It really was most beguiling.
‘No, no, not that kind of…’. He paused. ‘What do I call you?’
‘Whoa, posh boy, abrupt change of subject’ she said. Was that an accent he could hear. Lilting R’s and S’s that whispered on her lips. Nordic?
‘Yes, I’m sorry he said ‘But I feel like we’ve talked before, yet here I am starting afresh.’
‘We have’. She said, 'you are’.
And they talked and talked, each interested and interesting, for as many hours as the bar stayed open. They found out much about each other: from him she found out details, from her he found out very little, but the conversation came easily and they laughed together often. But once when John stood to look around she told him not to try too hard, if he looked too much she would disappear, just fade away.
‘Tell me your name’, he wanted to ask. ‘And I’ll tell you mine’ he would offer, but he was too slow and she asked him first, and he felt like a little boy in the playground once more, and his tongue was tied, no longer free to range over their fast and extensive conversation.
He asked her to go first. But she wouldn’t. He asked many times and tried different ways to find out anything that he could hold onto as solid fact, but she was coy, secretive and …. interesting and enigmatic and intelligent and witty and fast and funny. John enjoyed her company more than he knew how to register without sounding pushy.
'What’s wrong, posh boy, are you ashamed of being a Tristan or a Jeremy’
‘No, he laughed ‘nothing so glamorous’
‘But at your posh schools they had posh names to match’ she enquired.
‘Some' he said, 'but they were too busy with themselves to be after me, and my name is too small and too boring to be interesting. I’ll tell you if you tell me mine’.
He bit his tongue immediately, he knew how childish he sounded, and here was someone to whom childishness seemed anathema. He wanted to impress her, not distress her.
‘John’ he mumbled, small and shy again.
‘Now you’.
He felt as if he was in the school yard, grinding away with his toe into the dust. She prevaricated and quibbled, but he said ‘play fair’ and she said it back to him and added one word more. ‘Geraldine’ she finally said. And he thought he heard the sound of a kiss blown to him as the line went dead.
He sat there waiting, willing the phone to ring again. But it didn’t. He tried to watch everyone as they left, was it her? This one? Her? That one? Or Her? But he had no clues, and no one even glanced at him as they left. He waited for the bar to empty for the waitresses to clean up, for his client, who looked happy enough to clap him on the back and say ‘goodnight John boy’. He had to leave, so he did. But something remained behind on that day. His happiest since he had arrived in this new place.
The next day was more of the same, handing out leaflets in yet another local town. But John was different he was happier, and had smile on his face. He even whistled, but not for long. His inability to hold a tune, or even hit two consecutive notes in the same key, was driving people away and his distribution rate slowed. He stopped and just hummed songs to himself as they bounced into his head. Always love songs he noticed, nothing else, just mournful or cheerful songs about love. But he was not falling for that! Not yet anyway. And he wondered about her all day, looking at every woman he saw, testing her with his eyes, daring her to be his phone friend from last night. He wondered if she was pretty, he wondered if she was blonde or grey or brunette. He knew her age was just a shade less than his own, but he knew little else material other than the name she had chosen to give him. Was it even hers? He didn’t know. All he knew was he had been truthful in his responses of fact, but he had no way of knowing how truthful she was. And anyway there was so precious little to go on that really it was immaterial. Yet she knew so much about him: his age, where he lived, what he did, he had even, rashly perhaps told her about his website, and all his contact details were on it, so she could, in theory get hold of him night or day. Were her eyes blue, he thought she has said brown and realised he had not told her his were too: he hadn’t known and had had to check in the mirror that evening. Happy bright eyes he had seen, shining and new. He just longed for the day to be over.
When finally he had handed out all his leaflets, and made his way home to the bar, he found the same table and sat their waiting. No call came, but he was too excited to attempt the SuDoku, so he dug out a book he had in his bag, an old hardback and a simple detective novel about horses and gallops. Nothing too taxing. Still the phone didn’t ring.
The waitress brought his supper and a second glass of wine. He waited on, frustrated and nervously excited. Then the phone warbled. He stuck out a hand, but as he got near to the phone it died in mid-ring. He picked up the receiver and said hello several times. But there was nothing. He clicked his fingers at a waitress, and immediately apologised. His frustration was not her fault. He asked her for a new phone and she bought one across. But still it sat there resolute and silent. He called her again, more kindly, and asked her to ring his table. She did, it worked fine. But the voice he wanted to hear would not come, until, as the evening was ending, it warbled again.
‘Posh boy’ she said.
'Hello’ he said, I thought you were not going to ring.'
'I’m sorry, my cold won’t go and I’ve had … other things to do’ he felt full of remorse; of course she did, a life, children , a husband perhaps, there was guilt in his voice,
'I'm sorry' he said.
'Why' she said. 'It’s not your problem’.
And the line went dead.
And it’s been dead ever since. John went to the bar for two more nights. But the phone did not ring again. He has never decided why the phone stopped ringing, perhaps it will again. He felt as though he had been taken to a fine and happy place, a sunny beach perhaps with shells and rock pools and castles made of glistening golden sand, but now the tide had gone out and left him, and taken all the castles and moats they had built together with it. But tides always come back in, don't they? It's nature, he thought. But this one seemed to be gone for a long time, it felt as if it was out forever. He could still see the water, a small amount on a distant horizon. And he could remember the warmth with which it had lapped around his ankles, and he knew he wanted that feeling again. Perhaps one day it would and they will talk again, and he can say he’s sorry for whatever drove her away. He understands but … but what? There was nothing, just talk. But there was! There was something. A connection?
