C'mon: Stick 'Em Up!

I've had one crazy week since I returned from Switzerland. The plan was to get home, stop drinking, and spend time re-organizing my wretched life into something that would (for once) actually work; something that would deliver the results I've been trying to achieve for the last one hundred and fifty years; something that would provide me with the fulfilment that I always crave. Not so.

I have been drunk every evening since then – in fact, on one occasion I was actually drunk in the daytime (shock horror). I have to point out that there have been excuses – friends keep calling round and forcing me (at gunpoint) to open the vessels of alcohol. At one point, a friend of mine became so drunk that he fell over onto a table and split his head open. There was blood everywhere, I can tell you. Ever the opportunist, my friend decided that his injuries should provide a few days off work and asserted that he could easily claim that he'd been mugged. To corroborate his claim, he thought it might be a good idea for me to punch him in the face, thus augmenting the bruising and scarring he had already suffered.

Can you imagine that? Me, the perfect softie, punching anyone in the face? I refused, of course - only to incur the wrath of my friend, whose conclusion that my failure to secure him a few days blagged off sick rendered me liable for a punching myself. Luckily, my lovely face was spared a beating, as he forgot all about it when he passed out. Passed out, yes - but not before upsetting a full pint glass of Coca-Cola all over my coffee table and thereby destroying all books and magazines in his path. This sounds like a rock-and-roll life, but I assure you that it is not. This is small-town life; this is Hockley life; this is not life.

So, I have decided to have a quiet night in this evening, alone. My plan is to formulate a plan. What I feel I could do with is a timetable. You know, the sort of timetable we used to have at school. I could divide up each day into period-size chunks and allocated an activity to each period – something like this:

Week 1
Period One: Finish unfinished novel about rent boys
Period Two: Do something about getting a job
Period Three: Stare meaninglessly into space
Period Four: Attend to paperwork and sort out my mother's estate
Period Five: Italian Lesson

You get the kind of thing. I feel that a more structured approach to the day might reap some benefits. It would certainly be better than my current agenda, which appears to be:

Week 1
Period One: Get up and check email and Facebook
Period Two: Stare meaninglessly into space
Period Three: Continue to check email and Facebook
Period Four: Stare meaninglessly into space
Period Five: Pour drink

Well, at least I'm listening to the radio right now, instead of watching the X-Factor. That has to be a good start, don't you think? Watch this space.

La Belle Suisse!

I had an absolutely fabulous time in Switzerland. At one point, when we were down at the lake (which only the English call 'Lake Geneva' by the way), I decided to feed the ducks with an old sandwich I just happened to have in my bag. More fool me – the poor ducks didn't get a look in as I was immediately surrounded by a thousand seagulls, all shrieking for a bit of the action. I felt just like Tippi Hedren as they circled my head, some hovering just in front of my face, looking plaintively at me as if to say: "Me! Me!" One actually hit me in the eye with a beat of its wing – they were that close.

As I threw the bits of sandwich into the air, followed by bits of a sausage and some pieces of chicken (my bag is indeed resourceful), the lucky ones grabbed at a piece as it flew past them, and then wheeled quickly away as if they were terrified that another gull might snatch the morsel from their very throats. It was surreal and delightful experience. Not only did I feel like dear old Tippi (would that I had her fur coat and leather gloves), but I also felt like the Bird Man of Alcatraz; the old women in Mary Poppins on the steps of St Paul's; or maybe just Worzel Gummidge.

Anyway, the remainder of the weekend went really well too. We took the train on Sunday to Montreux where I tried to find any trace of the fire that inspired Deep Purple's 'Smoke On The Water', but I suppose it isn't something that would even be remembered, forty years on. I did stand next to the bronze statue of Freddie Mercury which stands, for some bizarre reason, on the palm-tree lined promenade in front of a rather tacky children's playground. The whole promenade is a bit tacky, to be honest – it clearly has delusions of grandeur as it attempts to ape the rather more cosmopolitan seafront at Monte Carlo. These flâneurs were not of the same calibre as can be found on the Côte d'Azur, let me tell you.

