Lock and Load

We are pattern machines. Cartridges can be slotted in and out.
Deliberation allows you change to one cartridge at a time in your own time.

But life is eight-track. It comes at you in ways that invite automatic, or hopefully semi-automatic, response.
Automatic is expert or incompetent. Beautifully in-control and totally out of it. Master or knee-jerk.
Semi-automatic is more measured, quick but steady.

When you are switching multiple cartridges for the first time, keep it ordered, keep your eye on the ball, put your weight on your lower ski.
Breathe.
Think.

And keep your powder dry.

Making Waves

People can change. But later in life I think it needs to be based on a
more conscious desire, correcting oneself in terms of exercise, eating
habits, attitude etc etc. And using the fact/hope that you know what
buttons to push to motivate yourself.

If it is not laid down in that way, more deliberately then when we are
children, then when it sets, it won't take.

If it doesn't take, the old habits will resurface, sooner or more
harmfully later, and be more destructive than before.

You can roll with the tide as a child.
But as adults, we are the wavemakers.

Blind As a Mouse

I just fulfilled a life-long ambition. Well maybe not ambition, but certainly a box that needed ticking.
No, actually ambition isn't too far from the mark.

It is something that is hidden in the psyche of every theatre-going boy in England.
An experience to be done once in your life. To be treasured and secreted.
During maybe a visit to the capital and an evening in of the most well loved establishments in the world.

I've just seen The Mousetrap.
But I didn't do it in the way I had always expected.
I hurried after work having gobbled down the quickest of teas and bought a half-price standby ticket and went to see it in the Gallery.
The time had simply come to tick the box.

And it was the right way to do it.

With the play on its 60th anniversary tour there was no need to go to London. Indeed I had visited London on occasions for courses etc and considered a few times forking out the £45 they wanted from me, but never quite brought myself to do it. Well, there's a lot of choice! And frankly I was worried it might be a bit crap.

When I was I think 11, I visited London with my Dad, pretty much the only trip we went on together.
I don't know how hard "we" tried to get tickets for The Mousetrap but we ended up with Murder at the Vicarage. Which I actually think was a superior play. And I remember being pretty high up then. High up in the gallery is very little imposition for single set plays such as this.
I can still remember lines from Murder at The Vicarage, despite never seeing it since. Mrs Marple had a recurring line of "When I was watering the lawn that afternoon...." or some such, which introduced her busybodying. It is not amusing. It's just interesting how memory
sticks over 30 plus years.

I may not have taken this option of rushing off tonight had not a TV comedian ruined the surprise ending from The Mousetrap on a television programme about 15 years ago. Instantly I knew the experience of going to London to see it would be soured. I've never been able to forget it so I've always known the ending. Irritatingly now I can never know if I would have guessed it, so I've been truly cheated by Paul Merton. I think I would have. I think so. Maybe.

I even remember during my schooldays being entranced to see that The Mousetrap play was available in book form, but while flicking through bookstores I forbade myself from ever looking at the ending.

But today this was it. Enough's enough.This was M-Day.
It's in town (for the second time) touring on its 60th anniversary. So I thought...let's just get this done.
Let's bring this baby home.

So I should give you a brief review. Well, it's rubbish really. But there's something about Agatha Christie, and being brought up on France's Durbridge thrillers at the local theatre, that you always
hope for more, but it is only the performances and the smell of the greasepaint that can elevate these two act wonders.

Time perhaps has not been kind to the play. But it doesn't really deserve it. The thing is really that it's nothing special. Iconically special. But not a special piece of writing. It's a box to be ticked.
If you help yourself to an interval gin and tonic, my advice is to have a double.

Personally, I'm glad to free up that part of my brain to something else.
But I still like that it exists is a charming piece of parlour theatre. Quintessentially you-know-what.

The world is a poorer place without The Mousetrap. The second half does liven up a little. It throws in a few plot theories... but nothing as imaginative as the sort of ideas that fans on an Internet forum would speculate. The world has moved on. Nowadays if you're a comedian you have got to come up with jokes that Twitter doesn't think of first.

Ultimately I wish The Mousetrap well.
But, friend, if you don't happen to get round to it.... really.... there's no need to worry.

Power of the Sun

Ring Ring Ring Ring

"Hello"

"Hello - is that Mr Smith"

"Yes - this is a sales call, isn't it?"

"No, it's not a sales call. It is a free no obligation quotation for solar power".

Give me strength...

Sachsgate - The Revenge

This week Jonathan Ross returned to Radio 2 for the first time since his telephonic abuse of Andrew Sachs which believe it or not is 6 years ago now, although Sachs only spoke out earlier this year about the cruelty that apparently continues to haunt him. And this very day as I was filling up the car I noticed an interesting story about his brother, TV's Paul Ross, in today's tabloids.

