I wrote something I did

I have for the past six weeks been busy writing a panto for the theatre company I work with. It has been very hard work. But it has been good to have a deadline otherwise I would have spent an extra six months or possibly eternity finishing the bloody thing. I was reminded of a couple of quotes while completing the writing.

The first one concerned the editing process. I had feared that when the script was subjected to the scrutiny of the small group responsible for helping me make it presentable that I would be excessively sensitive and sulk about their suggestions.

Bill Bryson wrote about this in relation to Thomas Jefferson and The Declaration of Independence. He said that 'Like most writers Jefferson sulked about the editing process and thought what congress presented back to him was inferior, and like all writers he was wrong.' Now before we get to my grandiosity I can accept that perhaps my panto is not quite the same work of literature as the Declaration of Independence (although my jokes are funnier). The point is I need not have worried about the jokes being diluted because in every case where a change was made I can see the script has improved with the advice of my colleagues.

The second quote I saw on a Charlie Brooker special about writers (look it up on Youtube, its fantastic). On the programme Tony Jordan says 'I love having wrote something, I hate fucking writing'.That's about the way I feel about writing. I had really had to drag myself to my computer to finish this piece of work. The last scene was such a phenominal pain in the arse I signed off typing 'Thank Fuck That's finished'. Then on Thursday we had a reading. And hearing a cast reading it and laughing as they did so (both edited and unedited bits) it reminded me that the first part of Tony Jordan's quote always trumps the second part of it.

Eclipse

Saw the third film in the Twilight series. I have to say that it is getting better. I am still team Edward but Jacob grew on me a bit in this instalment. I am not going to enter into any analysis of the film. Just to say that below is possibly the best Onion clip ever which is saying something. The moment where the Al-Quaida spokes man says 'wow!' is simply as perfect as comedy gets, anywhere ever.

Topical !

So I am trying to right this blog weekly. And therefore if it is weekly it should be topical. And if it is topical then there is really only one story. Raoul Moat. To those of you reading in the future Raoul Moat is an ex nightclub bouncer who became a bit unhinged after coming out of prison, shot and wounded his ex partner and killed her current partner and the following day shot a policeman who was sat by the side of the road.

He then went missing for about a week. Rather helpfully he left a couple of notes to help the media ramp up their hysteria levels from ‘Crikey’ to ‘Armageddon’. It eventually all finished last night when Moat killed himself, infuriatingly just off camera for the news outlets.

I didn’t need to watch a great deal of the coverage but enough to gather the tone of it. Lots of interviews from handwriting experts and forensic psychologists and ex-firearms officers. All of them doing the same thing. Speculating and therefore filling valuable airtime.

In the good old days before 24 hours news coverage when there were sieges we had to dutifully wait for the allotted hours that our news was delivered. This freed us up to actually get on with the business of living our lives. The news bulletins because they were only half an hour stuck to reporting what was actually happening.

Media experts will tell you that this was highbound and moribund and an affront to democratic right of us to consume our news when we like. Well I don’t need to point out to you what snake oil selling cocks Media experts are. They spend their lives studying trends in media, as if that isn’t what we all do. Get a real fucking job.

If anything serious really happened we used to have the news interrupting the main programmes. And what a thrill it was when that happened, wondering in the feverish few seconds between ‘we interrupt this programme to go over to the BBC Newsdesk’ and being told what actually had happened.

Compare that with ridiculous BREAKING NEWS tickertape that runs across both Sky and BBC News channels. This can be used from everything from ‘David Cameron to meet the Queen to Become Prime Minister’ to ‘BA and Unite talks break down’



I realise how hopelessly luddite all this sounds. 24 hours news cannot be put back in the box. And I would also point out that the true joy of 24 hours news is that it gives them more time to screw things up, get caught out by members of the public as beautifully demonstrated in the above clip. Also with out 24 hours news we probably wouldn’t have Charlie Brooker’s Newswipe. I am just lamenting that the crowning achievement of 24 hours news is not an increase in democracy in the way people receive their news, but an increase of the amount of bullshit in the world.

Since I started to write this the media is doing its best to elevate Raoul Moat to the status of folk hero. Which reminded me of the below clip. No lessons ever learned.



Raoul Moat happened about a month after Derek Bird's rampage.

