The Last Post

And that last post seems like a pretty good place to wrap it up, even if I'm now making it a penultimate post.

One hundred and fifty pointless posts this year - it's been a banner year, so an early retirement has been well earned. Seven years and 784 something-and-nothings makes enough.

Thanks to the person in the US who stumbled across me and bizarrely, the two thousand page views from the Ukraine. OK, 2042 page views in seven years is nothing to write home about but nevertheless Дякую to you both.

I'd like to finish with a song....

But then...we all do in the end.

  

A Goal or a Gaol

Try Fry Fly

What if you started collecting something again?

Something specific, something simple and for the first time.

Something that wouldn't perhaps overtake or possess you but something fun and colourful and artistic which would force you to play and stare a little harder at a certain aspect of world - an aspect that by definition you already have some connection with.

What would that thing be?

I've always had a fascination with "promise", specifically that promise given to you by a snippet of entertainment. Notably the movie trailer… [insert booming voice] "In a time when aliens…" etc .

We used to call that promise "advertising". Nowadays it seems to be called marketing. The promotion of promise. But when that marketing becomes a product in itself, it takes on a kind of meta-interest.

I saw this week on television and advert advertising a further advert that would be coming up during the following program.. that that would indeed be a trailer for a movie that is about to come out.

A trailer for a trailer. An ad for an ad. It doesn't get much more meta than that.

The appeal of the distillation of course is in punchy conciseness. A little thimble punching well above its weight. A taste of nouvelle cuisine, but with the promise of an appetite satiated.

Hope.

Potential.

(prior to Delivery and perhaps Disappointment, but we will stop way before then).

Perhaps such a collection would also be an inexpensive hobby.

Ask anybody with a set of watercolours how expensive a hobby should be.

Collect Ferraris, and you are a spectacular tool and unlikely to know it.

The nerd-do-well develops fascinations.

The particular promotion I'm alluding to might be something like a beer mat but in fact I'm thinking of the theatre flyer. Specifically the A5 variety. (Don't you dare give me DL size. That's 1/3 A4, to the novice).

The A5 flyer has has a pleasing dimension and enough space for a graphic designer to go to town with a haunting image or boastful claim. They may speak of terror and mystery and primally connect with any schoolboy who ever walked into a theatre. They place their production at a venue that usually comes with hundreds of years of history, and they date and timestamp it as a transient moment in the ephemera of the shared human condition.

I quite like them.

Pen & paper

"There are no would-be writers. Only writers". 

Mark Gatiss

You've Been Maimed

Although the initial results claimed that nobody was actually harmed in the making of the video clips on You've Been Framed, we now know these assertions were based on short-term anecdotal studies alone. 

It has been revealed that despite the number of repeats and 'Best Ofs' transmitted TV researchers did not follow up on interim or long-term results.

An independent data trawl has produced a new meta-analysis released today with definitive results. This is the broadest survey of its type to date on the subject.

We now know that 36.4% of the people in You've Been Framed clips developed persistent complications (those that do not disappear within 6 months) or permanent injury requiring long-term medication or surgery. 

The cohort has a higher positive predictive value for attendance at Pain Clinics but a worrying 17% have criminal convictions for opiate or pregabalin abuse. 

ITV and Dr Harry Hill has refused to comment.

But I like it when they fall over.

Answering Back

About six weeks ago I went to a one-man comedy show. Accidentally.

In fact I just turned up by accident an hour  early for a show that I really wanted to see called 'Butt Kapinski'. The venue was a little hard to find (The Liquid Rooms annex... The clue was in the "annex"... should it have an 'e', should it not have an 'e'.. does anybody really know?). I spoke to the chap flyering at the door for a while. I wasn't quite clear on the message which was essentially that his show was about to start in same venue so I was early.

There was a bit of confusion so I walked in.

I entered the darkened room to see one obvious father on the front row with perhaps his 12-year-old son.

I walked out, feeling bad that I was leaving the two of them in there and even more guilty that I had to walk past the perfectly pleasant fellow was doing the show, but I had engaged at some length, now to my regret.

It was a beautiful day so I didn't really wants to spend all afternoon in the same dark dingy room.

But I felt a bit guilty.

So I went back in to support, well frankly... The audience.

He gave a perfectly amiable 50 min of his life so far. 

I liked his show. It was mildly amusing, highly real, and they had one or two props (a flipchart and a tape recorder) that made the time go faster.

None this is relevant to why I'm writing this.

There was a moment in the middle where he decided to involve the audience.

That's what you do at this type of thing.

So he asked us a question.

All three of us.

And it was this.

What sort of things make up a "real man"?...Anybody?.. He looked out hopefully at the front row... well, there weren't any other rows to look out on.

I gave him a fairly quick answer, partly because it was a fairly cosy arrangement and it didn't seem like the one and a half other members of the audience were going to offer anything any time soon.

He had told that he had asked this question 28 times for his 28 previous "preview " shows all around the country.

And it became apparent there was a standard response.

What makes a "man"?

We weren't going meta, here it was a simple question.

In retrospect the answers were known to be the likes of muscles, DIY, beer, football and fucking. You know... things like that.

However..

"Compassion", I had already instinctively responded.

He looked a little stunned.

It wasn't a faraway look in his eyes because he was only two feet in front of me.

But he took a moment.

He reminded me of the number of times he's done the show. And then infrequency of a similar response.

Because the audience was small and he wasn't in the state of well... Let's call it "microphone malicious" he didn't call me a twat. He didn't score a point against me with a comment like "that's so gay" because there were 14 hen nights in.

"That's beautiful" he said. "I am going to include that in my show tomorrow".

It's OK to stop now

You know how these reality shows have people who are desperate to show you what they have to "give".

Desperate to show what they have to offer.

So keen to tell us that they have so much more, if only they can come back next week. Pleeeeeease.

Well do you think there is any way of encouraging them to hang onto that thing?

Keep it special, like.

You know, for themselves?

Don't give it. Don't give it up.

Don't make that offer.

Do something more useful next week.

Please. 

For the greater good.

A Note To Virgin Rail

It was with some humiliation that I took the 07:57 on 22 September from Newcastle to York. I had splashed out on your first-class service having been attracted by the offer on your website.

 

I have travelled these services before and realised that there were certain caveats, for example, if you were making a journey that lasted longer no longer than 60 minutes, or on a Saturday , I have learned that there is an impoverished menu offer at the weekends. But I had done my research so I was confident. There would be no mistake. This was no weekend.

 

I was encouraged as the menus arrived and I wondered whether or not I would have the full English breakfast or perhaps just the bacon roll as a lighter option. With a busy day ahead the smell of bacon filling the first-class compartment was reassuring. There were not going to be any slipups this time.

 

I started to salivate as savoury filled the cabin and I prepared my tray for prompt service.

A cup of tea arrived. Looking good.

The person in front of me chose the bacon roll.

What to have myself? I thought I might get the full English this morning. It was going to be a busy day or ...maybe the bacon roll as well.

In camaraderie.

 

"Where are you travelling to?"

"York".

"Oh, I'm sorry sir" a look of horror locked onto the attendant's face, "I'll be back in a moment with the toast"

 

The menu you see was a trap.

The 60 minute limitation now read as 70 with a Virgin Policy that can only function as anti-northern segregation strategy.

 

It was clear that the first principle of customer service on the East Coast line was to prevent a decent first-class offer, (one comparable to the person sitting next to you) from anybody travelling within the North of England.

