Slide

Five more steps to happiness:

Step 1 - Find a large sloping area that has a liberal dusting of frozen precipitation. (Preferably of a consistency somewhere between brown slush and sheet ice )

Step 2 - Position yourself at apex of slope upon your vehicle of choice. (Sledge, toboggan, tin-tray, bin bag, willing accomplice, etc.)

Step 3 - Push to start and allow gravity to increase your momentum. (You may employ additional initial propulsion from a friend but avoid the use of catapults, rockets or jets)

Step 4 - Allow acceleration to build through the lack of friction between the vehicle and the ground cover. (Take note that the increase of speed is directly proportional with the decrease in the ability to steer) 

Step 5 - Finally on completion of journey bring vehicle and/or yourself to a complete stop. (Possible methods include braking, crashing, bailing, flying or plummeting - depending on the terrain)

Repeat as necessary...

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Tree

We've trimmed the tree!

But before that came all the other traditions...

We picked out the tree...

I paid for the tree...

I brought home the tree...

I attempted to fit our stand to the tree...

I assembled various blunt tools before the tree...

I hacked bits off the ridiculously think trunk of the needle retentive type tree...

I again attempted to fit the stand on the tree...

I swore at the tree...

I hacked more from the tree...

I finally affixed the stand to the tree...

I stepped back from the tree...

I found myself leaning to one side mirroring the angle of the tree...

I threatened the tree...

I removed the stand from the tree...

I performed more surgery on the tree...

I put the the stand once more on the tree...

I said a silent prayer before stepping back again from the tree...

I saw all was well with the tree...

I wrestled for ten minutes with the plastic mesh that encased the tree...

I spent a further ten minutes removing the dead leaves and other forest detritus from within the recesses of the tree...

I attached weighty objects (such as books, shoes, pets, etc.) to pull down the branches of the tree...

I retrieved from the far corner of the attic the decorations for the tree...

I untangled the lights for the tree...

I openly wept tears of thanks that the lights worked beneath the now bowing branches of the tree...

I removed all tools, sawdust, bits of trunck, weights and pets from vicinity of the tree...

I called the family to the tree...

I shifted 'a little to the left' the tree...

I shifted 'back to where it was before' the tree...

I rotated it 90 degrees to show the better branches of the tree...

I vetoed the idea of finding another location within the house for the tree...

We all said how prefect was the tree...

I whispered "I wont say anything if you don't" to the tree...

We trimmed the tree...

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Donkey

With Christmas fast approaching parents everywhere are waiting with baited breath to hear the news – which part has our child got in the school's Christmas Show. But what is the must have role at Christmas?

Now traditionally the Christmas show would be a Nativity but that isn't always the case. During my own years a primary school the parts I played included:

A carol singer

A roving reporter

A dashing but dim fairy-tale hero

And a caterpillar!

But if your kid’s school is going for a full on ‘Star’ story, or derivative-Navitivative as is more often the case these days, then the part-pecking order is normally straightforward.

For girls there is one true goal – the Holy-Mother-Load that is Mary. All dolled up in blue dress, white scarf, blue headband and holding baby doll or plush-toy Saviour-substitute. She may not be much of an action girl, being far more homespun, but most girls still want to be Mary. Second fiddle is the celestial-big-hitter Angel Gabriel. As God’s spokes-person A.G. gets to chat to the parents to be, scare the socks of the shepherd and (sometimes) does some moonlighting at star-lighting in order to bring the Wise Men from ‘Far’ to ‘Here’. So more you’re go getting, globe-trotting type. Plus you get to boss the other Angels about!

Boys on the other hand get a bit more choice. You might think Joseph would be the top banana but is in fact quite a weak character. Years of pantos and kids shows just reaffirmed to me what most children instinctively know - that the most boring part in the whole show is the hero. Far better to be either the villain, such as Herod (who really needs to be stroking a white cat), or the comic relief, as in a shaky shepherd or a dippy donkey. Or you could wish to be King for a day!

Yes, when my school did finally go for a more traditional story I got just what I wanted - Wise Man number 1! Whoa-yeah! Better still because I was taller than the other two they put me in the middle to balance things out. However, I did fail by being last to arrive at the costume fitting. Our school was lucky in that parents made a lot of costumes, this was in the days before the Nativity-dressing-up isle that appear in Wait-cos or Tes-da supermarkets. Also parents donated them to the school so at the back of our stage was a wardrobe of costumes that would have kept The Doctor happy through a hundred regenerations!

Robes and gowns were ten-a-penny but the problem was hats. For some reason crowns weren’t an option (obviously Herod and his moggy had got there first). Instead there was one silver tipped sampan style hat (with fur trim), one orange ‘Mongol Horde’ hat (with a single fluffy spike, like a squirrel's tail with rigor mortis) and a fez (which was mine). Now, Matt Smith's Doctor has of course brought the fez back to the world and it was also the hat of choice for the great Tommy Cooper. But it didn't have quite the gravitas I was looking for from my Wise Man role...

King 3 - "Born this night to man the son of God!"

King 2 - "How shall we discover this child?"

King 1 - "Just like that! Ah-hr-hr-hr! Baby manger! Manger baby! Ah-hr-hr-hr!"

Luckily my mum put in some work and sewed a nice gold-lame doughnut around the brim which showed more Eastern promise. But somehow I just couldn’t shake the magic man bit as it now cried out Ali Bongo!…

King 1 – “We bring gifts of gold, frankincense and… a bunch of flowers!” 

But the performance was a success, even if I did get my leg tangled in my robe while kneeling to adore the My-Little-Messiah (batteries not included). It called for a little limb bending and knee wiggling as I stood up, but then I was The Gold-Lame King after all... 

