Watching The World Change

Whilst listening to a programme on BBC Radio 4 the other day, I was struck by an observation that was so straightforward that it had actually passed me by. The programme was 'Saving Species' and the article was about the recent demise of some British birds. It was reported that many species of birds are in decline in this country, and the experts were putting forward various theories about why that should be. One suspect is the decline in insect life which means, of course, that there is less food for the birds to eat - hence fewer birds. There were several ecological speculations as to why insect life should be in decline, but meanwhile one scientist made the observation that you don't need expensive technical equipment to measure the volume of insect life (although of course, they do), you just need to take a drive across the country.

It's true - I hadn't noticed this myself until it was pointed out to me, but whereas twenty years ago a journey from say, Nottingham to Coventry would have resulted in the bonnet and the windscreen of my car becoming coated with the flattened corpses of dozens of insects, these days such wholesale slaughter is almost minimal. I spent this summer batting up and down the M1 motorway at high speeds, daily - but it failed to come to my attention that the death toll that such journeys had often caused in the past, had been greatly reduced. Thinking about it, I now see that to be the case.

It is very strange when we are suddenly made aware of environmental changes by things that we can witness ourselves and without needing to absorb the details of the scientists' technical data. I saw something similar a couple of years ago while I was on a skiing holiday in Argentière, France. There is a glacier in the valley, the extent of which can easily be seen with the naked eye. In the foyer of the hotel where I was staying, there was a photograph of a group of skiers taken in the 1930s. In the background of the photograph, behind the skiers' grinning faces squinting into the sun, the glacier is clearly visible. Glaciers - as you may know from your geography lessons - either grow in length, or they retreat. Comparing the scene in the photograph with the scene I had viewed earlier from the piste, it didn't take any scientist's data to tell me that the glacier had receded up the valley by at least a kilometre - in just seventy years! Quite chilling (or not, as the case may be).

So perhaps we should be wary of the mass of scientific data that we are presented with by the boffins. We often hear contradicting reports in the news - global warming is on the increase due to mankind's carelessness of consumption; global warming is not happening at all, but temperatures are just naturally fluctuating. The sun is getting hotter which strangely, will cause the earth to cool; the sun is actually cooling, which will cause the earth's gases to heat up the globe until it is out of control. It's all very contradictory and confusing - so maybe we should look with our own eyes if we want to know exactly what is happening? Well, of course there is a problem with this - sometimes, without the guidance of the experts, we run the risk of mis-interpreting the results we see. For example, if I had even noticed that the number of flies on my windscreen had reduced over the years, I might have concluded that this was as a result of the presence of more birds which were therefore eating up the normal insect supplies. This would have been wrong, of course.

I have been standing on my balcony this morning observing, the three dozen or so pigeons sitting benignly on the opposite rooftop. What does this tell me? That foodstuff for pigeons (often the detritus so carelessly cast down by the riff-raff of Nottingham) is on the increase, thereby allowing the pigeon population correspondingly to increase? Or is it simply that there are no young boys around with air-rifles anymore? Or maybe it is neither of these - perhaps it's just that one of Nottingham's many film-makers is shooting a re-make of Hitchcok's 'The Birds'?

Perhaps I should just start studying environmental issues instead, and become an expert myself? Stranger things have happened.

Join Me!

I was out filming all day on Monday, which is why I didn't update my blog. It was a pleasant day, if a little tiring - there were the usual frustrations of having to wait around for hours just to achieve about five minutes of usable footage, but there are always nice people to chat to during the wait, so it was all fun. We were in what Terry Wogan used to call the 'Lost City of Leicester' - a charming city of leafy walks and pretty shopping lanes. The weather was perfect, and we were very adequately fed and watered too! So, a good day indeed.

Now I am in hiding - the mad social blur of my life has taken its toll of course, and I just need a few days of rest and recuperation. You'll be pleased to know, however, that I have been behaving myself quite well and that there are plenty of empty cells in the naughtiness spreadsheet. This is all about awareness - most of us behave badly because we are not aware of our actions. Take people who throw litter in the streets - they're not actually evil people, and they're probably not even that stupid - but they are totally unaware of what their (lazy) actions may bring about. If you could train these people to think about what will happen when they have randomly thrown down their detritus - that someone else may slip on it; that someone has to clean it up; that an animal or child might be endangered by it etc. - then they may think twice about their actions. It is like this with all types of behaviour. It is easy to be thoughtlessly rude to someone, and just as easy to say something embarrassingly stupid in front of other people, but if we simply give some thought towards the repercussions of our next act, it can have the effect of stopping us in our tracks. As with all things in life, planning is everything.