How could this  "apartheid" make good sense?

I pointed this out to the attendant.

"I know... we get a lot of complaints" he said.

"I'm not surprised" I replied. "It makes us feel like third class customers".

 

I wondered what the price of a piece of bacon was .... 20 pence perhaps. Not so different from the little mini bottle of diabetes that I was about to be threatened with.

This was an anti-Geordie policy.

 

As all the other travellers in the compartment looked forward to their English breakfasts and bacon rolls, the man returned on a special journey back to me alone and offered me a cold, bendy piece of toast with a sugar syrup passed off as English breakfast marmalade.

 

I wondered what it took to be treated like a first-class citizen in a first-class compartment but now here I was stuck. Humiliated. In Compartment 101.

 

This had never happened in second-class where everybody is treated the same way. Humanely.

 

It was clear to me that I was definitely a lower standard of customer than the person immediately sitting in front of me.

I was forced to smell his breakfast as he chomped into his bacon roll and I don't think I imagined the cursory laugh escaping from his pork-filled chops.

 

"Smell that", Northerner, he oozed bloatedly, hoggy disdain wafting over his seat at me.

"Enjoying your cold slice of toast where the butter doesn't even melt", he snorted. Pig eating pig. "Oh... you mean to say you were expecting a first-class service like the rest of us in first-class, you pathetic loser?"

We don't want your type here.

 

"I'm sorry sir", came the guard, "the man with the bacon roll is correct, we don't really want your type here. Why have you come? We have second-class as well for you and people like you?

 

"Bbb...but...I thought I would treat myself. I....I'm going to work" I stuttered, sounding like the loser they were making me out to be.

 

I removed the menu from my own table. It was testifying to my predicament. I decided to use it as a bookmark. They couldn't stop me reading. Could they?

If I looked away, they would not seen the bruises inside.

It wouldn't be long before I'll be able to escape. And never return.

 

Virgin Trains.

We hate Geordies.  

Don't come back.

And if you do, why on earth would you think you're worth first-class treatment from us, you pathetic, pathetic loser.

Quotable Me 17

Beautiful isn't a look, it's a feeling.

The one inside you, and the one you place inside others.

Going to the Moon

Your childhood is full of primal thrills.

They thrill at the time but they only become primal later.
When you look back.

Television has a big part to play in that. The art-form that so many dramas have perfected now started their journey in earnest in the 80s.

Now, there was an entertainment show which connected a generation to the wonderland  of America.

Jonathan King's Entertainment USA.

It was fast, it was efficient, he was caustic and fascinating and it had a theme tune to raise your pulse pressure.

(Note to self... Use the concept of Pulse Pressure for my first medical thriller novel... a quick Google tells me nobody else has done it because only a medic would put those two words together... the phrase hasn't reached public consciousness, otherwise it would be used for half a dozen books by now. It's always nice to stumble across something that other people haven't, in a world of billions).

So then, Jonathan King's Entertainment USA on BBC2.

It showed us the way to America. He fed us an intoxicating diet of colour and dreams.

Jonathan King was... well I think I will leave that to Wikipedia where I read he was just arrested again last week (sigh)... but he did do a turn at a pop career with a very pleasant ditty...
Here he is introduced on Top of the Pops by Leeds' own son ...Jimmy Savile.

It's a different world, isn't it?

Me Neither

Do any of your ideas ever turn into oh dears?

Seen any good films lately?

Have you ever recommended a film to somebody?

Have you recommended it to them or just from you?

Have you read them well enough to know that they might enjoy it?

Have you got them to return the favour and acquire a recommendation from them?

I love a recommendation.

On what grounds did you give your advice?

Your much sought after opinion, your unearthly expertise or your biased shallow tripe.

Perhaps you've chosen the slow burning quotes "hilarious" comedy. Oh dear.

Perhaps you've chosen something that jumps out of the gates - a car crash in the first scene perhaps. Better.

A film that grabs you from the start is well... a pretty good place to start.

But how about this....

What about a film that grabs you from the middle?

You can only make this recommendation if you have bumped into a film in the middle.

And you haven't turned it off. 

You recommend it because you saw its journey through to the end.

That's absolutely fine. Great. A brilliant way of making a recommendation. You can already tell somebody to stick with it regardless of how it started because you are pretty certain they will get the pay off you did. 

They have a treat in store and you know it.

Because some film maker had to deliver those scenes and deliver them to a high standard, and they didn't even open or close the film with them. Due diligence. Care and attention tuned into passion and turned into love.

I could draw analogies to life, and perhaps wax lyrical about how we should grab it from the middle. Actually that's right up my avenue. I am sure I could come up with a bit of poetic claptrap about that.

But not today.

I could paint a metaphor for social conversation, that it should maintain engagement and not just finish strong. But chitchat isn't a TED talk. Not everything needs to be youtubed. Slippers are comfy because they're comfy not because they are looking to win a Comfy Award.

But when that movie whose transmission you join rather than initiate, grabs you and grabs you urgently, it grabs you from the inside.

It grabs you by the middle.

Because, broadly speaking, that is where the heart resides.

Colourbursts

When did you last put a straw into a drink and blow the wrong way into it?

Maybe you should. It's fun. It's not for everyday but you know... maybe from time to time.

And while I'm on the subject, if anybody can conceive of two things more amazing than bubbles and rainbows, then...frankly, I'll be a monkey's uncle.

Bubbles...crazy right?

Rainbows..are you serious?

Nope... it just doesn't get better than that.

Oh...and did you know a double rainbow has a reversed colour sequence with blues on the outsides.

1)  Well done, you smart arse

2) No, me neither

What You Think It's Worth

I know we have PAYE and Self-Assessment Tax Returns, but why don't they go the whole hog and have a Pay What You Want option ?

Generation X-terminate.

Life, media and celebrity celebrates youth. Trades in it. Mortgages it. 

And yet it is the 'young elderly' that will dominate our economy and has already organised and seeded its collapse. 

Who were these assassins?

In part, politicians ....rewarding donors ....back-handing big bankers with pleasing legislations and black tie events....feeding the leeches who bleed para-solutions to the housing crisis. 

Making hay for the modern, svelte, gym-bunny rich young/old CEOs as well as the bloated heart-attacks in residence. 

Scratching backs. 

Gravy-training.

Still no houses but what the hell, we all had a bloody good time at the Charity Raffle for the hospice, didn't we?

Perhaps we'll see you volunteer down the soup kitchen, fellas. Don't bother dry cleaning the dinner jacket. Thought not!

And then there are the sins of the fathers.....those older Tory politicians, and Labour for that matter that spoke, guffawed and splattered over their fat bellies and glasses of port about the importance of family... failing to tell us that the particular part of the family they were interested in were more often prepubertal children, or occasionally simply the wives, (sorry, Edwina, and husbands), of colleagues and Twitter followers. Trading in the souls of others and appeasing any remnants of conscience with GiftAid.

Some of their sins may come back to haunt them in their lifetimes. 

Many will not.
Suffer the children.

History will judge the last generation as the haves and their spawn as the have-nots.

That youth thing.

It's gotten so old.

Posh Paws

When did the spelling of swap swap to swop and then swap back again?

Taking Pains

The human being, the human mind and the human spirit are repositories for pain.

We carry our pains with us like internal scars, like the rings of a tree recording when we have suffered each blight, or fallow year, or ten.

Some of those pains have been thrust upon you, delivered by people who don't care.

Don't care whether you live or die.