Now it was good to hear Jonathan on the radio this week. He is interesting and a considerable relief from Steve Wright and the people who claim to love his show.

But it has long struck me that Ross and Russell Brand's apology was spectacularly unconvincing - one of the least heartfelt apologies in history, accompanied by giggles and about two years too late.

So today provides the perfect opportunity for the shoe to be tried on the other foot.

I wonder if Jonathan thinks it would be fair game for Barry (Paul Ross's gay mephadrone-taking dogging partner of the last 12 months who apparently wants to marry him, presumably after a divorce from his wife of 20 odd years) to phone up Mrs Ross (their mutual mother) and tell her he'd fucked her son, recording the call for transmission over the airwaves as a hilarious piece of entertainment.

No?

Thought not.

Cold Call Blues

Change your answering machine message to incorporate a 10 second gap then saying "Sure tell me more". They'll eventually realise you're an answering machine (You are!).

If they catch you answering the phone "live", adopt the same approach "live" to frustrate the cold callers. They'll eventually realise you're an answering machine (You aren't!)

For added flavour, why not improvise some interjections pepping it up like a bored counsellor feigning interest? A few select "I'm sorry to hear that" s or "Tell me more"s are a great start.

The more abstract you make your interjections, the more fun it is.

When people have had enough, thank them for calling.

Your confidence in talking to strangers will grow. 

Time well spent.

Snack Right

Put these crisps in some sort of vaguely 'correct' order for me?

Salt and Vinegar, Ready Salted, Cheese and Onion

Anything that feels right...

close your eyes if it helps...

then answer me this....

Why have you put Cheese and Onion in the middle?

Truer Than True

I don't know why sometimes BBC News occasionally lists daily top stories which are actually archives from years ago...some quirk of internet algorithms no doubt but it often happens that the story is an old one.

In today's Top 3 stories was 'Savile dies'.
I thought a different Savile from the tireless Saturday night TV entertainer might have died but no....
It is an old story from 2011 of the same well-loved BBC celebrity and pride of Leeds that raised so much for charity.

I read the article to see if there was a new twist.
But of course not. It was an archived article that for some reason was being re-referenced.

I could not help but catch a tribute by hairy cornflake, DLT.

Presenter Dave Lee Travis told Sky News: "We are all going to be worse off without him around."

Never a truer word, Dave. 

At least in your case

Taken By Numbers

I have only just realised why Taken is such a darned good film

It has exactly the same plot as Commando which is a darned good film.

I have an idea for a movie myself since you ask where a boy lives in a galaxy that is not too far away and travels with a female robot and a Dusty Bin playing with his light foil.

Now if I can just get the Intellectual Property cleared ... I'll be on easy street.

Exactly the same as Commando....keep 'em coming fellas.. don't make me wait another 20 years.

Colours and Noise

Sometimes all you need to mix things up is a bit of colour.

A walk in the park or a stroll into town. See what's new. What shops have appeared. Or disappeared.
What people are wearing.
What tech they are using.
Ask yourself why and match it to your view of the world.
Notice where your picture is incomplete or out of date.
Drink in the incongruity.

You will notice ignoramuses who make too much noise and block the footpath.
Traffic will beep, perhaps at you. You may break a law or a social etiquette. You may have got old and not wise.
You may have become a  duffer. A poor student. Poorly adjusted. Out of it. You may have stopped understanding the world. Found your limit.
Yes, the younger generation are glued to their mobiles, just as they were when they were above their cots. But it's the older fella staying in watching the box. The very parents who warned against it.
Is that irony? Or fate.
You may not notice the loss of connection.
You are not adapting. Your gears are becoming rusty. It didn't used to be this way. But things changed. Around you.
You may have shunned computers but now you cannot find a bargain. You can't shop around. Or bank. Or educate yourself in a balanced way.
When you made a den, you can die in its comfort but as the universe and world expands your box doesn't. So effectively, it shrinks.
This is the curse of designing your own comfort.

Now there is a lot to be said for keeping the world out. For a start it has a lot of youth on their facebooks.

But it is coming anyway. The best way to deal with it is to allow a little bit in and let yourself become disorientated just a little then let the sands settle.
The simplest way to do this is to go for a walk round town.
That's what my Dad should have done.
Not only is it good for your cardiovascular system but you can feel the noise. Live the colours. Breathe in the smell of sweaty hotdogs.
Notice the headline in the paper you've never read, a book in a bookshop that you haven't been in for years. Jeggings and Ra Ra skirts. Beards and an updated use of corduroy.
Just notice and let it change you into developing new thoughts. New ideas. New you.
Life floods in through the smallest chinks of light.

I am not a shopper myself so I am not hawking anything but good advice.
If you are lost. Go for a walk.
And not a quiet one.