John still reads the paper, and still enjoys the Arts section more than the news or comment. He still does SuDoku, and he still markets other peoples businesses more successfully than he markets his own. But he doesn’t really care for the telephone anymore, and he rarely goes into bars now. He’s had enough of them. What's more, his girlfriend doesn't like them, even though she owns one and works in it. And later that night, when she's discarded her uniform, and as he pressed his hard heat into her, his client, his girlfriend, the waitress, called out from the depth of her ecstacy,
'Come on Posh Boy, fuck me',
he threw back his head and they both laughed, and came together.
He reached for his bag. It was new, a messenger he had bought in a fit of trying to make himself look like a successful advertising executive. But when you look like a cross between Homer Simpson's love child with Johnny Vegas and the brother of Phil Jupitus, looking cool, and indeed groovy, is not easy. He shuffled in his seat hoping his big tummy wasn’t too obvious in this darkened room. A waitress bought him a glass of something cold and crisp and white. The wine glass was slippery with condensation. But his life was filmed with condescension. If the bar didn’t fill, he wouldn’t get paid. Marketing by results his client called it. Extortion he called it, after all, he’d have done the work, and the client had approved all the ideas, and added a few of their own. But John’s choices were few and far between. None-the-less, part of his fee, if you can call it that, was as much to eat and drink in the new bar as he wanted. Ringtone, for that was it’s name – not John’s choice, but he had to go with it – was an old formula in a new place. A telephone bar. John had been weary at the very idea. He’d seen them a thousand times before; he’d even pulled in one in London: it was Carrie Fisher, he remembered, at least her look-alike. She had liked his voice with its natural depth and orotund vowels. He may not have got much in the way of certification from his posh education, but John had grown up among people who spoke well, and it had rubbed off. He was more Eton than Ealing, and on the phone where there were fewer inhibitions, his voice had charmed the pants off many, and literally off Carrie Fisher. She was a princess, he remembered. No spring chicken, but an outstanding layer. He smiled at his own joke. After all, it was unlikely any one else would now, and bad puns were harmless to all but himself.
From his bag he drew the day’s paper, The Times. He quickly read through the main news, picking at a story here and there, gleaning what he could from the headlines and foraging further when he felt it was required. Over the sport he lingered for a while, catching up on the news of his beloved team. He heard so little of them now, here in the sticks, but when he had been in London, he hadn’t been that interested: like Buckingham Palace, he thought, when it’s on the doorstep you never go, especially schlepping all the way up from Barnes. Too far to walk, too odorous by train and too unreliable by No 9. Especially if Hammersmith Bridge was the usual nightmare that he remembered. Although he had a rather good night shot of it he’d taken what, more than 20 years ago, on his first proper camera, that stood even now by his bedside.
When he reached the back he discarded the main part of the paper and spent far longer on section 2: the arts coverage. This is why he loved The Times, for it’s irreverent view of the arts. Even the stuffiest laureate could get a drubbing, but more than anything John was feeding his weakness. He was a killer addict. Killer SuDoku. He’d only recently understood the main tricks and twists that made it all make sense and now he was addicted. Every morning, rain, snow or sleet, he was at the newsagents with his 60p to catch up on the latest challenge from the masters. He warmed up with a mild, got to maximum revs with a fiendish and then braced himself for the killer. He knew the theory, but the practise was lagging behind, and silly mistakes still crept in. He needed to spend time on them. He was well into his fiendish, remembering the make-up of the 4’s across the puzzle when the phone on his table rang. He picked up the old fashioned handset and said ‘hi’. His eyes never left the puzzle as he concentrated on the pattern of the fours and thought about how the two’s fitted round them.
‘Hello?’ said a gruff, husky voice.
John didn’t move. His pen hovered over the puzzle and his eyes didn’t stray from the page. Across the room his caller was looking at the table where this curious man sat alone and engrossed. The low level table lamp, with it’s old red shade threw the light down, so the caller could see the paper and his hands, but not John’s face, or his eyes.
‘What are you doing’ John was startled for a moment and said without thinking ‘The crossword’.
‘Oh’, said the deep voice.
‘Yes’ said John, ‘The Times crossword.’
‘Oh my God,' said the voice, ‘how friggin intellectual are you, posh boy’ and with a click the line went dead.
John looked at his hand. It was trembling. He relaxed it and laid it flat on the page. His concentration was gone. He couldn’t get back to the SuDoku now, and knew that this interruption meant he had to do that really annoying thing of writing all the possible number in every blank square and, by elimination, arrive at the answer. But that was plodding and predictable. Sure, it easily lead one to the solution, but the point was to reach it by inspiration. As a punishment he started on The Times crossword, as he had tried to impress his caller with his erudition, and, because it was the easy crossword in T2, he filled in three or four clues without much effort. The phone burbled once again.
‘Ask me a clue, posh boy’ said the gruff voice. There was muffled coughing, and the voice came back ‘excuse me’.
John had completely failed to notice if the bar was empty or full. He wasn’t alert to these things on that night. His tiredness was bred into his bones over months of anxious worry and he couldn’t have cared one way or the other, so he had just done what he needed to and got on with things.
‘Come on, posh boy, give me a clue’.
John gently and with more care than he intended laid the receiver back in its cradle. The last thing he wanted was for some bloke to be making a pass at him. What was he, the only gay in the village? Sure, this little town was in Britain, but he wasn’t interested in re-ordering his genes so he could give some gay chap a thrill that night. He put his paper in his bag, collected his coat and made his way out of the door into the wet night. He hadn’t had his supper. He was tired, cold and alone, but tomorrow was another day. And after all, someone had seen something, he thought, that made him approachable. So maybe it wasn’t all bad news.
-oOo-
The next day was not so different that the detail is worth recording until, in the evening when John was sat at his table, in the corner, more or less in the dark, and alone, just as weary, just as footsore and just as stuck on the killer SuDoku, his phone rang. John glanced at his watch, it was past 9, and lifted the receiver. He cradled it with his shoulder and folded the page so that he could see the crossword (easy). He said ‘hi’ into the phone, and read the first of the day’s clues. It wasn’t with interest or excitement that he recognised the voice from the night before. 'Hello, posh boy’ he heard. ‘are you still stuck on the crossword?’