King 1 – "Thank you very much!"

No, for me boys want to be kings first, Herod second with animals and sheep worriers bring up the rear. After all who really wants to be Joseph? Mary gets all the attention along with a bit of plastic with tinsel round its head! While Joseph is the ‘Everyman’ that most boys will almost inevitably end up being anyway - the stereotypical useless husband.

Mary – "I ask you to do one simple thing! One bloody thing! Book a room at the inn! But can you do that? Oh no!”

Joseph – “No dear. Sorry dear” 

Mary – "Having to come all the way to bleedy Bethlehem - because you were born here might I remind you - and in my condition!"

Joseph – “Yes dear. Sorry dear” 

Mary – “And as for the transport you arranged to get here... first class my ass...!"

-----

Time

Mandate

As you know I’m petrified of being in the proximity of ‘uncharted’ people but I flounder even more when the legend below reads "Here there be males!"

There no other way to describe it - I am an 'Anti-Lad'. The closest I get to being a man’s man is doing a spot of decorating while simultaneously watching a John Wayne film on TCM. For a while my kind were classed as the New Age Man, a name which summons up odd images. I see an ape-creature, standing before a black monolith, raising a newly discovered implement above his head before bringing it down firmly, but with equal care, as he irons his best animal skin on a nice flat rock!

If ever I am stranded in the company of lads I am totally out of my depth. I know nothing of football, I dipped my toe in the waters of DIY but power tools are a mystery and a car is just something to get me to work (what the hell is torc anyway?). Even meeting other Ant-Lads doesn’t help as we just sort of cancel each other out and stare into our own private worlds thinking of what we'll cook for dinner. The only blokes I do know tend to come as part of a family package where their son or daughter knows my son or daughter which at least gives me the opener of "How is (insert-name-of-child-here)?" but that will only get you so far. Not that I mind too much as I loath small talk. What I do mind is that I haven’t had what I would call a best ‘male’ friend since I was about twelve.

At that time my shyness was at full power but I did have friends at school if only by dint of the fact that I saw them nearly everyday. However, as I moved into the realms of acting (Jazz-hands ahoy) I underwent an unusual reversal. Suddenly I could speak to girls, make friends with girls and even spend time with girls while at the same time understanding lads less and less. The irony is it still took me forever to find the guts to actually date a girl but that just highlighted the 'brotherly' friendship I had with them. Again, there were blokes on my courses and in subsequent jobs and I do still count many of these as friends but never a best friend. A best friend is not only some who will be there for you and to who you will do the same but also needs to be someone who gets you. Someone who speaks on your frequency. And not having that tends to leave a hole in your life.

A prime example was my wedding. When the time came to pick a best man there was no one who came to mind to fill the role. I have no brothers and nor does my wife and my closest male cousin old enough to do the job was at that time living in New Zealand! In the end I made the unconventional decision to choose the person who was my best friend at the time as so had a Best Woman (Cheers D, it was a pleasure to have you with me that day). Of course my wife now fits the best 'female' friend role and as such spotted that man shaped hole in me.

Unfortunately on one occasion she tried to fill it in a most unusual way by setting me up with what can best be described as a 'play-date'. She was so used to doing it for the kids I guess she just saw it as an extension of the same idea. He was the father of one of my son's friends who I'd previously met at birthday parties and at the school gates (so shyness shouldn't be an issue). He was more Anti-Lad than Lad but not as extreme as me (so I might learn something new from him but wouldn't pick up any nasty habits or get into too many scrapes). He lived not far from us (so not too many roads to cross). And his wife thought he to should socialise more (so basically our wives told us to go out for a drink together). Man-date!

On the evening in question my 'Date-Mate' called on me, as my house was on the way to the pub. My wife tucked my scarf into my trousers, put on my stringed-mittens and told us not to stay out too late. Together we stumped off down the road. I'd like to say the evening went well and that he and I have been best buddies ever since but then that would be a big steaming pile of 'not-true-poo'. In reality we spent five minutes using up our openers and discovering how the other's kids were. Moved on to latest DIY projects, then quickly through my lack of interest in sport before settled down to an evening of beer supping and lengthening silences. And all the while my inner man was struggling to take control. If only he had... 

*The Anti-Lad kicks back his stool and stands, staring down the Date-Mate from beneath the brim of his Ten Gallon hat*

"Now listen here Pilgrim, if you're looking looking for best friendship then I aint willing to accommodate ya. We both see this man-date aint going nowhere. And if'n I hear you use language like 'league champions' or 'traction control' once more, so help me I'll not understand ya. Now you just sit peaceful and finish your drink and I'll be on my way. I got broccoli to steam and a pelmet to fix. Adiós Compadre."

*With that the Anti-Lad moseys out the saloon doors, stopping momentarily to look back, his left hand clutching his right arm as he considers whether to put his scarf back on, before heading towards the sunset and New Aged adventures...*

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Heads

Movie Quiz Time!

This time a 'heady' mix of decapitation and shoulder shrugging the hard way!

... in an apartment above a post-apocalyptic butcher shop a head sits on a table with a cleaver through it, but all is not what its seems...

... in a palace on the moon a Germanic yarn-spinner meets a monarchy who remove their own heads rather than other peoples...

... on the red planet a scuffle breaks out at passport control which results in someone loosing a spare head and the room going boom...

... in a castle in Transylvania an oddly pronounced, 'freshly dead' head has a hunch *ba-rum-ting*...

... on a swampy planet (a long time ago, far far away, yadda yadda yadda) our hero decapitates the big baddie only to get a confusing metaphor from beneath his mask...

