A Typical Sitcom Moment

Some years ago I took a business trip to the island of Guernsey. It's a delightful location, quaint and balmy, with tiny high-hedged roads that twist and turn through the model-like villages and luscious countryside. I was with two colleagues and the purpose of our visit was to try to sell a big IT installation to one of the major businesses in St Peter Port. My role was to support and balance the other two members of our team: The first, a salesman who clearly might not be trusted to tell the truth about the merits of our software; the second, a technical expert who unfortunately could be relied on to tell perhaps too much of the truth. Also, as a senior manager with the company, I was expected to provide some gravitas to the proceedings.

As we gathered at Birmingham airport, I suddenly remembered that I had forgotten to pack any underwear and so I bought a pack of rather snazzy and fashionable briefs in one of the concourse boutiques. Thinking no more about it, we flew to Guernsey and checked in to our hotel in preparation for the major demonstration the following day. A spot of sightseeing, a pleasant dinner, and some last minute checks on the efficacy of our software demonstration system, and we retired to our rooms for the night.

The following morning we checked out of our hotel and with our luggage and our technical equipment, took a taxi to the Headquarters of our prospective client. In a conference room we were extended all relevant facilities to present our demonstration in the appropriately professional manner. At the appointed time, members of the senior board of management filed in to take their places before us. Our salesman made his well-rehearsed pitch. On the overhead projector our technician effortlessly demonstrated the commercial, practical and strategic benefits of our software, and I led the Q&A session in a soothing, confident and reassuring way. The prospective client's management team were rather dour and reserved at first, but by the end of the two-and-a-half hour session, we felt that we had raised their level of enthusiasm to an extent that led us to feel fairly confident of securing an order. However, such was the size of the investment that we already knew that the decision would not be made that day. So, we ended the session feeling that we had made a suitably professional impression on these people, and that we stood a good chance of securing the deal later.

We thanked our audience for their attention, and they politely thanked us for making the trip and for presenting a convincing case for our application. As there were another five hours until our flight home, we had decided amongst ourselves that we would engage in some further sightseeing of the island once the meeting was over. Not wishing to do this in our business suits, we asked one of the senior managers if there was anywhere we could change into our casual clothes. She said that we could use the same conference room we were already in, and as the management team filed out she said: "You won't be disturbed".

Relieved that the intensity of the meeting was now over, we entered a mood of levity and quickly began to shed our smart business attire in readiness for an afternoon on the town. For some reason I suddenly decided that it was important to show my colleagues how good my recently purchased underwear looked and so, in a moment of madness, I jumped onto the conference table, naked except for my new briefs, and proceeded to imitate a catwalk model, gyrating and cavorting up and down in a provocative manner. At that moment the conference room door opened and in walked the aforesaid senior manager, asking if we would like her to call a taxi for us? She stood horrified at my antics as, like a rabbit caught in the headlights, I froze in mid-gyration with my hips thrust forward to reveal the clinging contours of my new stretch-lycra briefs. Sheepishly, I climbed down from the highly-polished table mumbling that yes, thank you, a taxi would be most appropriate. Still reeling with shock, she retired from the room in silence.

We didn't get the deal.

Welcome to the House of Fun

Every time I write one of these blogs I always vow to write another one very soon. And then life and its chaos gets in the way and before I know it, whole weeks have passed. Things have been extremely difficult in the past couple of weeks - the burden of duties has been crushing to say the least. All the usual stuff has bubbled up onto my already crowded agenda. My weekly and daily schedules resemble a school timetable - but without the free periods. However, I did take a break last weekend to visit some friends in London. They live on a houseboat on the Thames - that great, brooding body of brown water; heaving and swelling as it nudges its way silently through the capital. The boat doesn't float for the whole time - it rises up with the tide for a few hours and then is lowered gently back, to settle once more in the oozing mud like a stranded whale. This is a fascinating process because when settled, the boat lists at a very slight angle, giving one the impression - strangely - of being at sea. For me, this was a wonderful opportunity to relax completely.

There have been other moments of pleasure too, peppered amongst the ever-growing list of mandatory chores. I am a member of a scriptwriting group at the Studio, and our modus is to take two new scripts each month and to critique them, offering comments and (perhaps) advice to the writers. We have been lucky so far because we've only had high quality scripts to work on - there was a fabulously creepy horror film written by award-winning film writer Graham Lester George; a lovely gentle comedy about life in a nudist colony by TV writer Michael Cook; theatre writer Nick Wood's powerful and moving dark drama about teenage self-harm and abuse; and Georgina Lock's outrageously quirky and hilarious new TV sitcom about Osama bin Laden and a group of his hapless cronies. It's been great fun to read the first drafts of these works and, because there's always something useful we can all say about possible improvements to the scripts, it's exciting to think that in some small way we are contributing in the genesis of some great productions to come.