‘Er, no’ John stumbled over his words, ‘it’s today’s, and I’ve only just started’.
Shit, he thought. Why do defensive? It’s only some bloke, albeit he sounds a little less aggressive today, on a wind-up. Why bother with them, any of them. He remained silent. There was a long pause.
‘Am I annoying you?’ came the voice. John’s manners got away from him and galloped out of control before he had time to rein them in.
‘Not at all’ he said, ‘it’s always nice to chat’
Nice to chat?! God! What was he like? A public school twit, or a cogent, educated thinker. The question was rhetorical.
‘Perhaps you’d rather be left alone’
John hauled back on the reins a bit and the runaway stallion slowed to a canter. He thought for a moment about his state of mind, he is the most clubbable of men, a man’s man, ready with a pint and a quip, and his sharp tongue had earned him the nickname Willie many years before, named for the greatest satirist of the time, Willie Rushton, now sadly dead. But John felt he was changing. He was quietening down, finding that the back-slapping rugger-bugger personality he had adopted over many years was draining him. He wanted to be quieter, more thoughtful and, bugger it all, more interesting to himself as well as everyone else. He wanted, above all, some space to think and just to be. This interruption, welcome as it would have been at almost any other time as a saviour from isolation was instead an interruption and a nuisance.
‘Well’, he replied ’it’s been a long day and I could do with some supper and a bit of time with my paper’ But all he heard in reply was coughing, and the click as the phone went dead.
He looked up, but the bar was dimly lit and this deliberate design meant he could not really see if many of the tables were full, let a lone who was coughing. He could dimly make out the sound of someone hacking way over in the furthest corner, but the stereo was loud and Peter Gabriel was pounding away at his Sledgehammer, leaving little room for John to be sure whether it was coughing or not he could hear. He sighed. He listened for a moment to the song that he knew so well, and realised for the first time that it is about love. But the good news, he thought to get off the thorny subject, was that from where he was sitting the waitresses all seemed to be working hard, and that, he felt, means that the place is busy. But there was nothing he could do now if it wasn’t, so he finished his glass, gathered his things and left, ready to take his campaign into another local town the next day.
After the next day in the neighbouring town, the now familiar pattern established itself again. John arrived at about eight, straight from the bus, and shrugged his damp coat on the back of the chair. He reached into his bag for the paper, but his time he wasn’t so interested in the SuDoku. For some reason he didn’t get further than completing the easy. He had a quick go at the T2 crossword too, but even that palled. He threw it down on the floor, folded his arms and sat, staring into his glass of wine and contemplating his work so far. He felt different today. He was ready for more. And was just beginning to feel he might really look at the bar tonight and see how it was performing, when the phone range.
‘Hi, hello, this is…’ he paused, remembering, ‘this is table’ he looked quickly, ‘seven’.
'Hello table seven. You sound happier tonight’ It was a new voice, and this time it was female. It was atttractive: he knew instantly that someone with a voice like that was someone he could like.
‘Yes’ he replied, ‘I suppose I am.’ He thought.
'How are you?’ it seemed polite.
‘Much better thank you’
‘Oh good’ he said, not understanding why, but feeling he had hit the right note of politeness.
‘Have you had an interesting day’
‘Actually I have,' he said 'I stood outside Marks and Sparks handing out leaflets and admiring women as they chose their new undies, through the window’
‘Undies! You mean they chose their knickers through the window?’ The voice was amused, a catch in the throat.
‘No, no’ John was embarrassed and rushed ‘I mean I was watching through the window'.
'A voyeur?’ There was definite laugh in the voice now. Something in the voice made John sit up , He began to take much more notice. He liked the way the conversation was easy, it amused him and cut through his tiredness.
‘Oh I hope not’ he said ‘ merely an observer. Do you think they didn’t like me looking?’
'I don’t think they gave a flying … hoot’ came the reply. Quick and assured.
‘Enjoy your supper’
John was startled. A waitress put a well-intentioned salad in front of him. John looked round, still with the phone in his hand, but the gloom in the bar made it difficult. He was being observed, but he could see no one looking his way. He replaced the receiver and pulled the plate towards him. The phone murmured in its cradle.
‘Enjoy your salad’ said the voice.
There was a chuckle and click. He looked again, but there were no clues in the darkness. He was alone.
-oOo-
As the last morsel of chicken caeser transferred from John’s fork to his mouth the phone on his table warbled again. 'Was that good?’
He applied a napkin carefully to his mouth and with his free hand pushed the plate away.
‘Do you know’ He said, reaching for his wine glass, ‘it was’.
He took a mouthful and swallowed. There was silence.
‘Hello?’ he said.
‘Hello.’ she said.
There was another pause. Anxious to fill it, but worried about being thought forward John considered what to say. Something was piquing his interest. He liked the voice, the care, even careful, way with words.
“Have you eaten yet?’, he said. Good, he thought. Neutral, but interested. As good a start as any.
‘Oh Posh boy, is that all you can think to ask me?’ John sat bolt upright in his chair. Posh Boy? How…? Who …? He looked around, and as he did so thought he heard a smile down the phone.
‘Is that… was that …? Oh my goodness’, he said. ‘Have you had a cough?’
‘Yes’, she said, ‘but it’s gone now. And it’s not a smoker’s’
‘No’ he said, ‘it was all yours’.
She chuckled.
‘I’m sorry,’ he went on ‘ I’ve just realised something and I’m most terribly sorry. I .. I don’t quite know what to say. I’m in shock’
‘Do you need a doctor?” that smile in the voice. It really was most beguiling.