... on a street in Israel a photographer finds that rapid glass delivery can be a right pain in the neck...

... on a spaceship in deep space (where else!) a severed head looks to be sufferring from a lactose problem after a fight with other crew members over an uninvited guest...

...south of the border an American bartender takes a road trip to retrieve a head but gets a little gun crazy instead...

... on a moon of a planet in our solar system, which runs 'rings' around the rest, a robot takes it upon himself to decorate his angle-pious neck with a human head...

... in an 18th Century American hamlet an incomplete horseman gets head envy and starts to even things up a bit by bringing people down to his size...

**** Bonus Question ****

No decapitation here but what is the movie which contains an odd mix of songs and sketches from four actors who can sing and was co-wirtten by another actor who had in a previous film freely admitted that his writing was a bit "dull"?

Answers

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Cavort

I wish I could dance. Actually, scratch that! I can dance and in fact I do at the slightest provocation!

My mother was a dancer in her youth and loved watching all the MGM musicals. So naturally I grew up watching them as well. 'On the Town', 'Kiss Me Kate', 'Seven Brides for Seven Brothers' - you name it we'd watch it.  Not surprisingly I loved the comedic dancers best with the top position going to Donald O'Connor in 'Singin' in the Rain'. I would watch him perform 'Make Them Laugh' over and over again and emulate his every move (with exception of the final back flips!)

Drama school finally gave me an opportunity to truly try my hand (or should that be foot) at various forms of dancing led by our marvellous tutors Leslie and Norm. It was also Norm's dance classes which first introduced me properly to MW(TG) as we teamed up for ballroom dancing and pumped up the Polka to 10. As with most things I found that my memory was part of the key to my success. Just as I could easily memorise lines I was also very quick to pick up and remember routines. I may never have had the body of a true dancer, even in my slimmer youth, but the mind was on the ball and the feet wished to follow.

The one style I really wanted to get to grips with was tap but although I had a fair stab at it I was no Fred Astaire. In our first term we had to do a group dance to Kenny Ball's 'Midnight in Moscow', a tune which still rattles round in my head to this day. I can remember trying to lead the rest of my group in some additional rehearsals and getting very 'Miss Grant' from Fame on the asses - "Pay me some sweat people!". Alas I never took dancing any further, but in quiet moments alone I still try to perfect a simple time-step...

Shuffle-Hop-Spring-Tap-Step-Step

Shuffle-Hop-Spring-Tap-Step-Step

Today I'm getting to show off and pass on the odd trick I do remember to my kids, both of whom have the dancing bug but prefer a little 'popping and locking' to 'tapping and stepping'. I also get to introduce them to all the musicals I enjoyed with their Hollywood Hoofers. Only last week I had them sitting round watching Gene Kelly do the sublimely impossible dance on roller-skates (and in case you're wondering I refer to 'It's Always Fair Weather' as opposed to 'Xanadu').

But I also still cut my own rug! Either to the radio in the kitchen or more often to the personal soundtrack in my head. Anything from simple steps to something a little more adventurous - such as trying to pull off a barrel-roll down an empty corridor at work. "Dance and the world dances with you" and if that's not true then it certainly should be. So go on! Get up right now and boogie! It the best of times even if it's the worst of time-steps...

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Five top dance routines

1. Make Them Laugh
2. Gene Kelly on skates
3. Fred and Ginger
4. 'Seven Brothers' Barn Dance
5. Laurel and Hardy

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Fibs

Am I a fraud and liar? Not sure. I try to be honest in everything thing that I do and 'try' is the key word there. Could anyone say that they are always one hundred percent honest? Case in point, my son had to take on a big responsibility this time last year when I broken the bad news to him that (*** and anyone under the age of eleven should stop reading right now before I ruin your childhood for you ***) there is no Father Christmas!

I don't remember when I first found out this fact myself. Maybe it was so traumatic that I completely blocked it from my memory. More likely being the younger of two children I just started picking up on the fact from things my sister said. And there in lines the crux of my son's problem.

It was a big enough blow having to be told that I was Father Christmas, and by that I don't me I do the whole red suit, white beard and levitating reindeer bit. It was a shock to him I know, probably not helped by the fact that I threw in the truth about the Easter Bunny and the Tooth Fairy at the same time - it may seem cruel but I was working on the 'sticky plaster' theory of ripping off in one quick go rather than dragging out the pain. It was hard for him but he quickly came to terms with the fact. But what he finds hardest is that he knows the truth and yet his sister doesn't.

Some siblings would love to have such a feeling of power and one-upmanship over a sister or brother. But for my boy it was more the fact that his sister can still feel the magic while he has to stand by and pretend. He therefore keeps asking when I'll be breaking the news to her, hoping for sooner rather than later. Possibly so that he has someone with whom to share the pain and maybe because he can't face another Christmas pretending or as he put it "lying".

And he's right, these are lies! How can you be telling your kids to to be honest and truthful one minute then spinning a yarn about a rotund, sack wielding housebreaker the next? It's the same problem you face when telling them not to be cruel to animals and then handing them a stick and a piñata! Okay bad example, after all the piñata had it coming for scoffing all the sweets in the first place!

Actually when you think about it the whole Father Christmas business sits at odds with the Ten Commandments thing. Come Christmas there are no end of false idols, not to mention coveting your neighbour's ass, or more likely their Nintendo 3DS. God and the little baby Jesus have to fight for centre stage with St Nick. And the no stealing or killing is tough to keep away from when you're a parent hunting the length and breadth of the country for the last available 'must have' toy of the year! And the little darlings will only honour their father and mother until they discover that you are the real stocking-stuffers!