However, it was lovely to be beside the massive brooding waters of the lake, and it reminded me of a time when my Great Aunt Dolores (she who was knocked down by a lorry and yet survived, and later took up playing the xylophone) hijacked a steamer on its way from Geneva to Lausanne. She didn't use violence of course, but she used her formidably persuasive powers (otherwise known as aggressive bullying) to convince the captain to divert to Thonon-les-Bains where she had arranged a secret rendez-vous with the Aga Khan - or so she claimed, for unfortunately we were arrested immediately upon disembarkation and were forced to spend the next two days in the confines of the splendid Town Hall. I'll tell you more about that next time.

   

1066 And All That!

We're a funny breed, the British. We hate to see the underdog losing at anything (which is why we are such ardent supporters of football, I suppose) and so I always cringe whenever I watch University Challenge because it always seems that one team absolutely bashes the other. I don't understand this – especially when we get to the later rounds when the teams are meant to be the cleverer lot of the bunch. It's quite extraordinary that a team which bashed another in an earlier round (and therefore became viewed as smug at that juncture), suddenly becomes bashed by a different team in the next round. So what happens then? Well, those oh-so-smug young men and women of an earlier round suddenly emerge as our pitied and hapless heroes. Especially if they're good-looking.

So there you have it – we don't actually like winners in this country. So, herein lies the rub: For a nation that so clearly despises success, how come we managed to build the most expansive and most successful empire in the history of the world? It doesn't seem altogether congruous that a breed of people which so often routs for the underprivileged and the downtrodden, should at some point in its long history become one of the most aggressive and belligerent people on earth.

I have the answer. It was those bloody Normans wot did it. The Normans came to this island and performed a magic trick – they bullied us into submission, yet made us into a proud and arrogant people at the same time. Some trick, eh? How strange though, that the French (for it was they) should have exported some trait of character that as a nation, they then instantly lost for themselves. And what do we learn from this? That there is such a thing as a national trait? Sounds a bit jingoistic to me. A bit xenophobic, almost.

So what is a nation anyway? Is it just a team on University Challenge to be cajoled and bullied by the likes of Jeremy Paxman? Your starter for ten: Bzzz! "Harrison of Somerville". Oh, you got it wrong, Harrison of Somerville. Again. Do we feel sorry for you, or were you too smug anyway?

We should all treat our own lives as if we were a nation. We should ensure that we are proud of our achievements, yet we should be humble in our privileges. In the words of Winston Churchill: In war - resolution; in defeat - defiance; in victory – magnanimity. There's a lot of truth in that.

A New Era!

A new era began yesterday. For the past nine months I've been contracting at Northamptonshire County Council but suddenly – although I was due to go on there until the end of the year – they've run out of money and have had to boot me out, early. I'm not alone in this – several contractors have been summarily dismissed in an effort to cut costs – but whereas most of my colleagues (both contractors and permanent staff) have viewed this development with dismay, I see it as an exciting opportunity.

It's very easy to become complacent in any role, and if I hadn't been so callously kicked out when I was, I probably would have gone on until the end of the year, and even longer perhaps (before the financial truth hit them, they had a tendency to renew contracts wherever possible). It was all getting rather cosy and because of sheer laziness on my part, I probably would have stuck at for as long as I was allowed to, even though I hated it. Now I have been forced out of my lethargy and have no choice but to think of something else.

God knows, I will miss the money – of course I will. But all of life is change; and all of life is a challenge. So I must embrace that change and that challenge and set out upon an adventure to find something new, something better. And the strange thing is that I am very, very, very confidant of finding it. That's what makes my life so much fun. This has all happened so quickly that I have not had time to "line up something else" (as in "Have you got something else lined up?"), but I don't care. If this opportunity hadn't come along, I'd have wallowed in the misery of getting up at 5:15 every morning and driving 140 miles every day for months to come. So bad for my body; so bad for the car; and so bad for the environment.

