Back from the Dead With A Film

Minstrels: The Lute & The Fury

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Having totally ignored my resolution to post more in January this year, I thought I'd wait almost six months before putting anything else up onto this blog.

But I've been busy - as you can see.

I will return in another six months - possibly.

How Not To Talk To Tradesmen

Happy 2007!

Why not shaft yourself this completely this year?

Invite a tradesman - perhaps a plasterer - into your home. Flap your wrists limply at the holes in the ceiling where you bullishly attempted to replace some ugly inset lights aeons ago – and where now only exist crumbly cavities in your plasterboard. Claim to know "nothing about DIY." Smile thinly as said tradesman sums your inadequacies in seconds and quotes a ridiculous price at you, and – your masculinity in shreds – nod numbly.

This is the way forward for the new year friends.

(It’s not much for the first post in two months – but one of my many resolutions this year is to get back to writing this more regularly. That and lose weight, do more writing, drink less, stop thinking about Dr Who, be less grumpy, forgive – all the usual. I realise – shockingly – I’ve posted 160 times on this blog. After such a number, it would be criminal to let my inherent laziness stop me sharing my petty irritations with the world. So, if anything, I intend to post a further 160 times about the guy in HMV who calls me "fella". I will get him. I will get him.)

Everyday is Like Sunday...

... in Great Yarmouth out-of-season. It was a fact-finding mission, you see. But oh, the sights we saw. For example, outside of "Tickles" joke shop was a working model of a man vomiting into a bin:


Inside was a display case of "The Turds" - little smurf-like characters, but instead of being blue Belgians they were - well - shit. With faces. One wore a mortarboard and was called "Shit for Brains". Another sat at a computer - "Log On" etc etc. I started to take photos with my camera but the piereced youth at the counter hailed me:

"Oi mate, no photos of the turds."

"Right, okay" I said, busted.

"They're all copyright you see. Collector's editions."

"Right."

"Some of them is limited. If you come back here in three weeks some of those will be worth twenty quid."

Tickles has an entire wing dedicated to sex toys and amusing boob aprons. The interesting thing was that to get any innocent Christmas decorations - tinsel, lights etc - you had to walk through rack upon rack of pop-up penis pens and an inflatable woman called "Big Brenda".

But there was so much else to see and do. Well, I should qualify that. There is so much to see and do, but not during November:


One of my favourite shut bits of entertainment was "Fun World" - which as far as we could see consisted of some railings fencing off some benches:


But the odd attraction was still functioning. I've never been let down by a Sea Life Centre. And Amazonia, the land of reptiles, still had its doors open and allowed us to experience the live jungle - although the lack of animation in 21 year old alligator "Goliath" suggested that the "live" claim was possibly an exaggeration.

Bingo was pretty good fun too. Andrew and I were possibly the only two males in the joint - a decaying former cinema full of old ladies with fags hanging out of their mouths. I don't know what's going to happen to the Gala chain when the smoking ban comes in. You have to concentrate though - they call very fast. We were in for the afternoon marathon session and it felt like it. We even got into the collective tutting when someone won. I didn't win anything - but now I have one of those fat dabber pens and a possible gambling addiction, so I can't say I walked away totally empty-handed.

And the nightlife - what a nightlife. It was one thing to see the tics, hair-styles and scarring of the people of Great Yarmouth by daylight - quite another to see them lit by the flashing disco lights and glitter balls of "Long John Silvers" fun bar at the end of the pier. I now know where the phrase "meat market" comes from. It was literally like a butcher's counter at the end of a busy day. There should have been sawdust on the floor. Men whose lower jaws jutted out some distance in front of their skulls. Women whose chests and arses were dancing off about two metres from their owner's bodies. One skeletal girl with massive round glasses, dressed in a witch's dress and with a tattoo of a hawk on her neck, whizzed around in the centre of the dance floor as if in a trance. One guy in a leather jacket literally dragged her off by her hair - I hope she's still alive. I realised we had to get out of there when on the dancefloor a - and I use this term loosely - "lady" in a rugby top with arms like tree trunks - and possibly 40 years my senior - began jabbing me in the chest with her elbow and winking at me.

Don't think I'm sneering though - it was all excellent fun. I just got the feeling by Sunday that we had to get out of there before sundown or we would be stuck there forever. I probably would be forced to grow my hair Teddy Boy style and open a cut-price 50s rock and roll shop, with a sideline in collectable models of turds.

There are worse career options I suppose.