Thugs

I seem to be the only football fan in the world who thinks The Netherlands were ok in the way they played the world cup final last night. They were playing a team everybody agreed were the best passing team in the world. So rather than ry to play the same game and inevitably get thrashed they decided to rough Spain up. And it worked. They were punished when they went to far and were very lucky not to have one player sent off in the first half but that's the price you pay for playing that style.

In the end it all worked out when Spain scored and the best player on the park Iniesta scored it. But good God to hear the BBC commentators go on you would have thought Holland played no football at all.You would also have thought that Spain never ran up to the ref branding imaginary cards every time that a dutch player did a foul. That didn't fit with the narrative they wated to tell. Even in football we need a good guy and a bad guy.

The pundits seem to em to be completely out of touch. they don't understand that football is not a popularity contest or a beauty pageant. its a game in which both teams try to win and stop the other team winning the best they can. And if they win ugly big deal. its down to the better footballing team to show why they are the best. Oh and Alan Hansen's a wanker and seriously they could pick any bloke from a pub and he'd give more insight than Alan Shearer. The guy, well he just defies words. I just hope the Beeb can see sense and sweep away these complacent smug tossers and relaunch Match of the Day. It makes Question of Sport look current and cutting edge.

The Problem With Me

I have a problem. Well I have many problems but this is a major one. Is as much as it sums up in so many way why it ain’t easy being me. I’m a pretty gregarious person. I’m comfortable with my own company but I like being around people. Except people I don’t know that well. Once I know them I am fine.

I have what the psychologist I work with might call a mild anxiety disorder. I just think I am clumsy and socially inept. I have lost count of the amount of times I have inadvertently offended people, mainly women. I used to beat myself up about this but have come to accept it as just being who I am. I don’t blame myself for being no good at football. I’m just not. And its much the same for social niceties. I am crap at them.

My particular little problem at the minute is the problem of which parents to say hello to in the schoolyard when dropping my daughter off. There are three categories. Those who I ignore, not in an ignorant fashion you understand. Just I don’t know them and my daughter doesn’t know their child so we have nothing to say hello about. Then there are the group of about 15 who I always say hello to. These are people whose kids my daughter knows and I have met at parties.

Then there is the troublesome class. These are the parents who I sort of know. My daughter may occasionally mention them and we have had the odd conversation. Do I say hello to them. Sometimes their kid is playing up a bit and they don’t want to say hello and if I blunder in with my hello it’s the last thing they need. But if I don’t and we catch eyes at the last minute it looks like I’ve ignored them until they said hello.

Then there is the dad who I had one conversation with once and we are stuck in a constant daily nodding and helloing that quite frankly we both could do without. When I see him approaching my heart sinks and I can tell his does to. But we’re both English and well mannered and neither of us could bare the thought of not saying hello. Because what kind of sociopath does that.

So we keep saying hello and alright mate every morning and every day death comes a bit closer and I am stuck in this circular hell that I can’t get out of without moving my daughter to a new school.

Like I say. Not easy being me…or anybody I guess.

Team Edward

I am referring to the Twilight Movies of course. When the films came out I sent a text to the Simon Mayo show saying that they were something I had feared for a time. A phenomena which, to me, seems to spring from nowhere has a huge young following and I don't know the first thing about it.

Two years on I borrowed the DVDs from a friend and sat back to watch them and...they're very good. I can absolutely see why they are so big with teen girls but there was plenty there to amuse and entertain. The humour is particularly good. I laughed out loud several times. Looking forward to Eclipse now.

The Easiest Job In The World


One of the main themes of this world cup, until the weekend, has been the form of South American teams. They were represented in all four of the quarter finals. Yards of column space were devoted to why it is that South American teams were succeeding at the expense of their European counterparts. Was it the greater hunger, the fact that European children play more on their X-boxes than on the streets etc. etc. Two days and four games later the theme has changed. Only one of the South American teams came through and they only got through after some dubious goalkeeping by their centre forward.

All of a sudden the theme has changed. Now the column inches are being devoted to the reason European teams have succeeded. It is like the scene in 1984 where the mob suddenly switches from hating Eurasia to Eastasia. And this happens all the time. And we are not supposed to notice how consistently they get things 100% wrong or do massive u-turns.