No, I'm afraid my son will have to tow the line for at least a few more Christmases before his sister gets the bad news. But knowing my daughter, who is currently nine going on nineteen, she'll suss it out before we tell her. In fact she may well be pulling a reverse sibling-sting on her brother right now. She probably knows it's all a lie but won't let us know that she knows so as to make her poor brother squirm just that little bit longer!

It's enough to make your head ache. Ah well! It'll all be over by Hogmanay and until then just keep taking the tablets...

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Bricks

My time as an actor was not what you might call the most glittering of careers. Instead I moved from one fringe production to another and in between tended towards children's variety more than anything else. In fact, given how much fun I now have making my kids laugh I probably missed a trick there.

My biggest entertainer stint came when I worked for two years as a actor / performer at the then quite tacky Thorpe Park in Staines (a story for another day). After that I vowed never to work in a theme park again but hold out for only 'proper' acting roles. So I was more than a little surprised to find that out of the blue I suddenly had an audition for a new theme park which to be opening up - Legoland Windsor. To this day I can't remember if I applied for the job and then blotted out the memory or whether my name was simply given to them because of my record of park work. Either way I wasn't ready to pass up an audition (just getting one was at that stage was proving harder than the audition itself).

So on a cold and foggy day I turned up at the newly built visitors centre at Legoland Windsor and immediately felt I'd stepped into an episode of Dr Who. Everyone already working there wore a coloured blazer on the lapel of which was a small Lego Mini Figure holding a name tag. I assumed it was the name of the person wearing the blazer but it could just as easily been the name of the Lego person being transported around by their human servant! (*Multiplex voice-over*) "Taking over the world - brick by brick..."

Myself and my fellow auditionees were herded into one room where the most senior Lego / human hybrid, who shared the name Brian, explained how the day would proceed. The Brians were the entertainment manager and gave a brief outline of the sort of actors and performers they would be looking for. The moment they started speaking I began to get an odd sort of tapping at the back of my head which threatened to put me off my stride. Whether it was nerves or just my subconscious trying to remind me of my pledge to avoid any role that used the line "Behind you!" I wasn't sure, but I fought it down.

The main part of the audition was of course a prepared speech but unusually we didn't go one at a time into the a room to perform these. Instead we sat in a row of chairs along one wall in a large room while the blazer wearing panel of five, and their symbiotic plastic figures, sat behind a long table in front of us with the Brians in the middle. My turn came and with it the return of the brain tap. I pushed it back once more and did my piece, then answered whatever questions about my previous experience were asked and finally sat back down. As the next person carried on my eyes were drawn to the Brians and again the tapping began but this time finished with the mental equivalent of a soft "Ping".

My eyes widened in wonder as suddenly visions of teddy bears, silly songs and Saturday afternoons swam before my eyes! Not being able to contain myself I lent over to the person next to me and whispered,

"That's Brian Cant!"

Ah yes dear reader - Brian Cant. To those of a certain age he is an unquestionable god! Readers of my previous post 'Glimpse' will know of another day when I met a TV hero of my childhood and here, twenty years later, I was face to face with the Supreme Leader of all Playaway presenters. The man who could turn a cardboard box into a rocket ship! The man who knew Jeremy Irons before he revisited Brideshead or the Borgias and Tony Robinson before he joined 'Time Team!' The man who could really dish the dirt on Big Ted, Humpty and Hamble! And I was performing for him!

Needless to say I was rather quickly brought back to Earth when the person I'd whispered to said, "Who's Brian Cant?". The penny dropped then that I was probably one of the oldest people at the audition, everyone else being fresh out of one drama school or another and therefore too young to remember the Golden Age of 'Play School' and 'Playaway'. Not to be put off I threw myself into the rest of the day with gusto, including an over energetic and possibly highly embarrassing dance we had to learn to a Janet Jackson song. Nothing mattered now. Brian was watching and I was going to show him just what I could do!

At the close of the day, when the entertainment staff said their thank yous and told us we'd be informed in due time as to the results, Brian walked among us once more. I also got to speak to him briefly, although I did refrain from saying how much I'd adored watching him as a child or how many jokes, gags and silly voices I'd copied off him or how many songs and sketches I had learnt off by heart as a kid from Playaway albums. Somehow I didn't really see that over enthusiastic hero worship from a twenty-five year old man would help me get a job.

Either way a few days later I received a call to congratulate me and to offer me a role at Legoland Windsor for the Summer. However, in the time following the audition the stars had fallen once more from my eyes. I'd thought again about how I didn't want to be typecast as kiddies entertainer, still feeling that my real break was somewhere round that impossible big corner. I therefore politely turned the job down, possibly leaving a Lego man with my name on it out in the cold.

And so I moved away from what I said at the beginning could have been my true purpose in life. Not only that but from the opportunity to have learnt at the feet of the true master...

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Roll

Five more steps to happiness:

Step 1 - Find a large sloping area. (Preferably a grass covered bank or hillside not during the rainy season but close enough to have kept the ground soft)

Step 2 - Lay down parallel to the apex of the slope. (Protractors, set-squares are again permitted, but do not keep in pockets)

Step 3 - Gently tip bodyweight in the direction of the downward gradient. (Positioning of arms can be a problem at first but quickly becomes irrelevant (see step 4). Same also applies to breasts and genitalia for older participants)

Step 4 - Allow momentum to build naturally towards optimum speed. (Signs that this is achieved will include failing limbs, involuntary screaming and both ground and life flashing before eyes) 

Step 5 - Let the flattening out of the landscape gradually bring your body to a state of rest. (Please try to avoid ditches, cliffs, ravines and the legs of passing strangers)

Repeat as necessary...