They do care about something of course. They care about their own personal impact on their own personal world. They care about their visibility. Causing pain to others reminds them they are alive, and those closest are ground zero. They may exercise their freedoms by damaging you, in the way that teenage lovers might use a pen knife to tattoo a 100-year-old oak. 

You are simply an object - a dispensable process in their coping strategy.

Perhaps at the end of an e-mail or text. A nasty word. A jibe more cruel than the sword. 

Anybody can press the trigger on an enemy they can't see.

Anybody can shoot a Space Invader. 

Anybody with 20p can point a Glock at a Galaxian.

Pain ebbs and leaks. It flows through the cracks like poison. It makes people react with the most unruly, least tempered parts of themselves.

The challenge is to mitigate this with a counter strategy.

When you claim to notice a model like this you hope it has some sort of descriptive merit, that your theory, idea or model has validity. That it may allow some new understanding. Understanding in turn might allows rationalisation and compartmentalisation which helps some personality types (but not very stupid people) cope.

In other words you begin to know what part of your brain to store these pains in and make a note of how frequently you should or (preferably) shouldn't visit.

People with enough emotional intelligence and imagination might find some value in it.

But the pain doesn't really go away, it just becomes part of the tapestry of your life, hopefully contributing to the context of better judgements and decision-making.

Our soap operas and scummy chat shows involve rash of people who give away their pain.

They give it to others.

They punish. To feel better about themselves.

These sort of people should perhaps go down the local soup kitchen and give something of themselves in order to receive and abate. De-prioritise the self as a neo-analgesic.

Some bottle it up. But pain is a yeast. It can break a glass container from the inside out. It needs a pressure valve. 

Ultimately, we all have to carry our pains around with us.

They survive in us until we die, either naturally or because we can't stand it any more.

How often we visit our pains decides our overall happiness, because regular visits make the memory fresh, new and bright. 

And these are bright crimsons, not bright yellows. 

All too frequently, these visits are toxic.

But the pain can be genetically altered before it's given away.

It can be tempered and planished and polished into something approaching good advice.

It can be shared over a pint, or a laugh.

And when we die, our lifetime of pains finally goes away.

It dies with us.

Only it doesn't. 

In the process we make new pains for others.

Pain breeds.

Pain replicates.

Pain breathes.

Pain is a survivor.

It deserves your deepest disregard. 

Why OCDs Grill Bread.

All of time and space...and we can't invent a toaster you can clean.


If I read another instruction telling me to empty the crumb tray and
clean the outside with a damp cloth .....well, that bit I could work
out...

Failing The Duck Test

If it looks like a lion, roars like a lion, and its head is now
mounted three feet above your fireplace like a lion, then it was
probably the endangered King of the Jungle known as the lion.

And you are probably an American dentist.

The Game of Me

I underwent the latest, and possibly final, immersive experience from the Belgian theatre company ONTROEREND Goed last week.

It is an experience of shared conversations and two-way mirrors, observing and being observed, and at the end of it, you are given a disc.

In keeping with this review I thought that this might be a disc of video. The reviewer did not bothered to play it before posting their review.

I've just played mine and in fact it is an audio disc.

The first stage in the production has you sit in a chair on your own opposite a mirror.

You may correctly speculate that the mirror is a two-way mirror and that you are being observed.

In fact you're being observed by some other ticket buyer  a few minutes further on in the production from you. They give their opinion of what they read from... well from you.

The subject I observed later was a lady in a colourful dress that I named Olga and to whom I awarded several cats.

So as I sat quietly in my chair, this is what somebody apparently read from my face (or rather made up from their own imagination).

You can call me Evan.

Priorities

I've written Uber on the side of my Focus.

I'm Bus-Lane Happy!

Role play

You know the phrase..

If you can''t say anything positive, don't say anything at all... you know that?

I use that.

Not all the time..but more often than most. 

It is in my arsenal.

Is it in yours?

Thought not.

It's just a postscript in aphorism history to you - the Oxford Book of Cliches.

Well wake up, moron. 

And be nice. 

Your grandma knew what she was talking about. 

She wouldn't have go to balls, dinners and proms in a man's DJ or wear a trouser suit unless it was the sort of onesie that the goddess known as Anneka Rice made her own. 

(She didn't make her own).

Imagine those who tweet you before debate you, criticise before bother to learn something, score a point and recruit their friends against you..imagine the bitches who do that. 

"You're a loser". 

"You're wrong". (WTF) 

"You're uninformed". 

"You're a dimwit". 

"You're an ...ist". fill in your own... it barely matters...it's the diagnosis of a half -modern half-wit.

I say bitches because this is a female thing. 

Score higher by scoring others lower. 

Anti-improv.

Is it any wonder men like to drink "alone"...by which I mean "with other men"?

Then the laydeez can just do it to each other..and perhaps stretch it to a catty Edinburgh Show. Get drunk. Get sad. Go home. Show me a man who has ever done that.

Not everything needs to be facebooked out of context, instagrammed for likes or tweeted for followers and digital affection or whatever the language is.

GROW 

THE FUCK

UP, GIRLS.

Or is that sexist?

Don't answer.

It's rhetorical.

No Spitting

I have just been for a "steam"..

A steam room,  Turkish sauna - is that the same thing?

I'll never know - I have given up Googling and everybody I know is stupid.

Two girls spat at me.

Allow me to explain. And stop me if you know this and I am the only one who didn't.

The first came in and leaned on my shoulder (permission not given), then spat at the wall, which fell on me. She apologised and told me 'Everyday's a School Day'.

Not everyday love, I thought. We are not that lucky.

Her friend came in, repeated the action and missed the wall so it went down my back.

They explained the "thing" on the wall was some kind of thermostat.

Spit cold water at it and the room heats up.

I suggested there could also hold the water in their cupped cleavage in a tacky US mid-west whore sort of way.

At least I was going to... then decided against it

This is Scotland.

Somebody had to be a bit English.

So I actually told her that now I had something I had to write about in my blog tonight.

Aaand you are upto speed

The Circus

I don't watch football anymore.

I understand the faux investment, the highs and lows, the need to feed the masses with bread and circuses.

To the outcome is so binary.

Win. Lose. Who cares.

I'm better than you,

No you are not.

Where is the nuance?

What has anybody ever learned in life from watching a football match, the occasional fightback aside....how to spit? How to fall? How to cheat?

It's a poor lesson.

It's a pretty sad obsession.

Why not follow entertainment with edge, thrust and drive, with nuance and flair, with originality and depth and which enriches, teaches, strengthens, informs and has few laughs in it.

There is more play in a play that on a pitch.

When you think about it following a few millionaires kicking a ball is a pathetic pastime. Sorrowful. They deserve our pity and fear.

What's a good result for the season?

How about having our heroes rape 10% fewer teenagers then they did last year?

Shooting too high?

OK then try 5%

Sub Zero

You can relax....with Corrie, or in a bath, in a white room, with your favourite TV programmes, CD or book, at the pub.

But the following day you might feel stressed.

Still.

That is the definition of a treatment not working.

At least these are harmless things to do (unless washed down with litres of wine).

But it is temporary.

Transient.

A pause play with bubbles.

A distraction.

It may be that it is an Elastoplast over deeper worries - gut-burning debt, illness etc...so it's understandable.

But still pressing "stress" is an unuseful response to select.

You need to learn to deliberately deselect it.

To relax...Plus.

To wind down ...to the max.

To Superchill.