We often make errors of judgement when we are drunk. Okay, so not all of you, dear reader, will know what it is like to be drunk - so for the benefit of those who don't, I will explain: The manufacturers of alcoholic drinks put something strange into their products. I don't know what this particular ingredient is, but it has the effect (for me at least) of bringing about impaired judgement. Well, not so much impaired judgement perhaps, but definitely a lack of the ability to plan. So, when a few drinks have been taken, even though we might subconsciously know that it is inappropriate to make that mistaken sexual advance or to send that insulting text message, the mystery ingredient in the drink seems to stop us from looking beyond the act or from seeing its possible outcome. The awareness quotient becomes somehow diminished, and before we have had time to think about what we are about to do, we have done it. As I have said, planning is everything - so the trick is to begin the plan earlier than required. Instead of blithely expecting that we can plan our actions once we have drunk seventeen pints of lager, it is far better to set out by planning to drink fewer than seventeen pints of lager. It's that simple - and this way, the emergencies that usually ensue sometime later in the night, will not arise. I think that I have discovered a remarkable and unique strategy for life, and I can hardly believe that nobody has ever thought of this before.

I am going to begin a campaign of awareness for the general public. I think this might make me rather famous because I will soon be seen as a saviour of social behaviour. I see a TV show; I see national coverage; I even see a cult following. As a first step, I am going to get some badges made up:

"Drink less; err less. Plan more; fun galore!"

Kind of catchy, eh? I am a genius!

The Happiness Factor

I wrote on Facebook this morning that today, Monday, is the 8th day of the week. It certainly feels like it. Last week was just so ridiculously hectic that I was barely able to cope. There were award ceremonies, launch parties, theatre trips, drinks, dinners out and dinners in - it was the most action-packed week in my diary. And it was all undertaken whilst in the grip of a debilitating illness too. My poor weak body has had no chance at all to recuperate, nor to fight off the onslaught of germs. Needless to say, there aren't too many empty cells in the naughtiness spreadsheet either. Oh dear, the shame of that!

I've also paid a few visits to the 'Davenport Shop of Originality' - a new addition to the retail scene, located in Nottingham's fashionable Flying Horse Mall. Housing an eclectic mix of design treasures, there's everything from jewellery to corsets to fabric to furniture. It's all local treasure too - just goes to show that when people think that Nottingham has nothing to offer, they are wrong because there are dozens of talented designers here, all bristling with innovation and style. The shop is attracting a lot of attention too - I'm sure I saw Vivienne Westwood browsing through the corsetry with professional interest, and on one visit I found myself rubbing shoulders with international design-guru Marcel Wanders who was showing a keen interest, it seemed, in the Davenport 'Table of Collaboration'. If he is thinking of collaborating with any of our own home-grown talent, then the shop will have done its job, and more. You should check it out if you're in the area.

In the meantime, Yours Truly is still failing spectacularly at trying to achieve anything worthwhile. I am meant to be finishing my novel, finishing my play about the 'Great Tullamore Balloon Fire Disaster of 1785' (in which the entire theatre has to razed to the ground for effect - it's a 'one night only' play in most cities), finishing my film script in time for the centennial anniversary of the Sarajevo shooting, and a whole host of other writing projects. Instead, I seemingly produce nothing at all. The only thing I do seem to be any good at these days, is upsetting people. I am forced to make more apologies than there are grains of sand on the beach which is, if you think about it, unsustainable behaviour. Whereas most people do forgive me for my misdemeanours, it is regrettable and reprehensible that I should make them in the first place. It doesn't take a psychologist to understand that bad behaviour stems from only one thing - unhappiness. Yes, gentle reader, this may come as a shock to you but I am deeply unhappy with myself. Few people would recognize this since I am usually fairly good at presenting a sunny disposition to the world - but Smokey Robinson had it about right, didn't he, when he sang his song?