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Impossible

Seven Impossible things to consider before breakfast:

...It is impossible to find something you've lost around the house when the one place you're sure it is isn't...

...It is impossible to resist joining in when someone else sings the first the first five cords of "Also Sprach Zarthustra"... 

...It is impossible to post anything through a letterbox that has brushes without bending it...

...It is impossible to watch a film which you know has a 'great twist' without constantly trying to guess it...

...It is impossible to tap the side of a beer can with a pen without thinking of the old cricketing theme tune...

...It is impossible to play Monopoly without one player sulking and another becoming a money hungry despot...

...It is impossible to remove a bogey from your fingertip in less than three attempts...

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Transformed

"Will you look at that! Look how she moves! It's like Jell-O on springs. Must have some sort of built-in motor or something. I tell you it's a whole different sex!"
Jerry / Daphne, 'Some Like it Hot'

One of our old tutors from drama school, recently surfaced on Facebook which reminded me of an acting exercise we did with him.

The brief was that during a break from the school we were to observe someone well known to us so that we could become them as a character. Unfortunately for me I went into hospital at that time for a minor op which meant I had very little time to observe much more than the shocking state of the ward. I therefore had to make a very quick observation of the only person I was in close contact with between operation / recuperation and returning to school - namely my father.

On returning after the break the exercise began in earnest. As my school was very big on Stanislaski and Method Acting this meant a great deal of wandering around in character as much as possible or even taking it further and walking into the local town. As I moved down the street with the slow measured pace of my father I could see other students hobbling with crunches, fidgeting uncontrollably and generally making a fool of themselves as only acting students can. I gradually became aware that everyone else was dealing with very extreme characters or at least characters very different from themselves. I, on the other hand, was discovering that my father and I were much closer in personality then I had previously realised. However, this hadn't escaped my tutor who also thought this character wasn't stretching me enough.

The final part of the exercise was to 'perform' the characters to the rest of our fellow students. Each person would enter the room, introduce themselves and then take questions from the floor staying in the role the whole time. So before this final exercise my tutor set me a challenge.

"Make your father a transvestite"

This was in 1990 and although society still had some way to go before reaching the level of understanding towards homosexuality that we have today is was becoming less of an issue, particularly within the world of theatre and acting. I was to witness one or two 'spectacular' closet departures by friends during my time at  the school. However, those of a trans-gender persuasion had yet to find their voice in the world. Even Eddie Izzard had yet to publicly find his 'high heeled' feet by then. I wanted to to do the character justice and not resort to a stereotype or, even worst, something out of Monty Python ("Oh, fornicate the Penguin!"). After all, this was my father I was dealing with here, all be it in an alternative reality style scenario.

My tutor very much left it up to me to find my father's new 'voice' as it were. The only thing he did insist on was secrecy. In theatre nothing beats getting one over on the audience so my transformation soon became the biggest secret going. Only the two main tutors for my year plus one friend, whom I called on to lend me some of her clothes and help with my make-up, were in on the 'twist'. So on the performance day with the additional aid of a hair clip, a clutch bag, some strappy-sandals and some strategically placed balled-up socks (possibly the only time you can wear socks with sandals) I was ready. For obvious reasons (to those in the know at least) I was kept until last and on entering the room everyone was shocked into silence as I sat and introduced myself as Barbara.

Some thought it was a joke, possibly in either good or bad taste. Some believed I was playing with fire and that the tutors would drag me (pardon the pun) over the coals for pulling such a stunt. As a result the questions were very slow on coming as no one, especially those who thought my character was based on my father. Finally one student, who was often critical of other people's work and no doubt wanted to be the one to point out the Emperor's lack of clothes, said,

"You have a very deep voice for a woman."

To which I smoothly replied,

"That's because I'm a man."

The room seemed to suddenly relax but also lean forward at the same time. Questions now quickly came to people, not only to find out more about Barbara but also about the man behind her (or inside her or outside or which ever way you want to see it). I confidently explained my life and the reasons I did what I did and was what I was, mixing fact with fiction so that my father and Barbara flowed together. Fianlly the session ended and Barabra slipped away.

But if the questions had came think and fast during the exercise then it was nothing to the barrage I received after. Or rather the same question over and over,

"Is your dad really a tranny?"

It took quite a while to explain the whole plot and reasons behind the birth of Barbara. But I thoroughly enjoyed the experience and the effect it had on everyone. However, I did feel a little bad for my Dad. Partly because I'd had to 'enhance' his character for the performance. But mostly because when he next met some of my friends he was relentlessly ribbed about the day he'd been turned into a women. And the name Barbara also stuck for a while. (Sorry Babs)...

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Think

Think
Think first
Think of what you are doing
Think about whether it helps or it hurts
Think if this solves anything or just makes it worse
Think of the innocent
Think about what you do does to them
Think of the pain you cause and in whose name
Think of the others
Think of those on the top floor
Think how happy they are that you screwed up once more
Think about yourself
Think about what is true
Think about how they will just use this against you
Think of an answer
Think of being heard
Think of dropping and swapping a brick for a word
Think again
Think

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Glimpse

There are so many brightly burning stars in the world of film, television and pop culture, and all we mortals wish for is the chance to meet one of two. Especially as a child.

Nowadays everyone gets to feel a little like a friend to the famous through the magic of Twitter or Facebook, although it seems to me more akin to 'licensed stalking'. However, back in my childhood touching the hem of the great and the good was far more personal. Back then it was about writing fan mail and hoping for a reply. Or clutching an autograph book while waiting hopefully in opportune places. Or though chance meetings in obscure locations.