Death by Swindon

Well. It would take an incident of almost monumental irritation for me to bring this blog out of the state of semi-permanent retirement circumstances have forced me to put it into - but falling asleep on the train and waking up in the middle of night in Swindon will do it just fine.

Life has just been ridiculously busy of late, and it's far easier to sit comatose in front of Holby City than it is to string three words together in the faint hope of being amusing. But as I wrenched the ipod from my ears and hastily brushed the sleep out of my eyes, I caught the sign of Didcot Parkway disappearing into the distance through the carriage window - and the familiar late-night feelings of rage and boiling frustration that fuel this blog came flooding back. There was only one way forward into the inky black night - and that was to Swindon.

The next half an hour was spent furiously phoning Swindon's glamorious Travel Taverns and Premier Inns in the hope of finding a room. I might as well have been asking for an elephant's ear on a bun. I think word must have quickly spread among the budget hoteliers of Wiltshire that some half-crazed man was trying to get a room at ten past midnight on a Tuesday, and they quickly all shut up shop. As the train pulled into the station a woman timidly approached me - "There is a Holiday Inn Express just there," she kindly offered, pointing out into the night. "Right! Right!" I muttered, "I mean, no rooms, it's incredible. This is the 21st century!" She smiled sympathetically, but clearly had her mobile primed to call the police in case I tried to eat her.

Anyway, the Swindon Holiday Inn Express was more difficult to get into than Fort Knox. I negotiated lifts, corridors, bells, and pass keys, all clearly put in my path as some Kafka-esque joke. When I eventually found the reception three hours later, the concierge was both helpful and charming - "No. No rooms for you."

"You mean you don't have one room free in this whole skyscraper?"

"No. You can have another drink?"

"What? What do you mean? No, I want a room!"

"I cannot do it sir."

I angrily went to the toilet to weigh up my options. The concierge made a great show of phoning other hotels - "WHAT? NO ROOMS? OH DEAR. THE GENTLEMEN MISSED HIS STOP. NO ROOMS? NEITHER WITH YOU OR ANYONE ELSE IN THE ENTIRETY OF SWINDON? IN THE WHOLE COUNTY? OH OK" - but I knew Swindon had already pulled up its drawbridge. At the late hour of 12.30am.

I made one valiant effort to persuade British Rail to put on a special train back to Reading for me - "Oooh no soirrr, next train b'aint be till foive in the morrrning" - But it was no good. As I pressed the £80 into the taxi driver's hand to drive me back up the M4 I could have cried.

This is hubris. I have spent the last few weekends, for professional reasons I can't really detail here, with a selection of cheerleaders from the United States of America. I have chaperoned and admired these young, pert, smiling dancing ladies and amused them with my floppy fringe and British self-depreciation. Naturally, an amount of signed swimsuit calendars and gales of tinkly American laughter can turn a man's (large square) head. Thus, as my patient and excellent wife has reminded me, Swindon serves me right.

Until this blog rises again.

Worst Indian Restaurant in London II

Why do I never take my own advice? Never eat in an Indian restaurant in the West End.

I have actually eaten at this establishment quite a few times, but usually at a late hour and drunk and hungry enough not to care what I cram down my gullet. But this time Pete and I were fairly sober and the night was very much young.

We should have heeded the warning signs as soon as we came in - the place stunk of paint. The kind of smell that actually invades your food. I immediately asked to move tables (in case this was a location specific problem). The waiter's expression suggested I had insulted his mother. We moved tables. The paint smell was not a location specific problem.

I should have walked out as soon as I looked at the menu and saw that every dish was priced exactly the same. It doesn't matter what you order - it's all from the same vat!

I should have sent my meal back because I didn't order mutton in Bisto, yet for some reason that was what I was served. The tarka dall looked (and tasted) like something at the bottom of a plasterer's bucket. Which is quite possibly what it was, as throughout our dining experience a man in white overalls kept walking back and forth through the restaurant carrying armfuls of tools. There is nothing like the sight of a large hammer and a bandsaw to put you off your food.

The cherry (onion bhajee) on top of the cake (lassi?) came when some sort of holy man, in full holy man gear, entered the restaurant. The proprietor emerged from the back of restaurant and immediately fussed around him, pouring him booze, "Oh I am so honoured to have you here! It is wonderful to see you!"

The imperious Holy Man sat at the next table and the proprietor plonked himself in front of him, "What do you want? I'll get you anything you want!" The Holy Man gestured vaguely at the menu. His food appeared immediately and he set to it.

