Losing it…

‘Children will always be children’, the television advert for the French dairy product said a few minutes ago. Do we need to write in, pointing out that children will not always be children? They will, in fact, grow up at some stage in their lives.

Speaking of growing up, I had an interview for a new contract on Thursday; there were two candidates. This evening I got the result. I am, apparently, just a little over-qualified. Hmmm…

Today the television has been on non-stop. With the sound off. Don’t ask me why, but it’s one of life’s little weirdnesses that I write better (and quicker) with the television on, but with the sound off. I compensate for the sound-offness by listening to music. I know! How weird? My brain has the temerity to produce better writing with the TV on but sound off, and needs to compensate by having the stereo on! Go figure. Three sets of reviews and a draft shooting script for the sitcom. Woo, go me. I have to big myself up, I’m a little bit put out at being denied a job because I am ‘just a little over-qualified’.

Soph’s gone kick-boxing with the lovely-but-slightly-loopy Gemma, this evening. It’s nice that they hang around together. I’m slightly fearful for the rest of us when two mentalists gather in such close proximity, though. I hope the world won’t spontaneously implode under the pressure of a hitherto uncatalogued physical pressure which will, in the future, be called ‘dark mentalism’.

Anyone who follows me on Twitter will know that I put out an update today that said I’m thinking of writing a TwitterPorn story. The idea is fairly simple, in a way it’s a kind of performance art: I’ll put out a single-word, once an hour, with the hashtag #pornstory. The words won’t make sentences, per se, but they will enable the reader to construct his/her own story around them. See what I’m doing? Getting the reader to introduce their own imagination as a component? Oh. Not impressed? I thought it was an interesting exercise in *reader* creativity. What do you reckon?

Yesterday, during an emergency visit to Tesco for milk (what the hell is it that we do with milk? Seriously! We go through gallons of the stuff), I *cough* accidentally picked up a jar of Sandwich Spread. Is there anyone else addicted to this wonder of the food world?

Apparently the television station Virgin 1 has been rebranded to ‘Channel One’. Such a shame that the on-air branding in the corner of the screen still says ‘Virgin 1′.

Allister and I are potentially recording the first of the ‘Unsigned World’ shows for UKHDRadio tomorrow morning. Scary stuff! Exciting, but scary.

What are you doing? You never call, you never write, you’re a constant worry to your poor old mother father sister brother friend…

Video (from the Latin: ‘I see’)

I’m desperately trying to keep this away from a Bristol-related rant. And also I’m going to work hard to keep this away from an ‘Underage and Having Sex’ (which we’re currently watching) rant…

I’m thinking of making a video.

No, really. A proper one, not one of those videos!

My sitcom sits on the hard-disk; finished and ready to get pimped around London. I think it’s not a bad piece of writing, obviously, otherwise I wouldn’t be setting myself up for the pain and rejection that the odds indicate are going to come my way.

I also think it’s not a bad piece of comedic writing (which isn’t much of an indication of quality, because writing comedy has always been my weak suit).

But, and here’s my problem, I’m having trouble seeing it as a piece of visual… stuff.

And that’s why I’m thinking of making a video.

Because making a video would help me with the visualisation, no? And it would give me an opportunity to fine-tune the screenplay and really help to develop the shooting-script. No?

It wouldn’t be a posh job.

We’re talking a wobbly hand-held or tripod-mounted camera and the whole product subjected to some seriously bad editing.

But the soundtrack would be a killer. And the soundtrack is a significant component of the sitcom.

My dilemma is, unfortunately, twofold.

Dilemma #1. Setting. Apart from the opening scene, all of episode one is set indoors – but in three different sets. But I think that could be OK. This isn’t supposed to be the finished article, and with a little creativity from the props department (me!) and a bucketload of imagination from the viewers (probably no-one), I think we can work around this.

Dilemma #2. The cast. Episode 1 scripts 6 speaking parts and a bunch of non-speaking extras. Even from the position that no-one will be expecting Oscar-winning performances, how does one begin getting the potential company together, where from and – when they’ve been found – what’s the best way of casting?

Hmmm… I think I need to consult an AmDram specialist. Fortunately, I have one at the stables.

In other news…

The girl on the television in the show ‘Underage and Having Sex’ was just talking about how, as a 13-year-old, she had sex for the first time.

She said ‘It happened, I don’t know how’.

Well dear, I could be a million miles off target with this, but I’d hazard a guess that you let him put his cock in your cunt. Is there anything else you need to know?

Tsk, kids.

As you can see, I successfully avoided a Bristol rant, but the ‘Underage and Having Sex’ rant just kind of slipped out. Sorry.

iPasapalabra!

I love this television show (Pasapalabra, obv), it’s not just a fast-paced word game, it’s also an instant vocabulary builder/combined language teacher.

We hardly missed watching a show, when I lived in Spain; the pace of delivery increases as the round nears its conclusion, creating an exciting spectacle.

But the feature that used to make it all the more gripping was the sheer pace that the quizmaster can deliver his questions at in the dying seconds.