This would not be so bad were it not for how hysterical they as journalists get when a player or coach states something with the merest whiff of inconsistency. When Fabio Capello hemmed and hawed a little after we had been thumped about whether he would still be in a job they chased him down like a hunted rabbit. And these were people, many of them I am sure, who were predicting an England win 48 hours earlier.

Sports Journalism ? Easiest job in the world.

The Beautiful Game

Well we're out, spectacularly out. I mean amazingly out. Mainly as the result of some defending that at the most charitable could be described as amateurish. The main talking point through the game was about the blatant goal that England were denied. Now this should not totally distract from England's woefulness. However it was clearly a turning point. Had we come back from 2-0 to 2-2 in two minutes then we truly would have been sailing with the wind full behind us and I think we could certainly have gone on to win the game.

The inevitable talking point after the game surrounds the further introduction of technology. I am certainly in favour of goal-line technology. However the difficulty this brings is that ionce introduced for goalline technology pandora's box is openned. As I type Argentina are leading in a game where their first goal came from a laughably offside position. Lineker et al are discussing how they could use technology for that. And therein lies the problem. So I'm inclined to think stuff it. Don't bother with any of it and just let the officials do their job. As a white midle class male I have little to kvetch about. It may as well be about that instead of immigrants nicking my job or women being confident in themselves getting me into a lather.

As for England. There is something rotten in the state of our football and I think it is all about money. We have few brilliant up and coming players and those that are up and coming cannot play in the premier league because our teams are 75% made of foreign players. We are told that we have the best league in the world. But what this means, and lets be clear it is Sky and The Premier league who say this, is it is the richest league in the world.

Except that it is bankrupt. Half the clubs are heavily indebted. Meanwhile we have lost to a young German side. I can't help but think it is significant that German teams have a rule about so many young German players being in every matchday squad. This can never fly in this country because it may harm their chances in the Champions' league which would adversely effect their ability to service their debts. How I pray for the day when English club football's bubble eventually bursts. Its coming I know. One of the bigger teams will collapse and there will be nothing the premier league can do about it. The only losers will be the money men. The fans will survive.

More Greatness of The Wire

Haven't done this for a while

Black Death

Went to see this on a whim last week after a tweet from Andy Nyman. It's a good old hokumy tale about the Black Death plague of the 14th century. It features Sean Bean a bloke who reminds me of Jim Dale, an incredibly weak male lead and the wonderful, aforementioned, Andy Nyman.

I am giving it the benefit of the doubt and hoping that it was not meant to be entirely serious as I found it pretty funny. There was a serious point about the utter futility of fundamentalist beliefs and how they destroy any society they touch. But there was also lots of pensive shots of Sean Bean before he tells his comrades to 'prepare, because God has left the horizon' and other silly things.

I enjoyed it tremendously except for the last two minutes which were two of the crappest minutes in cinema I ever hope to sit through.

In praise of Luther...sort of

Just got around to finishing Luther on BBC. It was a fantastic series. Its only slight problem was that it had Idris Elba in. This is not a problem in itself as he is a very good actor. The problem was that anything with him in is inevitably going to remind me of The Wire.

The Wire is unique amongst television dramas in the way that it did not bother conforming to the regular way of TV shows where everything had to be packaged and wound up in a neat one hour package. By doing that The Wire was able to let stories build naturally and not make the kind of shortcuts that shows like Luther, however brilliant they are, have to make.

Still I loved the show and I'm hopeful there will be a second series. As long as his gruesome female sidekick is with him. She delivered the two best lines of dialogue in the series. In one of her occasionally wearisome philosiphical discussions about the nature of love, she says 'The universe is not cruel John, it's just indiffferent.' To a fan of natural selection and the apparent cruelty of nature that is beautiful to me.

Secondly she said that there are three common delusions people suffer from. Which are:

1. We overstate our good parts (I am English and Catholic so come with self loathing already installed so this one does not count).
2. We overestimate the ammount of control we have over our lives
3. We persist in the veiw that our lives will change radically for the better in spite of all available evidence to the contrary.

Which I personally found pretty fucking sobering.

World Cup Woe

England truly have set a new benchmark for averageness at this tournament thus far. It really is mystifying. Anybody who sees Rooney, Lampard and Gerrard play for their club sides knows that these are class players so why is it they cannot do it for England.