Little Differences

On the day Banksy offers up a Dismal-land  - a bleak version of a theme park - that looks really no better than a slightly pricey fringe experience but was enough to leave Julie Burchill "speechless for 2 days" I offer you 3 thoughts. One is the undying gratitude from Julie Burchill's husband. 

She's a gob in case you didn't know.

One is a preference I have never really noticed which is to to be inspired even over entertained. Food for thought rather than watching something that is simply a brilliant complete work. Perfection is always dull. Believe me, I know.

Of course when you have already had a lot of thoughts then that food is scarce. The abstract is required and even that may not be enough. That's because there may not be many gaps to fill. Not big ones anyway - perhaps a few little holes that may have been left by woodworm or darts.

The other thought is my recent wonderings on the difference between treatment and entertainment.

But it's obvious isn't it?

Treatment lasts (supposedly)...life-changer

Entertainment passes...time-filla.

It's simple....

supposedly.

Behind You

Life grumbles, grazes and grates and causes pain but never quite enough to really hurt.

At least that's how my brain summarised a line from Jean-Paul Sartre's Huis Clos/No Exit what I 'ave just returned from.

Thanks to the internet the line is actually:

"Anything, anything would be better than this agony of mind, this creeping pain that gnaws and fumbles and caresses one and never hurts quite enough".

I am not saying I improved on his line. In fact I am giving the nod to Sartre on that one.

'Hell is other people' is his most famous concept.

I saw the play 20 years ago on the BBC with the recently late Omar Sharif. It has always lived with me largely I now think due to his charisma and a particularly memorable set. This production left me a little unshaken despite being very good.

Stirred is good.

Shaken is better. 

Neither... is just a quality production, which for me isn't really enough. "Quality" in itself is not high on my shopping list. It's generally too sanitised, interfered-with.

Bend me, shape me, anyway you want me

Long as I love it, it's all right. In fact, it's great.

Throughout the play, a female behind me, in my right ear as it were, squeezed what sounded like a brand new cheap PVC handbag, and twisted it repeatedly, as though she had no capacity to hear the "fingernails on windows" overture.

To hear either her bag or my agonising pain.

As I repeatedly drilled my karmic fist into her personal space, I noted that existentialism as a practical response lacked bite.

She started coughing. Perhaps trying to drown out the squeezing of the handbag that she simply would not rest on the floor.

The fires were getting hotter.

Enter stage left - the cough drop. You may know them better as the throat lozenge. Replete in the noisiest tin foil plastic. Not of course pre-loosened in its cage in expectation of use. And not released quickly. 

How many minutes does it take to unfurl a Strepsil?

Twelve. The answer is twelve.

I screamed at her psyche with every inflection of disapproval that a mute man facing in the wrong direction could muster.

Nothing.

I leaned forward to get closer to the play, sliding down her volume and increasing that of the performers.

I'll give you this one as well, Jean-Paul.

Hell is other people.

Look at it from my angle...Bermuda Triangle

Money doesn't buy you happiness...it buys you status.
Which has no connection with happiness.
When have you heard the question even posed..."Does status buy you happiness?"

Let's assume it is because the answer is either "No", or "What the
fuck are you talking about?" depending largely on whether you have an
Audi in the garage and serve Fentimans Tonic, because it is better
than Schweppes.


So....money doesn't buy you happiness..it buys you status.
Unless....

unless you have sold your status for the money.

Maybe you have portrayed yourself as a Victim
And maybe you have overegged it and disrespected real victims...and
become invested in not moving on.
And your eager lawyers have lapped it up. Not because they are bad
people but hell..the company has to pay for the Christmas party.

Just.

Maybe.

Failing Foreword

I have just watched a show on Failure, usually a rich seam, in Britain at least.
He didn't explore the lows enough, there was little emotional grunt.
His inevitable conclusion that failure was worthwhile was tempered by
the fact that he lost me when we found out he was 32 and had a 22 year
old girlfriend, slagged off an audient for making him forget where he
was (otherwise a blessing in a pretty crummy routing and the audience
member was only trying to add something), and a sequence on the
Terminator movies which he exclaimed never worked and started slapping
himself when I reminded him there were 5 of them rather than the 4 he
had delivered in order. We were waiting/hoping for a punchline as he
was waiting for a laugh presumably. The Terminator movies had more
laughs.

His delivery was good though - he could have delivered any joke with
his likeable Irish lilt. The chap out of the door before me was
offering advice like he was a comedy producer. I felt like doing the
same and script editing his act.

So why not this.
Get Tim Key's act ( he looked a bit like him) and perform it from
beginning to end.
Credit it. People do tributes for songs. People do the same old magic
tricks. Why not comedy?
Pretty soon you might learn method.
And what comedy is in the public domain I wonder?


Why not try it yourself? Perform Lee Mack's or Sarah Millican's entire
act like you were doing a Springsteen cover for you tube

Tell me you won't learn something from that.

A Few Good Yuks

You need serious conversations in life.

That's what pubs were made for.

Series conversations with sensible people.

A two-way dialogue. Or two plus. Just talking. About stuff. And mixing it with other stuff.

When you work through the meat and drink of the serious, you can start to find the funny in it.

But sometimes you need to earn a licence to laugh something off.

Do it too early and you are dismissive.

Ask someone else to do it too early and you may appear insensitive.

You probably haven't consider the situation fully.

Somebody might take your laughter as derogatory. Which is exactly what it is, even if you don't realise it.

You need to earn your chuckle spurs.

A laugh isn't a laugh unless it's a laugh shared.

Focus.

Remember.

It's the (absurd) situation you're laughing at.

There's always something funny because if you say enough words something amusing is bound to come up. And then you're away...gently gently, catchy monkey.

Say no words at all. And those funnies may remain hidden in the shadows forever. Unseen sidestreets.

Then you need a better strategy than laughter. Which means you're in big trouble.

And in fact let's not call it "laughter". It is an overused term. Just like the idea of any crappy sitcom being called hilarious by a TV reviewer. 

It never is.

So how about searching for just a little bit of "quizzical amusement" instead.

There plenty of things you find perfectly funny without the need to laugh like a drain.

If stand-up comedians don't bother inconveniencing themselves to tell jokes anymore, lets not let it worry the likes of us.

Let's redefine the laugh. 

To help us neutralise the serious.

Don't miss any opportunity to search for the snigger, harness the ha-ha, achieve that chortle and grab that giggle. 

Just go for it. 

Bigtime.

Track down that titter.

There and Back Again

When things happen, people say that it 'takes resilience'.

(It is an interesting phrase for a little piece of pedantry and apt to see that resilience is an anagram of Ire Silence)

Because challenges don't take resilience, they deliver it.

People mean of course that they require resilience.

It is true that you do need enough to start with on your journey. Early years of a good and present parent or two is often the deciding factor lest the ground gives way too easily.

And you may have to fake the resilience it will take.

But that's OK.

These fake seeds grow real shoots

These magic beans yield real stalks.

Make it to morning and hopefully all the trolls will have turned to stone.

Beginnings

You are not going to like this

You're not going to understand

You're not going to be able to appreciate my view .

In short, you're not going to be able to deal with this.

This blog is getting too vanilla.

Read no further. 

Spare yourself. 

Stop. 

Now.

But this has been a week for suicides, hasn't it?

I don't think a week has gone by when I've read of so many. 

Chance probably.

But what we learn about the human condition comes from the reaction to suicide.

The only thing still in the game. The reaction of the living.