So I do not wail or gnash my teeth in self-pity. I laugh at my so-called misfortune and I set my sails for a new adventure. Something good will come from this; it always does. When I think of some of the scrapes I've been in, I marvel at the miraculous escapes I've been presented with. I'm excited – something new is around the corner and I know that (as ever) it will be something good. I'm on the Yellow Brick Road; I'm going back to Kansas.

In the meantime, I took an early flight this morning for Geneva and so am spending a delightful few days in the cleanliness and efficiency of Switzerland (so don't expect another blog from me until next week). I have brought with me a few clothes, but also some essentials that my daughter (whom I am visiting) misses from her old life in blighty: A few bags of Bombay Mix; some Cheddar Cheese; a couple of big bars of Cadbury's Dairy Milk; and some Twiglets. Hurrah! What a feast we shall have!

And you'll all be delighted to know that Great Aunt Dolores (she who once went over Niagara Falls in a barrel and who later took up playing the xylophone after being knocked down by a lorry) won't be coming with me. Well, she hardly could – having been dead for years.

And if I suddenly become overwhelmed by morbidity whilst I am taking my Swiss sojourn – well, there's always Dignitas!

Travels With My Aunt?

Oh, I've been neglecting you again. Well, before you start moaning, you should consider what a life I have. It's crowded beyond measure! My life is more crowded than the recent rally outside the BBC to silence the odious Nick Griffin; more crowded than the lynch mob camped outside the home of the even more odious Jan Moir; more crowded even than the party to celebrate the launch of Jordan's new breasts; and certainly more crowded than the mob scene we saw at this Sunday's Hockley Hustle (what a party that was!). Crowded indeed.

The main reason that I have so little time is because I have to go to work every day. This indeed is an inconvenience that most people I know don't suffer. It makes me feel so terribly normal all the time; I can't explain how difficult it is fitting such a tiresome pastime as full-time work into my crowded life. I'm expected to party like it's 1999, yet I still have to get up at 5:15 every morning and drag myself off to a full day of useful commerce. A tall order, let me tell you.

I went to the theatre on Saturday to see an adaptation of Graham Greene's 'Our Man In Havana'. I read the book 35 years ago and so couldn't remember too much about it, but by the time the first half had finished, I was beginning to wonder: What is the point?? The actors were trying so hard with an absolutely awful script (written by Clive Francis), but the whole production was apparently missing the point completely. There was no plot; no characterisation; no tension; no drama. Not exactly a good recipe for a successful stage play (in my opinion). As we sipped our interval drinks, I was ready to give up on the will to live. But then, like a football match, this bizarre production (which had the audacity to call itself a play) became a production of two halves. Suddenly, in the second act, the penny dropped. This wasn't a play at all – it was a pantomime! And as a pantomime – as an absolutely surreal and meaningless farce – it began to work.

Once I'd abandoned the idea that I needed to find real meaning in this somewhat manic adaptation of Greene's famous novel, I felt relaxed and satisfied. The novel was certainly comic (in parts), but it certainly wasn't farce. The humour in Greene's work was subtle and ironic (as you would expect), yet the writer (or director Richard Baron, perhaps) had decided that this should be translated into pure, unadulterated slapstick. And as such, it worked. So finally, I saw the point.

I understand that the same team also adapted Greene's 'Travels With My Aunt' which I also remember as being a splendid novel (although I think, unfinished). I'd have liked to have seen that – but then again, I have enough horrid reminiscences of travels with my aunt, that perhaps it was a good thing that I missed it. Hmm, maybe I should write a play.

Those Bastards!