‘No, no, not that kind of…’. He paused. ‘What do I call you?’
‘Whoa, posh boy, abrupt change of subject’ she said. Was that an accent he could hear. Lilting R’s and S’s that whispered on her lips. Nordic?
‘Yes, I’m sorry he said ‘But I feel like we’ve talked before, yet here I am starting afresh.’
‘We have’. She said, 'you are’.
And they talked and talked, each interested and interesting, for as many hours as the bar stayed open. They found out much about each other: from him she found out details, from her he found out very little, but the conversation came easily and they laughed together often. But once when John stood to look around she told him not to try too hard, if he looked too much she would disappear, just fade away.
‘Tell me your name’, he wanted to ask. ‘And I’ll tell you mine’ he would offer, but he was too slow and she asked him first, and he felt like a little boy in the playground once more, and his tongue was tied, no longer free to range over their fast and extensive conversation.
He asked her to go first. But she wouldn’t. He asked many times and tried different ways to find out anything that he could hold onto as solid fact, but she was coy, secretive and …. interesting and enigmatic and intelligent and witty and fast and funny. John enjoyed her company more than he knew how to register without sounding pushy.
'What’s wrong, posh boy, are you ashamed of being a Tristan or a Jeremy’
‘No, he laughed ‘nothing so glamorous’
‘But at your posh schools they had posh names to match’ she enquired.
‘Some' he said, 'but they were too busy with themselves to be after me, and my name is too small and too boring to be interesting. I’ll tell you if you tell me mine’.
He bit his tongue immediately, he knew how childish he sounded, and here was someone to whom childishness seemed anathema. He wanted to impress her, not distress her.
‘John’ he mumbled, small and shy again.
‘Now you’.
He felt as if he was in the school yard, grinding away with his toe into the dust. She prevaricated and quibbled, but he said ‘play fair’ and she said it back to him and added one word more. ‘Geraldine’ she finally said. And he thought he heard the sound of a kiss blown to him as the line went dead.
He sat there waiting, willing the phone to ring again. But it didn’t. He tried to watch everyone as they left, was it her? This one? Her? That one? Or Her? But he had no clues, and no one even glanced at him as they left. He waited for the bar to empty for the waitresses to clean up, for his client, who looked happy enough to clap him on the back and say ‘goodnight John boy’. He had to leave, so he did. But something remained behind on that day. His happiest since he had arrived in this new place.
-oOo-
The next day was more of the same, handing out leaflets in yet another local town. But John was different he was happier, and had smile on his face. He even whistled, but not for long. His inability to hold a tune, or even hit two consecutive notes in the same key, was driving people away and his distribution rate slowed. He stopped and just hummed songs to himself as they bounced into his head. Always love songs he noticed, nothing else, just mournful or cheerful songs about love. But he was not falling for that! Not yet anyway. And he wondered about her all day, looking at every woman he saw, testing her with his eyes, daring her to be his phone friend from last night. He wondered if she was pretty, he wondered if she was blonde or grey or brunette. He knew her age was just a shade less than his own, but he knew little else material other than the name she had chosen to give him. Was it even hers? He didn’t know. All he knew was he had been truthful in his responses of fact, but he had no way of knowing how truthful she was. And anyway there was so precious little to go on that really it was immaterial. Yet she knew so much about him: his age, where he lived, what he did, he had even, rashly perhaps told her about his website, and all his contact details were on it, so she could, in theory get hold of him night or day. Were her eyes blue, he thought she has said brown and realised he had not told her his were too: he hadn’t known and had had to check in the mirror that evening. Happy bright eyes he had seen, shining and new. He just longed for the day to be over.
When finally he had handed out all his leaflets, and made his way home to the bar, he found the same table and sat their waiting. No call came, but he was too excited to attempt the SuDoku, so he dug out a book he had in his bag, an old hardback and a simple detective novel about horses and gallops. Nothing too taxing. Still the phone didn’t ring.
The waitress brought his supper and a second glass of wine. He waited on, frustrated and nervously excited. Then the phone warbled. He stuck out a hand, but as he got near to the phone it died in mid-ring. He picked up the receiver and said hello several times. But there was nothing. He clicked his fingers at a waitress, and immediately apologised. His frustration was not her fault. He asked her for a new phone and she bought one across. But still it sat there resolute and silent. He called her again, more kindly, and asked her to ring his table. She did, it worked fine. But the voice he wanted to hear would not come, until, as the evening was ending, it warbled again.
‘Posh boy’ she said.
'Hello’ he said, I thought you were not going to ring.'
'I’m sorry, my cold won’t go and I’ve had … other things to do’ he felt full of remorse; of course she did, a life, children , a husband perhaps, there was guilt in his voice,
'I'm sorry' he said.
'Why' she said. 'It’s not your problem’.
And the line went dead.
And it’s been dead ever since. John went to the bar for two more nights. But the phone did not ring again. He has never decided why the phone stopped ringing, perhaps it will again. He felt as though he had been taken to a fine and happy place, a sunny beach perhaps with shells and rock pools and castles made of glistening golden sand, but now the tide had gone out and left him, and taken all the castles and moats they had built together with it. But tides always come back in, don't they? It's nature, he thought. But this one seemed to be gone for a long time, it felt as if it was out forever. He could still see the water, a small amount on a distant horizon. And he could remember the warmth with which it had lapped around his ankles, and he knew he wanted that feeling again. Perhaps one day it would and they will talk again, and he can say he’s sorry for whatever drove her away. He understands but … but what? There was nothing, just talk. But there was! There was something. A connection?