When I started this blog half a decade ago, pretty soon after, I included an excerpt from Walter Koenig regarding the suicide of his son. It was one of the few entries if not the only one that I recall. 

(Oh.... I did a poem as well, about the sea which was OK too despite some sloppy scanning in the early verses).

He spoke with passion and emotion and heart. I remember it as though it were yesterday.

I've quoted its message in my own head 1000 times.

"Reach out. Extend a hand".

And I haven't shirked.

I've done it every time I have found an opportunity.

And I have made opportunities where they did not previously exist.

I have implored others, even those in pain,  to do the same because I know that by giving they will receive.

Not riches.

But what they need.

Yesterday, I learned the recent story of the "celebrity barrister" and "Champage socialist" Michael "Moneybags" Mansfield. Google his love of money and you might convince yourself that he is single-handedly responsible for the removal of legal aid for the people who need it. 

It's up to you to decide whether he is smooth, slick and charismatic, or a disgusting, immoral greedy shell of a man, but the sins of the fathers are not the sins of the children.

His TV interview told of his daughter's suicide three months ago.  

Highflyer. Everything to live for. The usual. 

But what's interesting, to me at least, is his interview.

Emotionless. When you had a chance to reach out to people with emotion.

Inarticulate in its solutions. When you had a chance to reach out to people with a new type of articulation.

So he arranges a public talk. Why? It's not time to talk yet. It's time to listen. To learn.

The why, of course, is because that is what he is. 

When you are an E flat you play E flat. 

Even if agony begins with A. 

Medicine has a counterpart to this character.. the crusty arrogant consultant surgeon. I'm not saying it's a fair stereotype, but it's real.

Mansfield chose to wheel out another depressive celebrity, Ruby Wax who talks about little else these days, to illustrate cachet.

Sometimes you have to understand vulnerability by embracing it. And if you present it when you are ready, make sure you do as good a job as you can.

I could go on.

His approach is a missed opportunity. This clinically sterile legal approach might suit the court room.

But the courtroom is not life.

Life is not that stage.

Not today.

When you have a golden opportunity, and all the money and power in the world from a lifetime of big fat bills, you need to look at yourself.

Do it before you go on Newsnight. Take all the time you need.

But if you want to know how it should be done.

Go on Star Trek first.

I know this isn't a competition.

But this matters. 

And there are a lot of ways of getting this wrong.

I've shown you wrong and at the risk of duplication I will show you how to be more effective.

By leaving the final word....

If you don't like my style, that's fine. 

Get angry at me. 

And when you're finished, find a way to help.

This isn't magic.

I can talk with you about that at length if you wish. 

But this isn't it.

The Results Are In..

Stuck for a therapy?

Here's why CBT is twice as good as mindfulness

​

​

Supermedicine

The interesting thing about drama is that you can distill ideas and drop them into characters. 

It is human chromatography.

You can remix these themes and memes, you can make a point with counterpoint, you can justify a position with juxtaposition, and you can do it with a sackful of blokes with tropes.

You can break down the human condition and write it into parts. Parts for scenes. 

Then you can record it and present it.

Show.

And tell.

The question is often asked -  "But is it art?" 

Well, yes. Get over yourself.

In the process, your analysis became art. Largely because it was done by you and not a computer.

The question is less often asked - "But is it therapy?" 

Is it the same? Or the opposite of?

This is a question that dances across the mind of many a sensitive performer particularly those looking to a bloated NHS for funding when the Arts Council gives them only the finger,  and not the one that indicates a bright Vaudevillian idea.

Surely a thoughtful therapeutic intervention would use those techniques of artistry, and many, many others besides and marry them with with more supposedly conventional "science".

A good interventionist, whether medical (doctors) or non-medical (nurses, counsellors, psychologists, rune stone readers, psychics etc) should be able to leverage these interventions to build up the human condition once more. This time proper like. 

Strategies upgraded. Rebooted, if it comes to that.

"We can rebuild him".

"We have the technology".

The technology might come from a quiz in Cosmo. 

But probably not.

Lasting change might come from watching The Matrix, for all its Buddhist enlightenment. 

But probably not. (Watch it anyway. It didn't spawn new religions for nothing).

It might come from a session of mindfulness or CBT from someone with an appropriate diploma. It might .... but do you really think it will?

They will sell you a B flat when you need a C sharp.

But neither can the artists do it all alone.

It doesn't matter whether it's music or dance,  magic or mime.

You don't make a therapy by adding the word 'therapy' on to an art form.

It requires something else.

A catalyst.

A narrative.

A plot.

A plan.

A super-performance.

Skills...

Bravado, derring-do, drive, evidence, guts, charm, I don't know... something... it requires something.

Something else.

Something that even when defined will still be ethereal.

Sorry Capita. Sorry Serco. There is nothing you can strip and mass-produce here.

If you are a lover of the laughable invention of homeopathy, you may understand the concept of treating like with like. 

Maybe the only thing that can treat the human condition is the human condition.

I'm not Perry Mason but I would happily put my thumbs in my lapels and put it to you that that might involve all the different approaches mentioned above, and many, many more...

I think the 'something else' involves the ability to own a bag of credible tricks and be able to improvise with them.

Like a piano player dancing over keys.

Able not just to strike the keys, but to strike them in time, at the right moment with the correct force. Piano e forte.

Go and see a general surgeon and you will get an F sharp. Because that's the only note he knows. Even if you don't need an F sharp right then. Even if you're in a minor key. You will get F#.

Go and see a psychologist. Let them puff their tweeded chests out and brag about having both a B flat and a C flat to offer. 

You might not even notice the discord till you are too far in. Committed.

Go and see a GP. As far as I can see is that he is the only chap possible to have a full octave in stock. But probable? Sadly not. You will need to work hard to find one who doesn't wear big yellow shoes and drive a car whose doors frequently fall off.
Generally patients don't think their health and well-being sufficiently worthwhile to carry out research that is internet-proof.  A good GP isn't Google-able.

See one with the skills, care and love to strategically improvise and he or she may get you to Be.
Perhaps by disguising it as a C flat. Or they might sneak in a good solid F by gently introducing you to a playful E#. Or redesignate your  B flat to an A sharp with an instant parallax switch.

Or not...and if not you might make your way to BUPA instead or head to The Priory. Then you'll get everything you deserve.

They will sell you an A. Then they will sell you a B. Then they will sell you a C. Then they will sell you a D. Then they will sell you an E. Then... well you get my drift.

They might even throw in a bottle of Prosecco and some of the black keys for a 20% discount. 

But nothing will change, but for the making of a new friend.... relative poverty.

What should your doctor deliver, when they make no claim to be Superman?

Let's improvise a motto  in the style of that most succinct of art forms  - the movie tag line. (Which I would take over one of those miserable bloody haikus anyday).

"Can you help me, Doctor?"

"No Cape.
 No Powers.
 No Lycra.  

 No Problem".

Illusionment

I like judgemental people.

I don't like pejorative people

I like noisy people.

I don't like loud people.

I like quiet people.

I don't like passive-aggressive people.

I don't mind people being deluded but it is tiring to always give
equal weight to argumentative positions that are immature or remedial.
Unless we are talking to kids or patients, there just isn't time to
keep going back to 101. We must press on.
Time is short.
It only encourages them anyway, and not in the right way ...not in
wiping the slate clean and starting again.

Not every argument has to be won round. Some can simply be offered a
known solution. A new version. An iteration. That's the way computer
software does it and our brains have been compared to those many
times.
(They don't always get it right. The latest version of Google Chrome
is driving me nuts).