"The thing is," said the proprietor, at a loud volume, "This food is shit. You don't want this shit. You come to my house and I'll cook you something good! You can meet my two lovely girls." The Holy Man shrugged. "You'll like my lovely girls! They'll cook you something good. Not this shit."

The proprietor's mobile phone rang. He answered. His face turned purple. "Fucking express!" he screamed. "Fuck you! Fucking express!" The over-attentive teenage waiters looked embarrassed. The German tourists at another table looked shocked. The Holy Man didn't seem to notice, and chewed his bhuna. "No no! Listen to me! Fucking express! Fuck you! FUCK YOU EXPRESS!" And he slammed the phone shut. "It is an honour to have you," he said to the Holy Man.


For this experience, we paid TWENTY QUID EACH.

If you find yourself popping in for a curry at the Indian restaurant opposite Drury Lane Theatre - don't.

1, 2, 3 ... CLEAR!

With a crack and a fizzle and a pair of humming defibrillators attached to my temples, I bring this largely inactive blog back to life. I haven't been posting due to many reasons - work, holidays, the summer - but largely because I thought a) "I can't be bothered" and b)"Who gives a toss?" However, appeals to my vanity from at least two people mean that Lazarus-like, this stupid blog is reborn. Anyway, it seems everyone is on Myspace now, which I don't really understand how to use. I thought I was cutting-edge with a blog, but now I'm nearly 30 and my time is gone. Anyway, I am scornful of such a transparent "look how popular I am" contest - I wouldn't get involved in such a thing. Here is my Myspace page.

Perhaps the most traumatic event of the summer was having to beat a large and rather beautiful jay to death with a cheeseboard. On holiday in Spain a small stray cat took a fancy to us, and each morning left a little offering on the villa doormat. It started with a mouse, moved up to a lizard - and on the third day a beautiful bird, traumatised, shaking and with its leg hanging off, was twitching on the veranda. It was never going to fly again and would have suffered a slow and lingering death - do you understand? I HAD NO OPTION.

I have seen my mother-in-law's husband - a hardy, country man - twist off a chicken's head without barely flicking an eyelid. Why then did my attempt to put the poor thing out of its misery turn into a scene from an 80's video nasty? I had to whack it three times. Stuff went up the wall. Oh God.

I like to think this mortifying event has been part of the cause of my writer's block, probably. Still, at least it's now off my chest and on to everyone else's. I am only glad that these wildlife offerings started appearing right at the very end of the holiday. We left after the bird. It seemed the tiny cat was capable of capturing and injuring creatures much larger than itself. Had we stayed any longer I might have had to stove in a Spanish baby or something.

Anyway, as tribute and to keep any animal protection organisations off my back, here is a picture of a jay in tribute:

Voicing an Alligator, Sweating Through a Suit

Yikes, it's been busy. In the last week I have had to tell the same joke eight times in eight different accents, voice a cockney alligator and a slightly fey Big Bad Wolf for CBBC, and then hotfoot it down to the Kent "Garden of England" TM for two nights of really good giggery in sweltery hotel rooms in Royal Tunbridge Wells.

The gigs were cracking fun - I had a blast compering for Pete Gold and Nice Mum on Friday who were both on fire (literally, it was very hot), and then the following night with the wonderful Congress of Oddities, Matt Perret, Steve Oram, Nice Mum and miming internet viral Dave Armand, with me threaded inbetween like some sort of comedy netting. Here is a photo of Nice Mum and I being very ill-disciplined in a sketch:



Anyway it was great fun. And for an added touch, the gig was taking place in a slightly threadbare hotel, where in the adjoining wing a wedding was taking place. A wedding with a number of thick-necked men with tattoos and piercings and fat women wearing a lot of pink and orange (in Royal Tunbridge Wells? I know, it hardly seems credible.) As the comedy gig played on, the wedding turned nasty, and just as I came off stage near the end I saw out the window a bevy of suited male guests have a fight in the hotel carpark. Comedy and tragedy in one evening. You can't ask for more.

My thanks to everyone who came, all the brilliant acts, and also the very, very nice Sean and Andrea of Oliver Woo's Tailoring in Tunbridge Wells. They gave me a very, very nice suit to wear for Spafest, which looked ace and I am very grateful to them. Naturally, I have to go and have it dry cleaned because I sweated through the gigs like a pregnant nun, but I am very pleased with it. If you're in that area, and need custom made suits and shirts then get yourselves down there, oh yes. They cut 'em good (ignore my stupid face):