This is ordinarily the bit when I offer some kind of bon mot or pithy reason why. But the truth is I don't know the reason why. And judging by the varying bewildered looks on the faces of messrs Capello, Errikson and Maclaren to name but the most recent three it seems the England managers are in the dark as well.

4.3.2.1

Saw this the other night. A great feelgood movie. Closest we've come to true girl power since the heady days of The Spice Girls. And that's not mean ironically.

Nuclear Elephants and World Cup Fever

In the hopes of trying to restore this blog to some kind of regularly used blog I am going to try and write this in a regular weekly fashion.

Nuclear Elephant

There has been a great deal of talk over the last few months regarding the deficit. We all know it is big and that we need to tackle it. I work in the public sector and we are the public enemy number one it seems. It is our inflationary wages that our causing us all to be in hock. Now the right way to handle this I might suggest would be to say to everybody ‘look we’re in a bit of a hole here. We’re all going to have to sacrifice a bit for this. Which means public sector worker’s money will be frozen. But so will benefits. And taxes on the really well off will go up to so nobody feels picked on.’

Unfortunately this kind of plain speaking seems beyond British politicians at least. So what we have is a sustained attack on public sector workers. Who, if little else, do actually get up, go to work, pay taxes and spend money and do all the other things that make an economy work. The cause of this one track attack I think lies with our press who do like their easy hate figures. If you want proof look at the last two years as they have moved from Ross and brand to bankers to Social Workers to MPs to Gordon Brown…repeat.

And while this goes on we have the other story of Iran. Who may or may not be developing nuclear weapons. I have always thought that it is more than a little hypocritical of the rest of the world to lecture Iran while holding nuclear weapons themselves. I have heard various politicians and commentators try to justify this. But at heart it is simple hypocrisy. I have these arguments with my daughter who regularly points out what a hypocrite I am (although she is 6 and does not know the word hypocrite). I am left floundering and end up just feeling I have a right to be a hypocrite because I am an adult and that’s what 99% of us are. However I do realise how facile this argument. It is no less facile when it is elevated from an argument with a six year old to an argument between sovereign states.

Then we come to the elephant of the title. With all this talk of the deficit wouldn’t it make sense to scrap Trident. Even some of the generals, hardly wet lefties, have questioned their usefulness. So why keep it ? The money would ease the deficit, even if half of it was spent on the equipment our soldiers are lacking and would actually give us some moral authority when negotiating with Iran. Trident is the elephant in the room which could help solve so many problems.

World Cup Fever

Well we’re all going a bit silly over here again about England. With half the country declaring we will win and the other half saying we can’t win. The truth is both of those points of view are wrong. England are at best a quarter final team. However once we are there…who knows.

The Case For Honesty

Nicky Campbell has directed us football fans to here to apparently fume about Simon Heffer's egregious insult.

I actually like the guy's style. I like the fact that he is open about his snobbery. I'll have that over the jumped up faux affrontary of hacks generally. Who are trying to convince us they are morally offended while rubbing their hands with glee at the spectacle.

Incidentally this is what I like most about Twitter. The links that I get from it. I also like the fact that I get to dump celebs who don't cut the mustard. I will keep Nicky though. I like the fact he replies to my occasional angry e-mails to Breakfast.

A sense of perspective

This diagram blows my mind not sure about you. To imagine how massive our sun is comapred to us is mind boggling. But to then compare how miniscule the sun is in comparison to it's bigger cousins.

Loving Hugh is Easy Cos Your Beautiful

I really like Hugh Grant. Really like him. I think he is an effortlessly charming man and a wonderful if extremely lazy comedic actor.

This love was pushed to the limit this week when I saw 'Did You Hear About the Morgans ?' Which is a comedy so light if it were put into a balloon it would float away. And even though it is awful it is enlivened by his presence.

I'm really pissed off that having checked Youtube there are basically no decent videos to post. Oh well. Headline is I like Hugh Grant.

Oh yeah

Its a new year, I'm going to post more yadda, yadda, yadda...

Spinning plates

This week The UK, US and French Governments have closed their Embassies in Yemen. This is as a result or possibly response is the better word (knee jerk maybe), to the attempted bombing of an American plane by an extremist it is alleged was recruited and trained there.