Before marrying my dad my mother was lucky enough to have brushed shoulders with several famous people. Firstly as a teenager when she danced in Summer Season in Weymouth and again when she later worked at the BBC. There she was part of the production team of, among other shows, 'This Is Your Life'. I always remember two photographs of my mum which sat with pride in my grandparent's house. One was of her in a chorus line of dancing girls with Benny Hill in the middle and another was of just her and Eamonn Andrews standing together in a corridor at the BBC Television Centre. Although she moved on from there to raise a family Mum still knew people who worked at "The Beeb". One day, thanks to one of these friends, we all got to take a trip around the Television Centre.

I think her friend was an assistant producer at the time and would later on go on to work on 'Only Fools and Horses. Just then she was working on a small comedy ironically called 'Mr Big', staring Peter Jones, Prunella Scales and Ian Lavender. On the day we went there they were rehearsing the show prior to shooting in front of an audience. We first got to see briefing inside 'The Booth' where the production team worked and then sat in the studio itself  while the cast ran a couple of scenes.

I remember thinking how small the whole place appeared to be. In front of us was the set which the actors were working on; the regular 'home' set which was used for every episode. To the left of that a second set waited ready for a later scene. Stacks of lights and monitors hung from the ceiling obscuring most of the action. I don't remember the dialogue but we basically watched them pretend to cook some beans on their small stove for about twenty minutes while the cameramen slid backwards and forwards in their own little ballet. Unfortunately as they were working we didn't get to meet these particular stars before continuing with the tour.

We walked round the circular corridors of the inner part of the building looking at the statue of Helios in the central courtyard and taking in Mum's old office. We also had a drink in the infamous BBC canteen before sticking our heads into another studio. Here they were rehearsing that badly conceived yet amazingly popular 'Black and White Minstrel Show'. It seems impossible to believe that such a programme ever made it to mainstream TV but that was the seventies I suppose. I'm just glade that things have improved since then. Being a rehearsal there was no make-up so it was just the 'White and Whiter Minstrel Show'. Still doesn't excuse it but at least makes for a better memory. With or without make-up they meant nothing to me so we moved on again.

Just as we we finishing the day, and having yet to actually meet anyone face-to-famous, I saw someone I truly idolised. If I tell you I was seven years old at the time you may understand my wonder when there in front of me stood - Derek Griffiths! He was strolling down the corridor towards us, as cool as anything, top to tail in denim. I know that to children of the seventies there are certain names which even when spoke softly to oneself will evoke the warmest of feelings. Names such as Chloe Ashcroft, Johnny Ball or Fred Harris. Floella Benjamin, Carol Chell or Stuart McGugan. These are names from the two big roles of honour; 'Play School' and 'Play Away'. And of them all Derek Griffiths was my hero as he clearly was the joker in the pack.

To my joy he stopped and chatted to the family, gave me his autograph, joked with us and also called over and introduced Toni Arthur who happened to be passing by (there you go - another warm, fuzzy name). After what seemed to me to be hours of banter he said goodbye and went off to work. I left the TV Centre feeling like I was stepping off Mount Olympus having shaken hands with a god...

Altogether now... 

"It really doesn’t matter if it’s raining or it’s fine, just as long as you’ve got time 
To P-L-A-Y play-away-way, play-away-a-play, play-away-way, a-play-away, play-away..."

(Many years later I was to have another brush with a icon from the 'Play Away' hall of fame, but I'll save that for another day...)

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Beef

August Mooo-vie Quiz

We've done chickens so now its the cows!

...In the Australian Outback a reptile monikered man pacifies a cow by waggling his fingers and humming (beat that Paul McKenna)...

...In mid-west America a group of storm-chasers are stopped in their tracks by the sight of a flying cow...

...In depression hit America three escaped cons discover that the one thing George Nelson hated more than his nickname was cows...

...Outside a castle in East Germany two members of the French Resistance try to gain entry disguised as a cow - in boots!...

...In the old West a man rides into town on a bull, just don't shoot him as you'll only make he angry...

...Three buddies from New York go cattle herding and along the way one of them delivers a calf, buries two horses and finds his smile...

...On a remote island a yet to be opened theme park delivers a live cow into an animal pen, not as an exhibit but for 'lunch'... 

...As our world in invaded by little green men several strange sights are seen including a stampede of flaming cattle...

... In a village in Transylvania a vampire hunter, fresh from tackling Mr Hyde, witnesses a flying cow...

...Inside an English castle, surprisingly inhabited by the French, the order goes out to "Faites chier la Vache", what could happen next?...

Answers

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Scattered

Once closely caught up in each other
The group at distance fondly wonder
What each member now is thinking,
All together separate. Linking
Only through a webbed wide world
That so miraculously unfurled
To serve, to mend the gaps which grew
Through time and space, and start anew.

Seeking out the wandering host
To join once more; to laugh, to boast.
Share images of recollection
Plus proud parental snapped affection
Prove we could grow up. Who thought
Shadows could slip away uncaught?
But lives which went in parallel
Now converge again and swell.

Globe is girdled in an instant.
"Is that you? No! It isn't!"
"Oh yes it is! Well OMG!"
From homeland to antipode.
She cracks a joke. They drop a line.
“Saw Such-a-one today. Looked fine”
Warm remembered clicks and clinches
Mixed with future hopes and wishes.

Standing, sitting, fingers weaving
Feeding truth, dreamers believing.
As messages go out through ether,
Calling back yet urging further.
Here all moments captured show
What we want those gone to know.
Sharing out our troves and treasure
Before all goes beyond all measure.

The seeds of grain once castaway
On winds of friendship swoop and sway.
As solo motes that swirl as one,
A flock of folk dance in the sun
To glint and shine like dusted gold.
So as we shift and life unfold
Let change not hinder us, nor matter
But fly together as we scatter...