If you have a puncture, I will change your tire.
I won't give you a scrapbook filled with pictures of other people with
punctures and ask you to write a poem about them.
Strategies require improvisation.

I don't like being called disillusioned when I have worked so hard to
successfully de-illusion myself. Particularly if it is by people who
haven't even realised that that is a journey to be made.
It is derogatory and frankly tedious.

I don't like people questioning my path so far as though they are some
geological arbiter. My life so far does not require an endorsement
from them, particularly if it sprouts as a too eagerly offered opinion
from a relative stranger during that novel awkward form known as
'social chit chat'.

If I discover a problem in my chosen specialised subject then it is up
to me to find a hack. That's (fairly) easy if it is a question of how
to get all the toothpaste out of a tube.
But if it is solving the faulty damaged poorly-performing interface of
frontline primary care, or world famine, then it is trickier. But
giving some of my energy and thoughts to such tasks is not
disillusionment.
Far from it.

People are quick to offer words they know.
They don't think about the meaning.
They don't really understand it.
They offer them because they've heard other people use them in ways
that they thought were similar.
But they weren't.

My rose-tinted contact lenses are Polaroid, and I control their opacity.
I like my roses exactly where they are, thank you.
I water them regularly and yet they never get diluted.

Don't tell me that's impossible.

Because I don't care.

On Being Pathetic

"Why bother?"

"A blog nobody reads...what's the point, loser?"

"Don't you have anything better to do?"

"Give it up."

"I suppose it's up to you, it's your life you are wasting"

To those who've expressed the like...

Here's why... from the master ...

Party for One

You know when they write 'Sharing Pack' on the front of a big pack of crisps?

Well...what does that mean?

Spin

I've been thinking about cheese for a while.

There was a good guy on the block in the 70s.

In the cheese triangle battle I mean.

While you were stocking up on Dairylea, there was a contender to the dismissive brand leader in the shadows.

A rival to Dairylea. 

A challenger.

It presented itself as an equal and rock-steady offering to take on the might of the Kraft Empire.

A Dandy to your Beano.

And I've finally tracked it down. 

St Ivel Gold Spinners.

It even had a tagline created by the king of advertising,  John Webster who has been credited as creating a soundtrack to many a childhood, in this case, mine.

"Gold Spinners, delicious cheese spread from St. Ivel. If you can peel it you can eat it, if you can eat it you'll love it…if you can peel it."

Now my favourite way of eating it was to actually nip off the top of the triangle and squeeze it out like an icing sugar piping bag.

Yes, there was a little cheese left in afterwards, but not so much that it would harm the environment or damage society.

Eventually Gold Spinners were swept aside by the almighty blue and yellow branding and slightly different taste of Dairylea. 

Educated at St Peter's School in York, Webster created the Smash Martians and the Honey Monster.

And he even did Cresta pop - It's Frothy Man.

Loved Cresta. And it was damn frothy!

If Gold Spinners did nothing else today, they introduced me to a timeless catalogue.

Tuesday, Sundae

I just fancy an Mr Kipling's Apple Sundae.

The one with the delicious 'cream' on the top. 

For licking.

I know what you're thinking. 

But it's only Tuuuesday!   Don't be a James Ha(y)ter.

Alas, as I suspected and to my dismay they are no longer in production.

I had cast a loose eye in recent visits to bigger supermarkets, and been exceedingly surprised.

So, of course, I just phoned Mr Kipling.

And he said they stop making them in the early 1990s.

The early 1990s!

Not just the 1990s.

But the early 1990s

You could have knocked me down with a feather.

Where am I going to get my deliciously hydrogenated transfats now?

I can't even find the original ad, so the apple pie ad where an old man attracts two young boys into his kitchen with sugary treats, will have to do. 

I wonder why that isn't on anymore.

Better Meta

I suppose that one of the problems in any sort of writing is people reading into it.

You might bother to put some words onto a page.
But is it to read...that is, to be read?
Or to "read into"?

I'm excluding this blog because this really is neither, and I'm not going to draw attention to the liberties I may choose to take in this exercise, but in general...

Facts, I suppose, are to be read.
Then keep people can read into what the facts tell them. Or try to think about where the facts offered might not tell the full story.

Fiction may also be read at face value.
But good fiction may well have echoes of larger themes.
You might read it for the story. You might read it for the meaning.

But the meaning should surely really be what it means to you as the star of your own life.

Men and women have different takes as well. 

Women enjoy movies about sweeping family turmoil and people dying of cancer, for reasons I don't fully understand. Men like adventure and super heroes. I would speculate that analysis of both these types of story would find exactly the same themes.
But one is obvious. One is abstract.
Abstract is generally more interesting than obvious. 

I'd take Batman over Beaches anyday.

If of course you know the person who's writing the text, you might start guessing what it means to them. And that may not be so useful.
You don't know what licence has been taken with the facts.
There is no contract with the reader.
You don't know where there is embellishment, where a turn of phrase that might accentuate a peak or trough, for the sake of readability or dramatic or comic effect.

But then you never need to understand any author's reason for writing. It's just not the point. You'd probably be wrong anyway.
There's a tendency nowadays for authors to parade themselves for six months of the year at festivals, but perhaps the ones with the most integrity for their work will not discuss it, never mind agonisingly read it in public. Let it live or die on its own.


So if you read Pride and Prejudice, you might wonder how those themes and memes play into your own romantic life.
Or you might just enjoy the story. I don't know. I've never read it.

Reading and writing is a probably a good thing to do.

'Reading into' however, takes more care.

An emotional response to a piece of writing might indicate good work.
But only if the reader is reading into it from the point of view of their own life.
Not the author's.

To put it another way, don't go meta on the author's ass. (I am from America. Howdy!). 

Go meta on your own.

The Scope

The good thing about the NHS is that if you push the right buttons, you get a VIP seat in secondary care within 2 weeks.

Of course you may have to sign away some consent to something. It's bound to mention mortality and follow it with a dotted line.
I always thought it was a flat, straightish line that followed mortality. But no..it's dotted.

For my procedure, the mortality was pleasingly low. Not low enough. But low.
But you have to pay it some due thought, don't you? That's what it is there for.
Sod's Law being what it is.
The 1 in 15,000 that it affects gets an experience that is 1:1.
Full..as it were... On.
Lies, damned lies, statistics. But true lies, nevertheless.

I knew I had written a will.
I knew it would be found in the event of my death, either from the procedure or its findings.

And I allowed myself a few moments to recall the contents of it, and let the irony of the fact that there are names in it that would have no interest in contacting me in life. I possibly allowed myself a sigh at that point.

But looking on the bright side, at least they would be informed of my death so they wouldn't need to worry about their poor behaviour anymore.
As if! I'd speculatively re-contacted two of my oldest 'friends' in the same month, as I allowed such issues of mortality to play upon me, and the action had played out to familiar, predictable silence.

I was told the procedure was uncomfortable but straightforward.
I would be able to go home immediately afterwards. I would be given a piece of paper authorising 'activities as normal', and those of us on the dole should go home and watch any "straight-to-Channel 5" movie being screened.
Being screened.


I have to report though that as I lay naked from the waist down gripping the stainless steel and dancing to command for a roomful of uniformed women (not for the first time), it actually was somewhat painful.

It definitely graduated from the discomfort advertised, to actual pain because I remember making a mental note of it. On several occasions. I definitely thought at some point, this is worse than the dentist's drill.