Following that the governments are also making noise about something being done to combat extremism and Al-Quaida's influence there.

It just seems to me that we are increasingly being shown that this is a battle we simply cannot win with conventional Western bullying of small nations. It is no surprise that Employment and a hardline, allegedly corrupt government exist in this country. It is easy to see why Al-Quaida choose it is a place to ferment disaffection.

So what can be done ? We are barely holding a peace in Afghanistan and Iraq. Pakistan is becoming more unstable by the week. That's before we get to how fragile the grip on Iraq still is.

I don't know where to start with this. I would have thought it was obvious to anyone that we cannot keep all these plates spinning forever and eventually will have to admit that we cannot run the whole of the Middle East and Central Asia and eventually re-negotiate a way of dealing with that part of the world.

What the fuck that involves I don't know. I don't have answers. I can just see this ain't working.

Gordon is a moron

One after another fuck up from this man who has accidentally become our prime minister. Honestly I am by instinct a Labour supporter but I find it difficult to fathom how a man so inept when it comes to political instincts can have become prime minister.

The fates are against him I agree but he will compound his bad luck of timing with the most extraordinary naivete.

Eureka

This is the reason I love writing. Last week I finished something I had been working on for some time. But for the last few weeks I have been a bit lost knowing that once this script was finished I was bereft of things to write. It wasn't exactly writer's block but frustrating all the same. So I was delighted last night when lying in bed inspiration came. I started writing an outline this morning and all of a sudden things are brighter. I feel happy having the machinations and plots of the characters I am writing about in the back of my head.

That is why I love writing. Having something to look forward to. We all need it.

The Ashes

I have to say I thought we had no hope with The Ashes this year but apparently it is not as straightforward as that. Australia are not the team they were wthout McGrath, Warne and Gilchrist and crucially Stuart Clark appears absent to. Despite that they are still quite a team.

It was heartening yesterday that England did not fold as they tend to do on the first day of most Ashes series. The talk amongst those who know more than I is that they may well give The Australians a series. H.ere's hoping

ermm...

Regarding that last post I think I got caught up in the moment and forgot how transitory the public and media's attention to such things are. I do think she was iconic. But she has been quickly forgotten.

Jade - The Icon

It is difficult to imagine there would ever be a time when Jade Goody could be referred to as iconic without a heavy slice of irony. I can’t help but think that will change over the next few years.

As a big brother fan I can recall the point at which fate changed Jade’s life. She was up against Lynn (an irritating Scottish lady) to be evicted in the first week. The vote rested on PJ (a cunt of the highest order) deciding Lynn should go because she walked in on him while he was taking a dump.

Thus Jade was destined to live out her life, all of it, in front of us. She went from complete ridicule to a fairly stable position on the c list of celebrities. Slightly behind Jordan but way ahead of Jodie Marsh. Then came the next great epoch of her life when she returned to Big Brother.
There have been some silly scandals in recent years. The supreme dumbness of the Ross/Brand scandal has possibly dimmed the supreme hysteria of the CBB race row. Especially as it had little to do with Race and far more to do with class. But ‘class row’ does not have the same ring as ‘race row’.

So Jade was back at rock bottom and she knew it. Before she did her tearful confession to the News of the World, I remember watching her in the house where she said ‘I’ve worked hard to turn things around in the last few years and now I’ve lost it all.’

She wore the sack cloth for the next two years and slowly built up her reputation again. Now comes a genuine tragedy. She is dying. She is unlikely to see her 28th birthday and has two small children. Surely nothing elevates a person to that iconic status as much as dying young.
What is more we are going to see every day of it played out in papers. She is going to marry her scallywag boyfriend for millions in OK magazine and we will see every doctor’s appointment. That is if we don’t have the decency to turn away.

It is so easy to state but none the less true that it makes perfect sense that Jade should die on TV as she has lived almost all her adult life. I like Jade. I am not sure she is somebody that I would like to spend a great deal of time with but she is, I feel a good person.

I think that her importance to this country, culturally, cannot be under estimated. Think of the last twenty years of our country’s life and imagine who is more culturally important than Jade. Once you get past Princess Di and David Beckham I am not sure who else ranks higher.