I had one private Spanish lesson a week and one group Spanish lesson a week for a year before we moved, and when I lived there I continued having lessons once a week.

But Pasapalabra taught me almost as much as all those lessons, and increased my lexicography a thousandfold.

Enjoy!

And for those who don’t speak Spanish, check out the differences between the Castellano and English alphabets

No television due to a service ‘improvement’

I seem to be going through a spell of ’service meltdown’ and I’m beginning to wonder who has got it in for me…

We’re on the Freeview television system which has suddenly stopped giving us any television stations.

After yesterday’s problems with BT Broadband, I suspected the blame lay somewhere in BT’s domain, but a quick telephone call to the BT Vision helpdesk soon told me the problem was with the Oxford television transmitter.

A little bit of googling told me that the people I needed to speak to were an outfit called DigitalUK.

Cue one telephone call to DigitalUK’s call centre which was answered by an avuncular male voice:

Me: Hello! I’m calling to tell you that all of our television channels seem to have disappeared.

Him: Ah. That could be irritating. Where do you live?

Me: Witney, Oxfordshire.

Him: [beat] All I can say is, you’re not alone. [beat] [beat] The engineers are carrying out some work on your local digital television transmitter. While they’re doing this you will be unable to receive the normal range of stations.

Me: Tell me more.

Him: According to the information I have, the engineers have been working on your local television transmitter, they are in the process of switching from the reserve transmitter to the main transmitter. While they’re doing this, everything has been switched to low power.

Me: Well that makes a kind of sense. Is there an expected date for completion?

Him: It says ‘by the end of the week’.

Me: Thank you very much.

And the story ends there. Except no, it really doesn’t because an hour later I picked up this message via Twitter:

It’s been confirmed a fire at the main TV transmitter site has left almost 400,000 homes across Oxfordshire without a TV signal.

Something hasn’t gone too well in the switch-over, methinks.

I’m not going bonkers about this. It is, after all, only television and – frankly – we really don’t watch very much live television.

But if anyone is looking in, wanting to know why you can’t get any television stations in Oxfordshire, at least you know now.

Oh yes, and ‘hello’ to any new readers who may have arrived here by the power of google.

All gone a bit meh

The weather, in these specific parts, has dramatically changed.

Last week we were basking in our pre-Icelandic-volcanic apocalypse. The much trumpeted DUST CLOUDS OF DOOM actually delivered 18c and clear, blue, sun-filled skies for days and days and days.

Fast-forward 72 hours and we’re plunged in to days of dank, cold, greyness, where the sun fails to get seen, the central heating has had to be switched on and everyone in my bubble of the universe has actually been *praying* for a piece of global warming.

And I’ve been fighting a bout of depression. Successfully, I add.

In politics, have you noticed just how weird the language that our media has been using, when discussing the post-election landscape?

‘Thrash out a deal’, ‘horse-trading’ and today I heard one broadcaster use the phrase ‘coalition of losers’.

The media uses these phrases in an aggressive way; this kind of language is not supportive, it is corrosively confrontational.

But step back from the edge while I ask a question.

What’s so wrong with working together for a common goal?

I do that every single day of my professional life, I work to build a consensus, I work to build teams with a common objective, I work – and use people in the teams I have put together – to overcome (or mitigate against) difficulties.

I work to deliver projects in the face of, sometimes, excessive adversity.

But I’m not weak.

It takes more strength of character, persuasive skills and believability than most people could comprehend, to deliver a piece of change in to a complex organisation where elements of the business are actively fighting against that change.

But sometimes I do need to have the buy-in of other people, and to get that I have to be strong, not weak.

Tony Blair, bless him her, had enormous strength in his her majority and yet look at the damage that tosser did to us – and to this country.

Margaret Thatcher, bless her him, also had enormous strength in her his majority, and look at the damage that tosser did to us – and to this country.

And yet both of these people governed from positions of immense strength.

So I feel it’s time to start building a government of consensus in an attempt to mitigate against the kind of abuses that governments of strength have inflicted upon us.

What have we got to lose?

We can’t lose our public transport system, Thatcher sold that and now it is just a money-making machine for private industry that no longer works for us.

We can’t lose our civil liberties, Blair gave those away; we Brits are now subjected to more surveillance than any other nation on this planet.

We can’t lose our international respect, we have none, we run general elections on a level with Zimbabwe (Robert Mugabe must be laughing like a drain at us).

At least we’re not as bad as Greece, but on a scale of 1-10 we are very definitely Meh.

Having a political consensus in power would actually bring two things to our political decision-making process that have been absent for too many years.

Scrutiny and oversight.

And, it occurs to me, a political consensus would bring one more thing.

The power of veto.

So go on, tell me.

What’s so wrong with having these things?

In other news, we have been sent two enormous bricks of chocolate from New Zealand by the lovely Allister of The Sitting Duck Podcast / The Sitting Duck Collection fame.

One is a solid chocolate brick, the other is a filled chocolate brick (Caramel filling),both made by Whittaker of New Zealand.

Sigh.

We’ll just have to endure, won’t we?

Thanks Allister.