Now I pride myself on being a hard man. A 'hardo', as we said at school. Looks so wrong now.
I prefer to go without anaesthetic.(Not that they were pushing it)
I like the idea of the people operating on me to join me in a few sibilant choruses of "what a brave little soldier he is!".
Call it vanity if you want. But really it's about not being any trouble to anyone.

And because I could see my pulse rate (and waveform), I could see it didn't rise.
The sympathetic nervous system demands that your pulse and blood pressure rise with pain. But mine didn't.

But I suspected as much.
I don't respond to any sort of pressure, to any sort of argument with a rise in my pulse.
I don't do things in that way.
Never have.
I've always known it.
I compartmentalise, deconstruct and reconstruct. I haven't spent 25 years in an orange cassock at the top of the Tibetan mountain, saving on the cost of Vosene for nothing.


I was thinking about this as the telescope approached my right eyeball.
You can't get a rise out of me, I thought.
Maybe that's what 'a rise' means.A rise in the pulse... What say you Google?
Oh well...apparently the expression alludes to the angler dangling his bait in the hope that the fish will rise. I think I prefer my own updated 'origins story'.


I pursed my lips a little, and did some regular panting, similar to a soon-to-be-unpregnant woman who is pretending that delivering a baby causes horrible pain.
While this has been claimed, it has been dismissed by research. Nobody has managed to find any other situation where people volunteer so readily for the same so-called "pain" again and again so easily. It therefore fails the repeatability test so vital in all research.
That childbirth is actually painful has thus been largely discredited. In fact, the evidence base suggests quite the reverse. Early work on the attention-seeking hypothesis is showing promising results.

My very real pain on the other hand continued intermittently for an hour or two.
I couldn't stay in the car park forever. I did the drive, grateful for the automatic shift as my gear-free hand went unconsciously to 'rub-it-better' position.
At home I could have a lie down. So it was an unwelcome telephone call 15 minutes later that started asking me about my accident in my previous career in industry.

The one I've never had.
In the job I've never had.

But that is modern life in England, isn't it?

We don't have a castle with a duvet anymore.
We have advertising space.

Of the Cloth

The Catholic priests.

They are confusing pray.....for prey...

Aren't they?

On the Radio

I just caught a bit of Steve Wright on the wireless.

He asked me to call in and tell him what I was upto.

Feeling encouraged, I did.

I was filling up my stapler and I was thinking of putting some washing in if it picked up later.

So there was a lot to tell.

I am just waiting for him to get back to me to continue the dialogue so am holding off on putting the washing in.

Quite excited!

Feel as though we could be real friends.

On the Radio

I hate Steve Wright!

Rock Me Awake

I've always liked Falco.
I can't lie.

There was a time when I couldn't get out of bed until Terry Wogan had played Rock me Amadeus.
As soon as the punchy rhythms started I was energised.

I bought a few of his cassettes.
I auditioned them, and found a few discoveries, but the singles that you may know are the songs worth knowing. Vienna Calling and the fantastic 'Jeanny' completing the trio.

But...

I'd always remembered an introduction. Spoken in English prior to the beginning of the song.
It wasn't on any of my recordings.

So I just checked it out.
The song being a big international hit, it has its own Wikipedia page.

And it has a chapter on this voice-over.
It closes with the words

"1791: Mozart composes The Magic Flute.
On December 5 of that same year, Mozart dies.

1985: Austrian rock singer Falco records....

those words lead to the opening bars tearing out of the traps.....

"Rock Me Amadeus.... Amadeus....Amadeus"

Apparently it was called the (short) Salieri mix and appeared on the US release.

And then, modern times being what they are, I found it on the Internet.

Within seconds I'm listening to it again.

Amazing.
These times we're living in.

Falco remains the biggest selling Austrian singer of all time.
He died in a motorbike crash aged 40 in 1998 after a few drinks, (enough to cause impairment), a bit of marijuana and a lot of cocaine. 

Funny Times

Slaughter in Tunisia.

The brink of Greek economic collapse.

Janner to be prosecuted for child sex abuse after the DPPs incompetence.

Looking forward to 'It's Been A Funny Old Week' with Jason Manford.

Afternotes

It's been 10 weeks since my final shift as a Police Doctor.

I was taking a break from some computer work and as the evening brightened I decided to walk the 10 minutes to the nearby fair.
It was 6pm on an increasingly warm Friday evening. The Hoppings is advertised as the largest in Europe and in writing this down I had to remind myself of how it got its unusual name.

There are a number of hypotheses. Perhaps it was that the travellers wore old sack-like tops and pants, or it was a dance of merry old England, or clothing infested with fleas that make people hop about itching from the bites.

I walked around for half an hour. But with nobody between my legs on the log flume, and nobody pinned to the wall with me on the Rotor, or rolling their eyes with me at the possibility of an unlikely win in the amusement arcade, or joining me in rueing the absence of the horseracing machine, I soon made my way back.

I crossed a well trodden dog-ear diagonal back across the moor.

But I was complacent.
I was thinking of other stuff.

I barely noticed someone in an old sack-like top and pants jumping and hopping in my peripheral vision, like a dance from Merrie Olde England. By the time I had lifted my head, my attention was drawn to someone in dirty sweats who was perhaps was going to ask me the way to the fair or the hour of day or something. If I realised there was a fair amount of gurgle at the bottom of this chest, then perhaps I briefly wondered how I might help. But this was all time wasted. The spit rose in his chest and delivered itself with laser accuracy to my left eye, with plenty left over for my cheek and chin. It was an admirable level of precision for someone struggling to walk in a straight line. A tall boy-man of 17, both aggressive and aggressively ginger had decided to reward my casual stroll with what is traditionally known as a large gob.

He then invited me for a fight in the traditional way by drawing his arms behind his shoulders, as though pushing his tits out.
Goading. Inviting. Requesting.
But his physique rather looked like that of wiry boxer stroke fighting machine.
I weighed up his chances as I stood my ground.
There were two of them (did I mention that?). I more than had then covered in terms of 'years on the planet' but I decided that wasn't a great parameter to inform my decision.

His friend goaded me repeatedly and called me a 'little shit'. Which was as odd as it was mildly amusing because I was a foot taller than him, and I wasn't wearing my heels. It was clearly a phrase with which he was decidedly familiar. And not least.... I am actually not a little shit. Many things I am, but a little shit is very much not one of them. And you can quote me on that.
So his observation was, let's say, disappointing...but which I mean not one I could take to the bank. Not a blog cue, let's leave it at that.

I considered a free punch. It's not often you get one, is it? But I realised that the only moves I really knew were from The Karate Kid. I'd already used 'Wax Off' to get the spit off my face and I felt uncertain whether 'The Crane' would really deliver when I needed it to.
I stood my ground for a while, but I quickly bored of their act.

A little push on my left shoulder tried vainly to draw me into a duel.
Not that he retreated and not that he tired or retired. Far from it. He was getting closer. But curiously I felt 'inner ginger' didn't seem to really "want" to start a fight. He wanted me to start it.  You'd never guess it but I just felt his heart wasn't in it.

Normally I'd happily oblige but, if he wasn't truly up for it, why should I make the effort to meet him halfway?
When I do fight, it would be for a purpose.
I couldn't think of one.
Put it down to a failure of imagination.

I decided to walk away, although a Kenny Rogers song, or two, gnawed at my soul.
And neither was 'Ruby, Don't Take Your Love To Town'.