Last night I attended the Studio's quarterly spoken word event where members and guests get a chance to perform their written work in front of an audience. I've performed my work here before on several occasions, but last night I had the pleasure of being a member of the audience. It was a super evening with some very interesting stuff being read. Top of the bill was guest artist Sophie Woolley, fresh from her success in Channel 4's 'Cast Offs'. She performed an astonishing monologue about betrayal and loneliness - all the more remarkable because Sophie is totally deaf which must make it so difficult getting the comic timing right, when she can't hear the audience's reaction. And the reaction was one of hilarity and pure joy. She is brilliant. Irvine Welsh (of 'Trainspotting' fame) described her satirical play 'When to Run' as "a stunning, electrifying show full of imagination and verve". A magical evening.

And now I have my lovely daughter (also called Sophie) and her boyfriend staying with me - so there's heaps more fun to come. Hopefully, dear Reader, it won't be too long before I can recount the details of this on here. I'm ending again with another promise (to myself as well as to you) that my next blog will follow shortly. If it doesn't, you can be assured that it's only because I have again become mired in the drudgery of daily tasks. Let's hope not.

Goodnight, Sweet Prince

What strange times I'm living through. I've been trying to lead a more sedentary life recently and have only been out on the town for a handful of times in the last two weeks. I must confess that last Friday was probably the biggest hiccough in the plan, when I drank enough red wine to wash down a large cow with, and my poor head certainly woke up to the full horror of that on Saturday morning. But apart from that specific excursion, my outings have been somewhat moderate by earlier standards, at least. I've been going to bed early, swathing my face in lavender oil (to aid good sleep), and reading a book to aid my rest. Why then have I been repeatedly tormented by the most bizarre, disturbing and (yes) cruel dreams every night?

My Great Aunt Dolores used to say that our dreams were evidence that none of us really exists. She said that the old religious ideas that dreams were god's way of talking to us were a load of old codswallop. She was more akin to the Greeks' theory that dreams came from within the self, but she took the idea even further in some ways, although stopping short of Plato's claim that dreams were 'communications from the soul'. Dolores's theory was that when we become unconscious (i.e. when we sleep), we are at once tapped into the consciousness of the Universe and that our dreams are merely the collective babble that emanates from that consciousness. From this she deduced that as individuals, we don't exist. Her claim was that the cacophony of voices that our mangled, incomprehensible dreams reveal to us is merely evidence that we are all 'One'. Our conscious physical selves are too trapped in our own egos to tune into the real collective mind (she said), and only when we sleep do we release our egos and slide into the deluge of combined communication. Dolores claimed that none of us really thinks as an individual, but that we all think as a single entity. Hence, her assertion that none of us really exists in the way that our waking worlds would have us believe. Many people have suggested that my Great Aunt Dolores was bonkers, although I have to say that this wasn't usually because of her philosophical views.

However, I remember a time when the two of us were travelling through North America and we stayed for a while with a group of Navajo Indians (Native Americans to you; Red Indians to my somewhat anachronistic aunt). This particular tribe has a tradition where dreams are considered vital to the understanding of life and nature, and during our stay they bored the pants off Dolores each morning by recounting the previous night's dreams to one other at breakfast (breakfast - by the way - consisted of hash browns, waffles drooling with maple syrup, pork roll, eggs and coffee). Hogwash, she called it - and told them so. Self-indulgent hogwash. She so insulted them with her assertion that dreams were nothing more than the channelling of all human thought - and nothing to do with messages from the gods - that they threw us out of their community, but not before we had been forced to buy a whole range of turquoise (plastic) jewellery and some rather tacky wacky 'dream-catchers' which are constructed like spiders' webs to be hung above the bed at night to prevent evil dreams from entering our sleep. I still use mine, although I don't know why I bother, because I still have nightmares.

When I next write to you, dear reader, I'll tell you about the time that Dolores managed to insult a whole group of Chinese people by telling them that whereas the rest of the world was frightened by China's communism, there would eventually come a time when the world would only be concerned about China's capitalism. This was in the 1970s and Dolores's prediction seemed farcical to say the least. When I asked her how she could possibly have made such a preposterous prophecy, she replied that not only does none of us exist - neither does time. "I heard it in a dream, dear boy," she said. "We all have this information within us. It's just that most people - like you - choose not to let their waking egos listen."

This is why I think my Great Aunt was so fearless. Because she believed that she was part of some huge universal consciousness, she believed too that she was immortal. Unfortunately, as her excursion over Niagara Falls in a barrel some years later proved, she wasn't.