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Key

There is a new era dawning...

He's taken his first steps... He's survived being on his own in the big bad world... But from September he will reach yet another milestone.. My son will get his own front-door key!

Yes, with the advent of secondary school, and the careful positioning of our new home so as to be in walking distance, there only the small matter of giving him the ability to actually get into the house to be faced. But am I worried? Of course I'm blinking worried! He's eleven! Not only does he have to remember to take his key with him he will also need to remember not to lose it! And I was eleven myself once!

Actually, for a while it wasn't an issue as my mother didn't work when I was first at secondary, making that long walk back home so as to pocket my bus fare (See 'Intervention'). But when my sister went off to college my Mum decided also to go back to work and for the last few years of my school life I too became a latch-key kid. Difference was that I didn't take a key with me. Instead we had one hidden outside the house.

Rather than the old faithful 'flower-pot beside the door' or the 'on a string through the letterbox' methods we went for the less conventional one of 'in a plastic tub at the bottom of the chest freezer at the back of the garage'. Freezers were just becoming popular then and I'm not even sure your could get upright ones for in the house at the time. Either way what we had was a vast, coffin-like box that would open with a sucking crackle and "Whump!", followed but a rising mist of frozen air that any Sci-Fi film maker would have given their right, rubber tentacle for!

I'd arrive at the house, open the garage door and then close it behind me so that no one would see what I was doing. Then open the freezer, retrieve the key from under the animal carcasses and choc-ices and then wait. Why? Because to my way of thinking any would be burglar spying on what I was doing would think that the process of key retrieval was a far more complicated affair, involving the deactivation of several deadly traps.

"Cover over the snake pit... retract the poisoned spikes... power down laser grid... and lash back giant stone boulder..."

Certainly sounds better than "Lift up Arctic Roll and grab Tupperware!"

Satisfied that the ne'er-do-wells had been put off I would emerge with the key and go to the door. The key itself of course would be freezing cold and one day I decided to see just how cold it was.

Now, there are certain things in this Universe that just cannot be avoided. Moments of destiny which will happen again and again. For decades people have unknowingly attached suction cups to there foreheads only to be immediacy scarred by a perfectly circular bruise that lasts for weeks. Thousand of curious young men have wrongly become intimate with a vacuum cleaner! But one such event surely goes back as far as the Bronze Age. An ancient alumni which I joined that day. The grand order of the "I'll just see how cold this piece of frozen metal is WITH MY TONGUE!"

At first there was no pain. Just intense cold followed by realisation that this very cold thing on your tongue wanted to stay there and just get colder! Picture me if you can, key stuck in mouth, standing at my front door which was still locked! Now this was a Yale key and the round head of which was attached to me so for the merest of moments the thought went through my mind that I could unlock it with my tongue.

I was still yet to have a girlfriend at this time and what kisses I had experienced were of the good old-fashioned English variety and in no way Francais. So my tongue muscles were sadly not up to the task. There was simply nothing for it. I would have to pull it off. Thing was that by now there seemed to be very little difference between the metal and the flesh. You could feel the fusion of ice to tongue. But regardless I gripped the key and pulled...

And did it hurt I hear you sak. Lets just say that any burglars still holding out in their hidey-holes would most certainly have fled from the screams of pain that rushed from a mouth now stripped of a layer of skin and burnt as if by a scalding pop-tart!

So, on second thoughts maybe a nice sturdy key-chain would be the best thing for my son. Welded to his under-crackers, naturally...

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Snag

"The city looks so peaceful from up here."

"Anything is peaceful from one thousand, three hundred and fifty-three feet."

'Ferris Bueller's Day Off'

I am a great lover of heights along with the process of reaching them. I never got into climbing itself but I did scale the odd seaside cliff-face in my youth and when working in the theatre the best place was always up in the fly tower. But for me nothing beats climbing a tree. Is it an inherited gene that makes me want to do the meercat thing and find a high vantage point?  Or is it like all good mountain climbers just 'because it's there'? Or am I simply a chimp at heart? Whatever the reason those limbs of delight have always tempted me.

As already mentioned I've recently moved house and although our new garden is wonderful I was met in it the other day by a very grumpy faced daughter.

"What's up?" I asked. "Don't you like the garden?"

"There are no good climbing trees" she said. And she's right. Although we have five or six trees not one of them stands out as a being particularly good for scrabbling about in.

When I was a kid in my first house in Benfleet had much the same problem. My second house in Thundersly on the other hand was just smothered in good trees. There was an old oak tree which I used to ascend in the company of ants, who were forever trooping up and down. Then there were two large ash trees which protected the front of the house and if you had the bottle seemed to go on up forever. And lastly a laurel that not only had a natural seat at the top (plus a second spot for friends) but also included a glass-bottom-boat style viewing gallery halfway up that overlooked the footpath by our house.The temptation to drop things on people's head was only overshadowed by the exhilaration of seeing without being seen - like the Predator but without the dreadlocks.

But in the first garden in Benfleet I had the choice of only one tree, a silver birch. Now I love silver birch trees as they seem almost magical with their white bark and silver-green leaves. There is something particularly mystical and elf-like when seen together as a woodland group. Unfortunately their beautiful trunks are very slippery so not good for shinning up and the branches, certainly on ours, started higher than I could reach at age 5. Luckily for me the tree grew right next to our fence which was a good sturdy one, not like the wafer thin things you get today. The fence was made of diagonal wooden beams which were easy to climb and once at the top you could sit on the fence and reach the first branches of the tree. There were no perfects spots but I could wedge myself between any one of the branches and the trunk and merrily sit there for hours listening to the wind in the leaves.