An extraordinary day today! I set off to work with a real spring in my step, and full of confidence that I was going to spend a happy day, and that nothing – nothing – would bring me down. Then something happened – admittedly something bad – that caused me to stumble in my confidence and despite my best intentions, my spirits plummeted. I had intended to go out this evening, to watch all or part of 'Hatch Abroad' which is going on in the very street where I live, and Broad Street - the street where I spend most of my social time. As an example of what's going on, read this:

"The evening starts and ends at the Nottingham Arts Theatre (actually on George Street, where I live). International playboys 'Reckless Sleepers' were ensuring our smooth departure to Hatch: Abroad as The Pilots. At the other end of the night, the grand finale will be provided by Annette Foster, in the fascinating and unsettling guise of Marlene Dandy, and topped off with a crash, a bang and an ooh-la-la by 'The Polka-Dot Can-Can Troupe'. In between those points in time, the length of Broad Street is something to dive into. Running from north to south, the first port of call is the Lord Roberts. Here in the basement Daniel Hunt is presenting a two-man exploration of what it means to cross borders and enter new territories, while Rachel Parry is extending an invitation to be intimate with a woman, an outsider, a stranger."

That's only a small part of it – there's loads more going on with dozens of other performance events across the dozen or so arts venues that surround my apartment block. How lucky I am, to be living amidst such eclectic delights! And even though all I have to do to enjoy it all is roll out of the door to be amidst the thick of it all, I feel so dis-spirited by today's events, that I simply can't be bothered. My apartment, with all its mundanity, seems a better place to be, somehow.

This feeling is a big disappointment to me. I've been reading about how our lives are shaped by our thoughts and emotions, and so I really wanted to shape something uplifting and special. Instead, I can only manage to shape a rather flat, hardened turd – and that isn't right at all! It's all very well for these self-motivation gurus to encourage us to control our own perceptions, but what are we supposed to do when confronted by a bunch of real cunts (as I was) during our normal working day? Woah! It was meant to be that by sheer positive thinking, I wouldn't even be faced with any negative experiences at all today. Well, that's a load of bollocks because, even though I was dancing around the office in the very best of moods today, there seemed to have been some darker forces that had decided they were stronger than that.

Oh well, tomorrow may be better. I'll just remember that old adage - and one that surely, should be one of the best ever maxims to live by (if only we could keep it up): "Don't Let The Bastards Grind You Down".

And the best thing about all of this is? Well, no matter how grotty things might seem right now, at least I have the power to change them. Imagine being a nineteenth-century factory worker with no hope? Oh yes, I'm one lucky adult male, all right.

Jan Moir - Dancing On The Grave Of Stephen Gately

There isn't much more to say about Jan Moir's evil and poisonous article in last week's Daily Heil. Some far better writers than I have already brought this pathetic woman (pictured left) to task - Charlie Brooker for one - and more power to their typing fingers, I say. The fact that this spiteful, nasty little hack was even allowed to peddle her vile filth before the British public is enough of a wonder, but that she even felt justified in her loathsome attack on a defenceless dead person is a total mystery.

What I would like to comment upon, however, is just that. What was this malicious bigot's motivation for writing such an article? This is a question we must ask ourselves – and the sad answer is that she clearly felt capable of oozing such bile because she felt comfortable in doing so because she sees herself as a "member of the club". Brooker called her article a "gratuitous piece of gay-bashing" but he singled her out as if she had invented such vitriol herself. In fact, she was just luxuriating in the confidence that she is not alone by holding such views. She was fully expecting her wicked malevolence to be welcomed by her readership. And this, dear reader, is the awful truth. There will have been many, many Daily Heil readers sagely nodding their dogmatic heads in agreement with her. Of course Stephen Gately deserved to die – he was gay, after all.

The fact that the Press Complaints Commission is powerless to handle the furore of outrage that has poured in about this disgusting piece of fascist dogma is sweet justification for her foul words. Only Stephen's family is entitled to complain about the filth that she wrote – and are they likely to do that, given that they are in a state of shock and grief? Of course they won't - they have more dignity. De mortuis nil nisi bonum is an adage that the despicable Ms Moir seems to have forgotten. She has not only attacked a defenceless young man and his family; she has also attacked the very ramparts of morality and decency.

The dangerous truth though, is that she obviously feels that her insidious venom is the lifeblood of her odious readership. And she is probably right in that, at least. That is what is so truly awful about her article – more awful even than its hateful content.