John still reads the paper, and still enjoys the Arts section more than the news or comment. He still does SuDoku, and he still markets other peoples businesses more successfully than he markets his own. But he doesn’t really care for the telephone anymore, and he rarely goes into bars now. He’s had enough of them. What's more, his girlfriend doesn't like them, even though she owns one and works in it. And later that night, when she's discarded her uniform, and as he pressed his hard heat into her, his client, his girlfriend, the waitress, called out from the depth of her ecstacy,
'Come on Posh Boy, fuck me',
he threw back his head and they both laughed, and came together.
Monday, November 14
Sunday, November 13
Friday, November 11
A new democracy?
Maybe, we should change the party in charge of the country every three years or so. Rotate it round the three parties. Like the European Presidency.
Or, how about the party currently in power can't stand at the next election?
Or, no more than two terms (America?) for a party.
Or, perhaps best of all, as I am just beginning to believe, proportional representation.
I strongly believe anything that prevents large majorities a la Maggie and Tony has got to be an improvement. I would rather my vote was used to maintain equilibrium and not used to sponser massive majorities that allow parties to succumb to their own prejudices and vanities.
And who would ever thought those two would end up going the same way, but it's beginning to look a distinct possibility.
Or, how about the party currently in power can't stand at the next election?
Or, no more than two terms (America?) for a party.
Or, perhaps best of all, as I am just beginning to believe, proportional representation.
I strongly believe anything that prevents large majorities a la Maggie and Tony has got to be an improvement. I would rather my vote was used to maintain equilibrium and not used to sponser massive majorities that allow parties to succumb to their own prejudices and vanities.
And who would ever thought those two would end up going the same way, but it's beginning to look a distinct possibility.
Thursday, November 10
Palestine, Police and Politics - sorry
I know pompous political comments are really tedious, but two things keep going round and round my tiny excuse for a mind. Hopefully, if I get them out here, that will leave room for something else...
One. It was heartwarming to see the story on the news last night about the Palestinian father who allowed organs from his son, murdered by Israeli soldiers, to be used to save and improve Israeli, as well as Palestinian, lives. As I said to my girlfriend, the ex-wife of a Jewish man, how nice it would be if we could see that same humbling greatness of heart and generosity of spirit going the other way. But we won't. And I think that says a lot.
Two. Tony Blair lost a battle, not the war. Calls for the end of his term of office are vast overreactions. We learn by our mistakes. He should be allowed to make some, finally. We've been waiting long enough for goodness sake, let us enjoy it for a while.
So he got all confused and feels that the same Police who murdered Jean Charles de Jiminez, and shot another man for waving a chair leg at them, didn't prosecute more than 150 officers caught speeding last year and are proven to be structurally racist, should dictate how long we hold suspects on remand for. He rides roughshod over teachers, nurses, doctors, students, taxpayers and so on, but bows to the Police. Luckily his backbenchers are closer to the general public than he is and said 'no'. Not one person I know thinks 90 days is a good idea, not one.
It's an almighty relief that, at last, we have an oppostion in our system. Things can only get better from now on. No more massive majorities, but debate and proper politics. For the first time for years I feel a litte hopeful that at last this government might actually have to learn how to govern, and therefore start doing it properly. Unless you live in the country of course, then you might as well forget any kind of representation.
Am I the only one who sees another parallel here with the presidential style, where the Police, or CIA, are drawn into become political tools used to help bolster a regime.
One. It was heartwarming to see the story on the news last night about the Palestinian father who allowed organs from his son, murdered by Israeli soldiers, to be used to save and improve Israeli, as well as Palestinian, lives. As I said to my girlfriend, the ex-wife of a Jewish man, how nice it would be if we could see that same humbling greatness of heart and generosity of spirit going the other way. But we won't. And I think that says a lot.
Two. Tony Blair lost a battle, not the war. Calls for the end of his term of office are vast overreactions. We learn by our mistakes. He should be allowed to make some, finally. We've been waiting long enough for goodness sake, let us enjoy it for a while.
So he got all confused and feels that the same Police who murdered Jean Charles de Jiminez, and shot another man for waving a chair leg at them, didn't prosecute more than 150 officers caught speeding last year and are proven to be structurally racist, should dictate how long we hold suspects on remand for. He rides roughshod over teachers, nurses, doctors, students, taxpayers and so on, but bows to the Police. Luckily his backbenchers are closer to the general public than he is and said 'no'. Not one person I know thinks 90 days is a good idea, not one.
It's an almighty relief that, at last, we have an oppostion in our system. Things can only get better from now on. No more massive majorities, but debate and proper politics. For the first time for years I feel a litte hopeful that at last this government might actually have to learn how to govern, and therefore start doing it properly. Unless you live in the country of course, then you might as well forget any kind of representation.
Am I the only one who sees another parallel here with the presidential style, where the Police, or CIA, are drawn into become political tools used to help bolster a regime.
Wednesday, November 9
Wanted - Graphic Designer with style, class and experience
I want a new designer for print and press for this tiny agency I have, but I don't quite know how to go about it.
Someone with more than the usual
I want someone local to me (Oxfordshire) with a darned good book who can do conceptual stuff as well as logos, mailers, catalogues, folders etc, and the usual mundane things like stationery and so on. They've got to be freelance, or thinking of going freelance, and they've got to want to work with me, not for me. I've got a great designer, but he's a long way away, and he's not really interested in helping, by which I mean going beyond the box of simply being an outsourced graphic designer. Sure he loves doing my design work, and getting paid for it, but I want someone who is more interested in working as if in a partnership way. Someone I can really sit down with and discuss clients, and to whom it matters that we do what we can to help them, and therefore ourselves. My guy leaves it all up to me, and I don't work best that way. I'm used to being in a team. I'll pay for their time on design work, but I want someone who will really contribute to the way things go forward, help us get work, and what's more keep it. And that means being pro-active, and sometimes doing work speculatively to show clients what we are thinking. The rewards will be more work because if we can work together well, we can create more. But what's more, for the right person it could be 50:50 shares in the fullness of time (say after nine months/one year).