He careered from side to side as he made his way towards the fair.
Should I report him? Should I go home? If I complain, isn't that just causing everybody an awful lot of work for very little purpose?
What exactly are you supposed to do? Just wash and go?

While I thought about it for a couple of minutes, I talked to 2 girls who'd seen the whole thing.
I even asked to borrow their mobile phone as I thought of reporting to the police. But they didn't seem to notice that I'd asked.
They did point out that the pair, clearly drunk and likely intoxicated on legal highs, started approaching a couple of children. I looked up and saw him fist pump a small child in front of his parents/guardians who might well have thought of him as an amiable drunk.
And if the parents felt differently, they wouldn't have given Kenny Rogers a second thought.

But they were not amiable drunks.

I decided to go home. Take it on the chin. Walk away.

I got 4 yards.
Maybe 5 in the direction of home.
Each step felt a little muddier, a little slower, a little deeper, a little worse. More wrong.

I turned.
I decided to finish him.
Two minutes buys you a lot of strategy.
The next 5 yards were easier. I was getting greener.

The task in play was to follow him and get him arrested.
I walked past the girls I'd just left and told them of my new plan.
'Good luck', they wished.
OK ...where, I thought, are Dick, Ann, George and Timmy the dog? No matter.

I followed, keeping a safe-ish distance. I was pretty confident I could do that. I never missed an episode of The Equalizer.
As they waited to cross the main road, I ducked behind a tree. I was pretty confident I could do that too. I never missed an episode of Secret Squirrel....or Inch High Private Eye.
They met up with 8 equally uncouth friends, at least one of whom had a tattoo so I knew I had the right people.

If I crossed the main road before them I could snitch to the cops whose location I'd previously clocked on leaving the fair and point out the 6 foot ginger streak. Then they could choose whether to break his face or politely request an interview.
Either was fine with me.

It worked pretty well. Only by the time I reached the police, they had him on the floor. His short friend was goading the boys in black and challenging them, so they poured his cider away. He was mouthing off so much he managed to get himself an unnecessary arrest for the ride.
I was ready with all the evidence required to send them to the Gulag. They'd be so sick of mining salt after this, I knew.

The ginger fella was on the floor getting cuffed (and stuffed). The police had their hand down his trousers recovering a thinly concealed bottle of cider, while he complained about them touching his bollocks, before falling asleep waiting for the paddy wagon.
I have got to be honest.
It was a trip down memory lane.

I left my address to give a statement and offered to go to court so that he could be sent away away for 30 or 40 years, I wasn't  sure what was customary for these offences.

Apparently a counsellor will call me tomorrow, to see how distressed I am.
It's an initiative by Vera Baird the Police Commissioner who blocked the access of vulnerable people in custody to trained physicians and was recently accused of corruption for donating a large sum of money to a charity which she co-directs along with the Chief Constable who left the force this year following bullying allegations. These ladies are both completely innocent of course, I thought, as someone flung a hog bap over the lost child station.

The police as ever did a fantastic job. An officer came round to take a statement from me at home half an hour later. And my Crane material really landed.

The lesson of the day? I've become soft in my old age.
I realise that after years of seeing patients in cells, spitting, shitting, sniffing and tripping, I'd always been able to hide behind a uniform as I studiously avoided a twatting. The police have made me soft.
But in civvy street I was bumping into the same people, unprotected.

The visiting police officer asked me if I was going to be traumatised by the event.
The fact is I don't think I gained an extra point on my pulse during the whole thing. Perhaps I should have, but I don't control my autonomic nervous system. That's why it's autonomic. If the Pointer Sisters taught us nothing else, they taught us that.
It was just bewilderingly stupid.

Tomorrow, Victim Support will phone me
I'll try not to keep them too long.

Addendum: At the magistrates court on 2 Jul 2015, he pleaded guilty to threatening behaviour and assault by beating which earned him an Absolute Discharge. "This indicated that the court considered the most important issue was the appearance that the defendant at the court, the conviction and the formal recording that the defendant had committed a criminal offence"

Review of Seussical at Joseph Rowntree Theatre, York

It's been 30 years since I've been to the Joseph Rowntree Theatre, and it really hasn't changed. It's an airy space with a wide stage and the sort of rake which keeps every seat leaf-free and with a great view of a primarily colourful and professional set. Welcome to Whoville.

As an almost middle-aged man with the vaguest of awareness of the complex or possibly just slightly bonkers work of Dr Seuss, I was most relieved to dodge an earful of gnarled American accidents. (A visit to the same theatre to see a production of South Pacific in the early 80s still occasionally wakes me up in a cold sweat).

Here, the man with the plan is a cat with a hat. Or to give him his full title, The Cat In The Hat. He is played with the sort of charisma that no 8-year-old boy has the right to have, charmingly overseeing proceedings with a mix of Willy Wonka and a young Alan Cumming, but with added (and impressive) treble range.

The staging delivers a coherence to the Pratchett-esque plot, and permits the audient to let a lot of the many words slip by and just enjoy the ride and the simple underlying message.

Seussical is a show that keeps the attention with its psychedelic set and gutsy performances, all supported by a live orchestra, or at least a bobbing head in the orchestra pit, depending on where you are sitting. It is a musical with a relentless musical drive. There is no pausing for chit-chat as an enthused cast appears and disappears, crowds and congregates to support the capable cat. Dancers who could actually dance, singers who could actually sing, and adult actors who could actually grow wacky facial hair. People (genuinely) of all ages.

The cat with the scat purs his links as Whoville showcases its array of performers - I really enjoyed the clarity of the punchy six-strong front- of-stage chorus who were right on the money to help knock things merrily along.

Seussical is a speedboat that you ride to the end of a show that doesn't overstay its welcome (as they might say in theatrical reviews).

It will most likely leave people of all ages with a smile on their face and at least one earworm and possibly two, for their troubles.

And hats off to the gentleman with the dickie bows at the door. 

Someday all theatregoers will be greeted that way once more.

Beating the traffic

I started listening to movie soundtrack in the 1980s. I really should do it more.

Orchestral music designed to conjure emotion at point-blank and deliver excitement on the head of a pin was much more accessible to me than classical tosh.

So I started looking at who was writing the soundtracks.

And I felt at the time as though James Horner wrote every single one of them.

His was the name that always came back.

It won't hurt that he scored Star Trek II and III, Cocoon and Commando (although it didn't fill me with joy today when I saw on Wikipedia that the Star Trek II director couldn't afford him by the time Star Trek VI came around). And I am surprised that having written that Titanic nonsense that he was only worth £15 million. But that's Hollywood. Actors rule.

I didn't realise he'd done the score to The Mask of Zorro, but I could hum it for you. (I really wanted to spell hum with two emms there -  what's happening to me?)

Horner just 'died himself' in a plane crash at the age of 61.

He joined a happy long list of 2 seater-plane pilots. 

It's a cliche. In his case a recurring theme.

I say "died himself" because there is no suggestion of suicide but he did it to himself.

I read these small plane crashes always with a "Yep..what did you expect?". 

Not everyone is Harrison Ford. 

It takes Indiana Jones to survive them.

So you can tell everybody you're thinking about his loved ones

You can tell everybody your thoughts are with his family.

You can reel off as many of those lies as make you feel better.

They are cliches too. I don't know if he has loved ones. I don't know if he has family.

For me my thoughts are with my discovery of him. 

And how his profession enhanced our lives.

61 - one score and ten left in him unsung. 

And for what?