We need a wake-up call, that's for sure. Aux armes, citoyennes!

Price Wars

I love using the self-service checkouts at supermarkets and other stores, but I just hate that woman's voice (almost as much as I hate the way anyone talks when doing the voiceover for reality TV shows – not that I watch them, of course). "Please scan your clubcard"; "Select payment type, or enter cash" etc. It really gets on my nerves when she repeatedly urges me to "Please remove your card from the card reader" when I've already done so and I just want to grab my receipt and get the hell out of there. That woman is the spawn of the devil, so she is.

However, today I witnessed her behaving with such insensitivity that I almost had to laugh. A young woman was in front of me in Tesco this evening and, having carefully scanned her various bottles of wine, shampoo, instant rice pack and other detritus of student living, she dutifully obeyed the woman's instructions to 'select payment type' and inserted her card. Imagine her horror and shame when the woman's voice boomed out for all to hear: "Please select another payment type. Card Invalid. Please select another payment type. Card Invalid."

Wouldn't it be enough to display this information discreetly on the screen of the card reader? Is it absolutely necessary to shout out this information so that the assembled (now hushed) crowd can't fail to hear it? Do we really have to witness this poor girl's shame and embarrassment, and watch as her body visibly shrinks in some desperate bid to disappear into a hole in the ground? I think not. It's a disgraceful invasion of a person's dignity.

So, I'm going to invent a new machine that starts talking back. It will respond to the bleep of the scanner and yell out some truths of its own. "Four pounds fifty for some blatantly over-priced washing powder"; "One pound thirty-seven for green beans that an African farmer was paid two pence to produce"; "Three ninety-nine for a bottle of wine which it is claimed has been reduced from an inflated price of eight ninety-nine, but which actually should retail at two pounds fifty." That sort of thing.

This could be fun. Do you think I will get this machine patented?

Weekend Fun

That was a nice weekend. I managed to drink quite a bit, yet not get drunk! That's always a good thing (unless, of course, you're the sort of person who only drinks to get drunk, then it would have been a failure). I was visited by an old, old friend who I was at university with many, many years ago. She's probably the only person whom I've seen continuously over the years for the longest time, if that makes sense. There are people I've known for longer, but they are people with whom I lost touch over the years and then became re-acquainted with after a long break. Oh, I'm forgetting about Gunnar who is my Norwegian friend and who I've known for even longer – since I was seventeen – and who I see regularly (like every couple of years). But anyway, it was really nice to catch up with Theresa again and to show her the fleshpots of Nottingham.

Not that I had enough time to show her very much – she wasn't here for long and all we had time for was a couple of meals, and a fabulous night out in the Chameleon to watch my friend Adam play a gig with his band Captain Dangerous (click on the name for more info). The Chameleon is rather amusingly dubbed as an 'Arts Café' but is really just a badly-decorated, somewhat sleazy bar that regularly runs out of beer. However, it's a good place to catch some really interesting live acts and Captain Dangerous, who have gigged everywhere in Nottingham (and elsewhere, before the crowned heads of Europe), are certainly that. Adam writes all their material (they don't do covers at all) and the music is such an explosive mix of sound that I - who knows nothing about music, except that I know what I like - can't describe it. One reviewer said this: "I can fully understand the fuss surrounding this band. Captain Dangerous make catchy, melodic, indie pop, with more than a hint of folk running through its veins." It's much more than that, believe me.

Anyway, I had a little soirée on Saturday before we went out to the gig. Adam called round for a few drinks with his brand new girlfriend, as well as several other people. It was all very civilized and we drank champagne and ate roasted vegetables before heading off to the Chameleon. The problem was that we waited for ages and ages for Captain Dangerous to come on (they were headlining, so we had to get all the other crap out of the way first) and so inevitably, we whiled away the time by drinking alcohol. Before the beer ran out, that is. It was a bloody good night though.