So, let us instead make today, Monday, the FIRST day of the week, not the eighth. Let me become a 'happiness magnet' instead of the inwardly crippled monster that I often am. Yes, that's how to do it. I can't put right the iniquities of the past, but I can do something about the future. Before I can stop failing other people, I have to stop failing myself.

Here goes......

The Fight Between Good and Evil

Well, the chart is being filled in accordingly each day. The naughtiness chart, that is. As I suggested in my last posting, I have designed a 'naughty' spreadsheet where I am able to record different categories of foolishness on my part, and so when I notice that I have done something wrong, I make an entry into the appropriate cell. The aim, of course, is to end up with more empty cells than full ones - thereby indicating that my overall behaviour is improving. The Buddhists have this notion that awareness is everything, and that although we can't always avoid behaving badly, to be mindful of our behaviour is everything. When we become mindful, we can then take action to modify what we do. It makes sense if you think about it - how often do we recognize bad conduct as being "mindless"?

I can report to you now, gentle reader, that after a very optimistic start, the spreadsheet has become to look depressingly overcrowded in recent days. I behaved so abominably poorly on Sunday that I had to tick more or less every box on the chart. I can't say that anything I did was identifiably evil, but the mindlessness that motivated my iniquitous deeds was disappointingly evident. This being a family show, I can't go into too much detail here about the sordid and distasteful acts that I became embroiled in, but it is sufficient to say that they involved alcohol, drugs, squalid sex and all-round inappropriate debauchery. There would actually be nothing wrong in such behaviour if it were contained only to the deeds themselves, but we all know that there is always an aftermath to be dealt with when such things happen. Yesterday (Monday) was completely written off as all I could do was lie on my sofa attempting to recover. Today hasn't been much better either, although I have at least engaged in some domestic matters such as changing the bed, cleaning the flat, baking some bread, putting on some washing and dealing with some urgent paperwork. But there has been nothing creative happening, nor any attempt to earn any money.

The disappointment about all of this is my seeming inability to take heed of my somewhat grubby actions. What is the use of the spreadsheet if I simply ignore its lessons? I take a crumb of comfort from the fact that all self-improvement measures will inevitably show peaks and troughs in the graph of progress. The trough that I see before me - this pit of depravity and despair - will hopefully serve as a reminder that an even higher peak can be attained in the coming few days. We'll see.

Before I start slashing my wrists about all of this - and before you start castigating me with disapproval - I will give you a couple of quotes to think about:

"It is absurd to divide people into good and bad. People are either charming or tedious." (Oscar Wilde)

"When it comes to the point, really bad men are just as rare as really good ones." (George Bernard Shaw)

Perhaps there's hope for me yet.

Out Damned Spot!

Am I to be forever in the quest of self-improvement? I was listening to an article on Woman's Hour (BBC Radio 4) which said that we should embrace the times when we are wrong, and so learn from them. Some woman has written a book about how we should deal with being wrong - that we first of all have to admit that sometimes we can be wrong but moreover, that being wrong shouldn't be seen as an indictment of our moral worth. We are told to remember that because we have swift-thinking minds, it is inevitable that we will sometimes make mistakes when we are reacting to the fast-changing world around us. We have to accept that mistakes will be our life-long companion, and that the more ready we are to accept those mistakes, the more likely we are to avoid making them in future.

This isn't rocket-science, of course. "Learn from your mistakes" is an oft-heard maxim throughout everyone's life. But how many of us do just that - heed this aphorism? I am as ready as the next man (often readier) to acknowledge the frequent lapses of judgement that befall me, but do I actually learn from that? Some guy on the programme suggested that we should write a diary of our errors, so that we might more easily identify where and how and why they are made, and then to use that as a framework for our future behaviour. Blimey, this would be one hell of a diary in my case! I'd have writer's cramp from this, sans doute. But nevertheless I might give it a try because as I said at the opening of this entry, dear reader, it would seem that I am doomed to be forever in search of self-improvement and never seem to be in a position of self-satisfaction.