It's better to share
So you're probably someone who, like me, does better if there is someone to share things with, to discuss, encourage and help. I don't want someone who is going to pretend to be these things and then rush off to get the first full-time job they are offered (been there, etc). You've got your own (Mac) kit, and know all the usual things like Quark, Photoshop, Illustrator etc.
And you've also got your own work, that's keeping you going, but is not quite floating your boat, Or maybe you find the strain of getting new work outweights the benefits of doing it. If so, you're a bit like me, and we could think about a solution together.
Time to change - for the better?
You may work out of your home, or in an office. I do the former but would rather the latter. And that means if you're in a similar position, and a designer, we should talk. Hit the comments button. The same applies if you have space for rent in an office that either need advertising/design/marketing, or have a like-minded group already.
And if I've happened on a designer this way, in the Berks, Oxon, Gloucs, East Wilts areas, give me a shout via the comments, and I'll point you to our website. Or if you've got any ideas that don't cost the earth as to how I can find such a person, I'd love to see them via comments.
Someone with more than the usual
I want someone local to me (Oxfordshire) with a darned good book who can do conceptual stuff as well as logos, mailers, catalogues, folders etc, and the usual mundane things like stationery and so on. They've got to be freelance, or thinking of going freelance, and they've got to want to work with me, not for me. I've got a great designer, but he's a long way away, and he's not really interested in helping, by which I mean going beyond the box of simply being an outsourced graphic designer. Sure he loves doing my design work, and getting paid for it, but I want someone who is more interested in working as if in a partnership way. Someone I can really sit down with and discuss clients, and to whom it matters that we do what we can to help them, and therefore ourselves. My guy leaves it all up to me, and I don't work best that way. I'm used to being in a team. I'll pay for their time on design work, but I want someone who will really contribute to the way things go forward, help us get work, and what's more keep it. And that means being pro-active, and sometimes doing work speculatively to show clients what we are thinking. The rewards will be more work because if we can work together well, we can create more. But what's more, for the right person it could be 50:50 shares in the fullness of time (say after nine months/one year).
It's better to share
So you're probably someone who, like me, does better if there is someone to share things with, to discuss, encourage and help. I don't want someone who is going to pretend to be these things and then rush off to get the first full-time job they are offered (been there, etc). You've got your own (Mac) kit, and know all the usual things like Quark, Photoshop, Illustrator etc.
And you've also got your own work, that's keeping you going, but is not quite floating your boat, Or maybe you find the strain of getting new work outweights the benefits of doing it. If so, you're a bit like me, and we could think about a solution together.
Time to change - for the better?
You may work out of your home, or in an office. I do the former but would rather the latter. And that means if you're in a similar position, and a designer, we should talk. Hit the comments button. The same applies if you have space for rent in an office that either need advertising/design/marketing, or have a like-minded group already.
And if I've happened on a designer this way, in the Berks, Oxon, Gloucs, East Wilts areas, give me a shout via the comments, and I'll point you to our website. Or if you've got any ideas that don't cost the earth as to how I can find such a person, I'd love to see them via comments.
Tuesday, November 8
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire - World Premiere
It's a funny old world
It's odd arriving at a premier. Especially if it's the world premiere of the latest in the Harry Potter phenomenon: Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. It starts with you are sitting in the blacked-out luxury of a brand new Mercedes, when someone in a suit that's a size too small opens the door and all hell breaks loose. Camera's flash and disjointed voices are screaming 'over here, over here', and then they look at you and realise you are no one famous and there's a sort of collective groan, and you can see one or two of them deleting the out of focus 'rabbit in the headlights' shots they took of you before the penny dropped.
Once you have decided that despite the drizzle and the constant roar of the crowd that you can still maintain something like an upright posture and not go smack on your backside, and that you are far too unimportant to have an umbrella escort, while The Star you are with does, it's time to take it all in. Well, as much as you can while trying to maintain your dignity, and worrying that somehow your flies have flown open in the car: from the wonderful dragon breathing flames, to the masses of faces searching you up and down thinking 'who the fuck are you?'. I hope they realised my smiles were an ironic post-modernist satirical comment on the shallowness of fame, rather than the rictus grin it probably looked like. What do they know?
It was nice to see Madonna, and little Lourdes, take the attention away from the Harry Potter stars and film. That's her prerogative of course, to come to everything whether involved or not. Perhaps she financed it, or something. But I had other things to worry about, like negotiating the green pastic bridge across Leicester Square with out falling over in my trendy (circa 1987) black leather shoes and whether The Son would be OK too. I debated, inwardly, whether I should hold on to the hand rail over the bridge but decided not to, then saw that Robbie Coltrane did, so I could have and still been cool, well as cool as him anyway. And it would have meant I would have been able to look around me rather than down at the floor looking out for banana skins. Anyway I, The Son and The Star dodged the paps and, together with 2,000 or so of our nearest and closest friends, made it to the screening. After a few low key speeches it got underway. And it's a good film.
It moves the characters on, and shows us the beginning of the teenage years that we are going to see a lot more of in 5, 6 and 7, and, what's more, it doesn't hang about. There isn't much room for subtlety, but the odd quiet scenes come as something of a relief. I have to say The Son, who is the grandson of The Star, was bounced out of his seat in surprise at least three times; one really big one underwater, and another when I thought he might hit the ceiling was in the maze, and he nearly tore the nails off my hands when Voldemor... sorry HWSNBN, appears, and then had the Chutzpa to say it wasn't scary. So that sweaty clingy thing attached like a limpet to my right hand and wimpering was not you, eh? It scared you, made you jump out of your seat and I have to say, you loved it. I think they've got it about right. I look forward to the next one being rated 15.
