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.