Take this recent weekend, for example. Having had one hell of a few days running up to it, during which I was knee-deep in paperwork and other legal matters surrounding the execution of my late father's estate, I decided to relax on Saturday and to treat myself to some 'rest and recuperation'. All well and good, you might say, and probably well-deserved - but the problem is that it is now Tuesday and I haven't yet re-started! I have been spectacularly lazy since then, and have only performed the barest minimum of chores in order to preserve some semblance of a ship in working order. My father's affairs still languish; there's been no writing done at all; I haven't attended to any matters relating to my crushing personal finances; and apart from buying a (relatively useless) rice cooker and subsequently cooking (and then eating) some rice to test that it worked, I haven't eaten anything. I have only been able to sustain the engine of my body by taking in calorific value from other sources - the scatter of empty whisky bottles and empty wine bottles can testify to that.

So, this is clearly wrong - and as per the advice from the bloke on Woman's Hour, I aim to write this information in my diary. I don't want such information to get muddled with other items in the list - such as sending inappropriate text messages while under the influence of alcohol, or trying to get the wrong (and equally inappropriate) people into bed when it is clear that they would never indulge me in such things - but muddled it will no doubt become. So, as a born administrator, I think an Excel ® spreadsheet is called for. Along the top, the days of the week; down the side, categories of foolishness. And rather than simply putting a tick into a particular cell to identify when some oversight in behaviour or attitude has been encountered, I will put a brief description of the precise misdemeanour that I have committed. A weekly review of this chart will then hopefully induce such shame and humiliation in me, that the following week's chart ought to look thinner, with more white space.

Unless of course, as each particular ignominy then becomes eradicated from the pattern of my iniquitous life, I find more and newer disgraces with which to discredit my pitiful self. Oh dear - how far does one need to sink before one can begin to climb out of the mire? Pity me.

That's Entertainment!

I saw the worst film I've seen for a long time last week. Written and directed by Frenchman Gaspar Noé, it's called 'Enter the Void'. I suppose the blurb about the film should have warned me, at least of something: "A post-mortem hallucination likely to induce seizures even in the non-epileptic". The film is shot almost entirely from the point of view of someone who has been shot dead (which doesn't sound too outlandish, on the face of it), and what attracted me to it was the phrase in the blurb about it "floating through the neon miasma of Tokyo like a woozy ghost." That's the bit that should have set an alarm bell ringing, I suppose.

Because, apart from the first hour of the film when the action is actually happening, that's about all we get - we are forcibly floated through a 'neon miasma' of hallucinogenic special effects, stomach-churning camera-rolling, repeated split-second flashbacks of horrific scenes, but little more. Sure, the film was pretty enough to look at, and possibly if I'd been watching it under the influence of some mind-bending narcotic I would have found it even prettier to watch, but there was scene after scene after scene where the director simply failed to move the story (such as it was) forward. I began to get fidgety after about an hour-and-a-half when I started to suspect that the scene I was watching was just another regurgitation of a scene I'd been watching a few moments before. Then another, and another, and yet another. True, each scene was shot slightly differently, and each may even have contained different characters, but the uneasy truth was dawning on me that basically, there was nothing new happening. This was either a display of lazy editing, or an act of gross self-indulgence on behalf of the director. I suspect it was both, but more strongly the latter. Gaspar Noé simply didn't seem to know when enough was enough. There were many, many points when he could easily have ended it, but no - he laboriously chugged on with more and more psychedelic images (some containing the most gratuitous and pointless sex I have ever seen), none of which did anything to develop the story. After one hour and fifty-five minutes, and when I gradually remembered that I had a life to be getting on with, I walked out. There was still another twenty minutes of this rubbish yet to run, but I urgently had some paint to watch dry. Not recommended.

On another evening this week, I went to watch a fairly reasonable stage performance of Shakespeare's 'Much Ado About Nothing'. This was a mainly amateur production at Nottingham's Arts Theatre, and although some of it showed the cracks between the professional curtain and some of the performances were a bit flaky, the company made a rather good stab at presenting the light and bubbling froth that this play is mainly about. After the dire and spirit-draining experience of watching Noé's film, this light satire on the tribulations of false wooing and social bungling, was the just the tonic. I also saw Billy Ivory's 'Made in Dagenham' in the same week - something else which is billed as having the 'feel-good' factor. It has some cleverly and sensitively scripted moments true enough, but the 'touch' of the whole film is depressingly stereotypical of many British 'underdog' comedies which - despite Billy's often strong and witty script - the director turns into a cliché. Worth seeing though.