Spontaneous applause broke out at the end, but what would you expect from the luvvies and their doting families? I would have hoped for it to be a little more ecstatic if I had been director Mike Newell, perhaps a few woops and cheers would have been in order, but this latest addition will do the fanchise no end of good and boost sales of the whole opus. It's a good film with enough for the grown ups, including extra humour, and enough terror for the 11 - 16 age bracket it's aimed at. A massive hit is easy to predict but is also justified.
Thence to the party. The photo is the staircase of the Nat Hist Museum in London decked out with the Hogwarts trophy collection. Sorry, but that's all you get, any others are private, but they were also very difficult to take in the semi-gloom and scrum of the party. I thought it might all be a bit more lavish, but I suppose restraint is the order of the day. And anyway Ruth Kelly (Edu Minister) was there, so it was never going to be that glamorous (bet her kids didn't stay off Monday school today, unlike The Son: we didn't get home until two and he's only 11). However, so was Kate Beckinsale, and that did do something for the old ticker (and other parts) I can tell you. Yes, yes, it was champagne all night, and food, and the biggest free sweets bar I've ever seen and a chocolate fountain and ... oh luxury and excess, but little glamour. I really enjoyed it, and so, I think, did the stars of this latest HP. They deserved it. They done good.
It's odd arriving at a premier. Especially if it's the world premiere of the latest in the Harry Potter phenomenon: Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. It starts with you are sitting in the blacked-out luxury of a brand new Mercedes, when someone in a suit that's a size too small opens the door and all hell breaks loose. Camera's flash and disjointed voices are screaming 'over here, over here', and then they look at you and realise you are no one famous and there's a sort of collective groan, and you can see one or two of them deleting the out of focus 'rabbit in the headlights' shots they took of you before the penny dropped.
Once you have decided that despite the drizzle and the constant roar of the crowd that you can still maintain something like an upright posture and not go smack on your backside, and that you are far too unimportant to have an umbrella escort, while The Star you are with does, it's time to take it all in. Well, as much as you can while trying to maintain your dignity, and worrying that somehow your flies have flown open in the car: from the wonderful dragon breathing flames, to the masses of faces searching you up and down thinking 'who the fuck are you?'. I hope they realised my smiles were an ironic post-modernist satirical comment on the shallowness of fame, rather than the rictus grin it probably looked like. What do they know?
It was nice to see Madonna, and little Lourdes, take the attention away from the Harry Potter stars and film. That's her prerogative of course, to come to everything whether involved or not. Perhaps she financed it, or something. But I had other things to worry about, like negotiating the green pastic bridge across Leicester Square with out falling over in my trendy (circa 1987) black leather shoes and whether The Son would be OK too. I debated, inwardly, whether I should hold on to the hand rail over the bridge but decided not to, then saw that Robbie Coltrane did, so I could have and still been cool, well as cool as him anyway. And it would have meant I would have been able to look around me rather than down at the floor looking out for banana skins. Anyway I, The Son and The Star dodged the paps and, together with 2,000 or so of our nearest and closest friends, made it to the screening. After a few low key speeches it got underway. And it's a good film.
It moves the characters on, and shows us the beginning of the teenage years that we are going to see a lot more of in 5, 6 and 7, and, what's more, it doesn't hang about. There isn't much room for subtlety, but the odd quiet scenes come as something of a relief. I have to say The Son, who is the grandson of The Star, was bounced out of his seat in surprise at least three times; one really big one underwater, and another when I thought he might hit the ceiling was in the maze, and he nearly tore the nails off my hands when Voldemor... sorry HWSNBN, appears, and then had the Chutzpa to say it wasn't scary. So that sweaty clingy thing attached like a limpet to my right hand and wimpering was not you, eh? It scared you, made you jump out of your seat and I have to say, you loved it. I think they've got it about right. I look forward to the next one being rated 15.
Spontaneous applause broke out at the end, but what would you expect from the luvvies and their doting families? I would have hoped for it to be a little more ecstatic if I had been director Mike Newell, perhaps a few woops and cheers would have been in order, but this latest addition will do the fanchise no end of good and boost sales of the whole opus. It's a good film with enough for the grown ups, including extra humour, and enough terror for the 11 - 16 age bracket it's aimed at. A massive hit is easy to predict but is also justified.
Thence to the party. The photo is the staircase of the Nat Hist Museum in London decked out with the Hogwarts trophy collection. Sorry, but that's all you get, any others are private, but they were also very difficult to take in the semi-gloom and scrum of the party. I thought it might all be a bit more lavish, but I suppose restraint is the order of the day. And anyway Ruth Kelly (Edu Minister) was there, so it was never going to be that glamorous (bet her kids didn't stay off Monday school today, unlike The Son: we didn't get home until two and he's only 11). However, so was Kate Beckinsale, and that did do something for the old ticker (and other parts) I can tell you. Yes, yes, it was champagne all night, and food, and the biggest free sweets bar I've ever seen and a chocolate fountain and ... oh luxury and excess, but little glamour. I really enjoyed it, and so, I think, did the stars of this latest HP. They deserved it. They done good.
Saturday, November 5
At the beeps, please take a break
I think I'm going to take the weekend off. Right now, I'll take the hound for a meander and get him to wee in the Thames (if the moorhens don't scare him off), and see if we can't find some interesting images to snap with my camera. Do you think if I keep mentioning that it's a Samsung D500 and a very nice phone indeed, and a blessed relief from the dreaded Sony that I was forced into by the equally dreaded Carphone Warehouse, that eventually Samsung will shell out a nice new D600? It'd be great to get something from blogging. How does the Doocer do it?
Meanwhile I'm off for a little break, and to find time to get my head down because this weekend is massive for me. Big do in London tomorrow and I've got to get my crap together: when the paps hit you there is little forgiven. And tonight I'm in for a quiet night out. Maybe take in Broken Flowers, and see what stems from that - see what I did there? A joke! Hoorah. The waters are seeping back in because the tide has turned. With luck, Bill Murray will help me remember what it's all about. I'll be back with stronger, but still wrong, opinions, and more original photos and stuff. Even if, in the end, it's not all that good, I'm the only one here, and that's fine by me.