Only when I larf…

It is 8.30am Sunday and we seem to be watching Episodes 2, 3 and 4 of the new Doctor Who (or is it Dr Who?).

I’ve read and heard some utter shite spouted about this iteration, but the blindingly obvious truth is that the new Doctor Who is a return to form for this classic piece of British SciFi.

I love the ‘in’ jokes, the nods towards Star Wars, Independence Day and a massive genuflection towards ‘The Father of Robotics’, Professor Isaac Asimov.

The weather is vile, it’s hammering down.

We’re going to have a lazy day, except that Sophie is tackling the mountain of ironing, and I am backing up many websites and databases.

I think we’re meeting a friend in Witney for coffee; I hope that Costa isn’t the crèche that it sometimes becomes.

There needs to be a quick trip up to the yard to give Tom hugs and carrots.

This evening we’re off to the cinema; Iron Man 2 beckons.

And in-between these bouts of frenetic activity, there will be Badminton Horse Trials, because the BBC are showing uninterrupted coverage of cross-country on the red button.

Yay!

Saturday night’s all right for…

dicking around

Nine o’clock Saturday evening and welcome to the House of Fun. As you will have noticed we are both in our bathrobes.

Sorry about the sleepy state we’re in; we haven’t been out of bed very long.

By the time Tom and I got back to the stables from the one-day event, I’d taken care of him, cleared out the lorry and put it away and – got home with about five loads of washing, it was 2.30pm.

A long hot shower was quickly followed by bed and almost instant unconsciousness.

Tea was the remains of last night’s pizza and half a tin of baked beans – I really know top quality cooking, don’t I?

This evening I released this weekend’s podcast: a four-band gig review, a look at the new Matt Damon/Jason Isaacs film ‘Green Zone’ and a smattering of random conversation (plus a live telephone call to New Zealand almost took place).

I’ll write about the one-day event soon, but for now I’m completely tapped out, have barely got the ability to string coherent thoughts together.

We are currently watching Heroes.

It is utter shit.

That is all.

Sports news

Can I say here and now that I’m tremendously concerned about David Beckham’s possible tendon injury.

I am very pleased that GMTV chose to lead with this story this morning. What would I have done without this impact in my life?

I see that the sport section of the BBC News website has the oxymoronic headline: Beckham poised to miss world cup. Brilliant. Someone went to school to end up writing shit like that?

Anyway, while I was reeling from the news of this devastating blow to England’s world cup chances, I was amazed to hear the GMTV sports monkey presenter go on to say that despite not having the fastest car, Chewbacca drove well for Mercedes in yesterday’s Bahrain Formula 1 Grand Prix.

I spent a nanosecond or two wondering how Chewbacca managed to fit in to an F1 car and then I realised my mistake.

The sports monkey presenter meant Michael Chewbacca – who is, of course, the younger (and shorter) brother of the more well-known, Star Wars-famed Wookie.

How could I be so stupid?

Tsk.

On… Breasts

I was browsing through this evening’s TV schedules when a programme called ‘My Breasts Could Kill Me’ leapt out from the electronic page.

Possessed of inquisitiveness (yes, it really is a word) I delved deeper and discovered that the somewhat populist title masked a two-part documentary on breast cancer.

I’m annoyed, and I’m annoyed on two levels.

Level The First: I’m annoyed that the television-makers have set such an obvious trap.

Level The Second: I’m annoyed that I fell in to the obvious trap.

Do you see what they’ve done? They’ve taken a body part that more than 50% of the population is attracted to, and created an attention-grabbing tabloid headline-style title around it.

Is it big? Is it clever?

Yes, I really am annoyed that I fell in to such an obvious trap, but the point is, it worked, didn’t it?

The trap – the tabloid headline-grabbing programme name – caught my attention and made me delve deeper.

So what is the lesson to be learned here?

Is it that I’m not as erudite as I think I am? Or that I am as susceptible to schoolboy diversions as, well, a schoolboy?

Or is it that I am relieved that I won’t run the risk of suffering from breast cancer, unlike my childhood schoolfriend and still very good friend Lesley, who underwent treatment so punishing that the cure almost killed her.

Pauses for a long, deep thought

Whilst education – and the programme in question is undeniably an educative tool – is important, I can’t help wondering if, in the interests of sexual equality, the makers of My Breasts Could Kill Me will be filming My Cock Could Kill Me, or My Prostate Could Kill Me…

I doubt it.

Tabloidism begins and ends with breasts.

I must drop Lesley a line. We haven’t had one of our world-famous catchups for ages, and we’re massively behind on our emails.

The last big catchup we had was when she flew over from Texas to Eire and I flew over and joined her and we talked, almost non-stop for 24 hours.

Barely surviving

We are watching the final episode in season 2 of the BBC’s newest comedy series ‘Survivors’.

I haven’t laughed so much since the first time I watched Men Behaving Badly.

Survivors wins the comedy gold medal on so many different fronts:

• Believable characters
• Sustainable plot
• Plausibility
• Accuracy
• Attention to detail
• Scientific fact

Oh yes, Survivors has none of these things

Not one.

It really is appallingly awful.