I was hoping to show Theresa the delights of Nottingham Castle the following day - you can climb up to the top and view the whole city from above. However, we were way-laid by a rather strange ethnic market which had pitched up in the central piazza, where we spent far too much money on some (probably useless) ethnic items, and so we never made it to the castle. Still, we did have time to grab a vegetarian roast Sunday lunch at the Alley Café (click again if you want to know more) which was absolutely scrumptious. Now, that Alley Caff really is what you'd call an arts café - there's nearly always some really cool live music and if not, there's usually something pretty groovy coming through the speakers. I can't think of a time when I've entered the place and not found someone I know in there, too. A special place.

Anyway, I'm now watching television - a rare treat for me. It's David Attenborough's latest offering - strangely, all about death. Horrible, gruesome death too. The nicest thing we've seen so far is the sight of those adorable Capuchin monkeys cracking their nuts. Oh, life is so hard isn't it?

Meeting Sean Connery (Not)

Now here's a strange thing. I've been trying to sort out my mother's paperwork – of which there is at least two bin-liners' worth – and I've come across many strange things amongst all the bank statements, letters, insurance policies, photographs, invoices etc. One of the most surprising revelations was a letter written by my mother to my father when she was away in hospital at a time when I was only two years old. In this letter – full of general chit-chat about life in hospital and enquiries of my father about what was happening at home - she refers to me twice, and both times as "Ricky". This is extraordinary, because I can't recall her ever addressing me by, or referring to me as, any name other than "Richard".

This led me to wonder why my parents should have dropped this earlier (somewhat jaunty) sobriquet, in favour of the rather sober and proper name by which I have since become identified. It is almost like meeting another 'me'. Who would this 'Ricky' have become if the name had stuck, I wonder? And does the name change indicate a shift in affection on their part, or perhaps a swing in opinion of who their little boy was, or was to become? I'm quite puzzled by this, I have to tell you. It's quite disturbing.

Either way, it's a far cry from what my Great-Aunt Dolores used to call me. I can't recall her ever addressing me as anything other than 'boy', 'wimp', 'cur', 'idiot', or any other abusive term that might have sprung to her mind in response to whatever situation we had found ourselves in. I recall one particular incident when she actually threw her treasured ivory cigarette-holder at my head and yelled 'Congenital cretin!' at me (a foul slur on my parents, by the way, whom for some reason she despised).

This outburst had its origins in a near encounter with Sean Connery. It was the fact that it had been only a 'near' encounter that had incurred her ire. She'd been trying to blag an entrance for us both to the after-party for the premiere of the film 'Never Say Never Again' at Grauman's Chinese Theatre in Los Angeles. Dolores had somehow manage to persuade Rocky, one of the security men, that she was one of the producers of the movie whose limousine had been hijacked by Russian mafia in a protest against the anti-Russian image so often perpetrated by the Bond films. She could be a consummate liar when she had a mind to, could my aunt, but I think what had made Rocky so credulous was the way she had coquettishly squeezed his nipples through the blue serge of his uniform with one hand, whilst stroking his cheek (face, not arse) with the other.

He was about to lift the red-tassled rope to allow us to pass when I inexplicably blurted out something about how the real producers of the film would be very surprised to find us gate-crashing their party, and wouldn't it be a jolly good wheeze. Rocky's arm stopped in mid-air, still holding the rope, and the smile disappeared from his face.

It was as we both lay sprawled in the gutter on the corner of Hollywood & Vine – my aunt's knickers in full view of the assembled paparazzi – that she yelled those insulting words at me, and when my eyeball took the full force of her burning cigarette.

'I will never, ever, try to launch you into polite society again, you ungrateful little bastard! Never!' she spat, whilst trying to pull her dress down over her knees. Perhaps it was unpropitious of me to have responded with: 'But my dear great aunt – you should never say never again', because it was probably that which caused her to pick up the still-burning cigarette and stub it out on my forearm (which had become exposed because Rocky had somehow managed to rip the sleeve from the jacket of my hired dinner suit). Ouch! I still have the scar on my arm to prove it.