But I bet, sometime, I'll make you laugh.
Meanwhile I'm off for a little break, and to find time to get my head down because this weekend is massive for me. Big do in London tomorrow and I've got to get my crap together: when the paps hit you there is little forgiven. And tonight I'm in for a quiet night out. Maybe take in Broken Flowers, and see what stems from that - see what I did there? A joke! Hoorah. The waters are seeping back in because the tide has turned. With luck, Bill Murray will help me remember what it's all about. I'll be back with stronger, but still wrong, opinions, and more original photos and stuff. Even if, in the end, it's not all that good, I'm the only one here, and that's fine by me.
But I bet, sometime, I'll make you laugh.
Happy Birthday Dog!
It's my dog's birthday today. He's eight!
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Usually, and kindly, a lot of people let off fireworks to celebrate. There may be some going off near you. Have a fun time (and a safe one too) on this, his special day.
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Usually, and kindly, a lot of people let off fireworks to celebrate. There may be some going off near you. Have a fun time (and a safe one too) on this, his special day.
........*
Friday, November 4
Down by the river one day...
I took this photo, and all the other photos on this blog with my camera phone while wandering around with my dog. I may not be the world's most original photographer, but at least they are mine. I haven't 'borrowed' them from elsewhere. And that means I own the copyrights.
Never judge a book by its cover, that's what I say. Oh, and Phil Jupitus is a very nice man. I'm always saying that, even though I don't know him (but my girlfriend fancies him).
Thursday, November 3
then it was 6:30pm
Have you ever noticed that, when you've been to the motorcycle show at the NEC all day and you come back later than expected and tired and pour a glass of crisp Sauvignon Blanc and decide to demolish the rest of the mango sorbet (that you got from Waitrose as a rare treat) because you've got the blues and are too tired to cook, the cold sorbet makes the wine fizz on your tongue?
Wednesday, November 2
I don't like Mondays, but Wednesdays are worse
Bob's a clever man. Sir Bob to you and me, I suppose. He has a kind of articulacy that I really admire: to be able to speak as if in rehearsed speeches. He makes cogent sense, whereas I bumble around trying to find my way to maybe beginning to think of the, er, point, which may be over there, or perhaps over here, but let's go together and see.
But Bob don't like Mondays. And I am in some concorde with him there. Getting up early, especially at this time of year is grim. The extra toothpaste because last night was still the weekend and so that bottle of red just had to be finished (for the bin men in the morning). The feeling that after the daily grind there is a load for the machine: one to empty and one to start, because it's Monday and there is no excuse for not doing the chores on a Monday. Yesterday, oh yesterday was different. Yesterday it was take the kids out, pub lunch maybe, the papers (it's your duty to read them cover to cover, and then check the insides of your eyelids for any signs of lasting damage - takes a good hour to go over them carefully), perhaps a bit of extra effort for supper, and then the cork comes out of the bottle to celebrate the end of the weekend, and then bed, and a bit of something exciting and loving if you're lucky, and then your zinc levels drop and drop and drop and drop until IT"S MONDAY MORNING LOSER! WAKEY WAKEY WAKEY!
Why can't alarm clock radios be gentle? My Sony is really alarming. I swear my palpitations are due to it's complete lack of subtlety. GET UP YOU LAZY FAT ... my hand reaches the off button just in time. Or it could be John Humphrys' fault.
So, yes Bob, Mondays are pretty crap. But Wednesdays are worse. Because on Wednesdays every week I have to give my boy to his Mum for two days, and every Wednesday a little bit more of me dies. And you know what Bob, it never gets any easier. After four years, I wonder if there is enough of me left alive to have little bit more die off next Wednesday and next and next and next.
But there always is. Like a new parent who is so tired they can't function, but always do becasue they have to, so I regenerate just enough to be able to let it die again in a week.
That's why Wednesdays are worse than Mondays Bob, that's why.
But Bob don't like Mondays. And I am in some concorde with him there. Getting up early, especially at this time of year is grim. The extra toothpaste because last night was still the weekend and so that bottle of red just had to be finished (for the bin men in the morning). The feeling that after the daily grind there is a load for the machine: one to empty and one to start, because it's Monday and there is no excuse for not doing the chores on a Monday. Yesterday, oh yesterday was different. Yesterday it was take the kids out, pub lunch maybe, the papers (it's your duty to read them cover to cover, and then check the insides of your eyelids for any signs of lasting damage - takes a good hour to go over them carefully), perhaps a bit of extra effort for supper, and then the cork comes out of the bottle to celebrate the end of the weekend, and then bed, and a bit of something exciting and loving if you're lucky, and then your zinc levels drop and drop and drop and drop until IT"S MONDAY MORNING LOSER! WAKEY WAKEY WAKEY!
Why can't alarm clock radios be gentle? My Sony is really alarming. I swear my palpitations are due to it's complete lack of subtlety. GET UP YOU LAZY FAT ... my hand reaches the off button just in time. Or it could be John Humphrys' fault.
So, yes Bob, Mondays are pretty crap. But Wednesdays are worse. Because on Wednesdays every week I have to give my boy to his Mum for two days, and every Wednesday a little bit more of me dies. And you know what Bob, it never gets any easier. After four years, I wonder if there is enough of me left alive to have little bit more die off next Wednesday and next and next and next.
But there always is. Like a new parent who is so tired they can't function, but always do becasue they have to, so I regenerate just enough to be able to let it die again in a week.
That's why Wednesdays are worse than Mondays Bob, that's why.
Tuesday, November 1
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