Getting down again was more complicated. Once back on the fence I'd have to execute the one manoeuvre I didn't enjoy which was turning from sitting to climbing position. I would end up either skinning my knees or scratching my stomach or slipping too soon altogether, scrapping down the fence and grazing any number of things in the process. One day I decided that the time had come to simply jump down. I sat on the fence as usual and shuffled along to be clear of the trunk. Then one... two... three... I slid my bottom off the fence and miraculously stopped, just hanging in mid air!

I could fly!!!!!

Well no, obviously I couldn't but my brain was unable to immediately deduce exactly what had happened. In actual fact the belt loop on my trousers was caught on the top of the fence, resulting in my unlikely levitation. Again, it's a credit to the workmanship of the age that the trousers held my weight with nary a rip nor a tare. However, this also meant that no amount of wriggling would release me. Thankfully being a nice day my Dad was seeing to his self-sufficiency vegetable patch. He responded to my pitiful cry for help by making his way from the between the rhubarb and the runner-beans to see what was going on.

"You can fly!"

Actually, I don't think he did say that. But being the excellent Dad that he is he would have given me a conspiratorial smirk at my predicament, collected a step ladder from the shed and unhitched me.

Thankfully there were no scars mentally, physically or arboreally. I continued my tree climbing throughout my childhood, then also at Drama School (there was a particular tree that several Thespians in training made use of) and so on into adult and parenthood. The time may now finally have come to leave it to those younger, more nimble and carrying less weight than myself. And in particular my own kids. To which ends I have my eye one tree in the garden which may not be a climber from the ground up but with some work has another more exciting possibility... tree-house!

But that's a project for another day and possibly another Random Word. In the meantime if you're able I urge you to go climb a tree and let it give you a boost... 

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Radical

As I mentioned in a previous post (see 'Evil') the lexicon of Playground Language throws up some interesting definitions. The word 'Radical' takes me back to my school-days once more and in particular all things BMX...

"Wow! Radical wheels!" "Radical moves!" "That is just soooo radical!"

Sad to say I never owned one of these "Radical" icons myself, asking instead on my eleventh birthday for a silver Raleigh Grifter. On the morning of my birthday it was standing in the hall of my house like something out of a Yellow Pages advert. I remember it was a school day so the bike stayed there until I got home. As soon as I was in the door, and still in my school uniform, I straddled it. As I did so the Blakey on my shoe scratched the paintwork on the hefty central bar leaving a scar which would forever be there to remind me of my bike's arrival.

I somehow equate that bike with taking a step towards manhood. This was no toy but rather a solid and study steed with a twist-grip-handle-gear-change-thingy (with three gears!) With it I made my first solo cycle trips around the streets and paths of Thundersly. I even went as far as taking it to the wooded playground of my youth - The Glen. It would have been there that I discovered the first big drawback of the Grifter. Its rugged frame and big, thick tyres gave it the look of an off-road vehicle but unlike the BMX a Grifter was much, much heavier. It was therefore "Radical" going down hill and "Reasonable" on the flat but "Ruddy Ridiculous" trying to go back up again!

Most of my friends at the time lived at the bottom of Bread and Cheese Hill or beyond (see 'Intervention'). Therefore I wouldn't normally take the Grifter with me when I went round to play as the trip back would no doubt have killed me. However, I did have one friend who lived near by who was a couple of years younger me and one day he told me to come round and bring my bike. When I got there I found that he and some other younger kids from his school were all cycling around the driveway of his house, being a large concrete affair, as well as in and out of the road, which being off the main drag was always relatively quiet.

A game of two wheeled Follow-My-Leader began with each of us trailing along in a line copying the route of the person in front. The bikes in use by the others were either small kiddie bikes with one or two BMXs thrown in. Finally someone in front swung out into the road, turned back to the footpath and pulling up their front wheel bumped back over the curb. The trail of bikes duly followed with myself currently towards the rear. As I approached the curb at speed I lifted my body and pulled up hard on the handle-bars to raise the front wheel but the Grifter refused to move even a millimetre. My front tyre hit the curbstone and my body, already standing on the pedals and off the seat, was thrown violently forward!

Luckily the Grifter was designed with a soft foam rubber cover between the handlebars which my chest bounced off harmlessly. Unluckily the two inch diameter bar between my legs had no such padding to cushion the similar blow to my testicles! My younger, prepubescent biker pals stared in confusion as to why a little 'knock' had somehow left me with a stunned, red face and open mouth from which issued a note to make Aled Jones proud. This was in no way "Radical" but rather a word previously heard but not yet endured - "Rupture!"

I can remember carefully dismounting before laying down in the garden. Eventually, when I had recovered sufficiently, I made my apologies and walked my bike homeward with watering eyes and a stilted gait. In retrospect I wonder if the Grifter wasn't looking to get a little payback for the time I'd scarred it. It certainly marked a change in the relationship between us. It may not have been a "radical" change but where manhood was concerned it was certainly less of a "step towards..." and more of a "swift kick in the..."

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Doggerel

What the heck is doggerel?
Is it quite big or only small?
I've researched every chronicle
But nothing can I glean.

And are its jokes all topical?
Politic views all marginal?
Its manner flash and prodigal,
Or introvert and mean?

Does it move in ways methodical,
In tree and bush subtropical?
Or more at speeds impossible?
Or somewhere in-between?

Do you find it at the carnival,
In trousers, hat and monocle?
(Undeniably improbable,
And is, no doubt, obscene!)

Experts they differ one and all,
In almost every article
But not to split the follicle
I'd guess it's olive-green!

So, as I lack the wherewithal,
To catalogue damn doggerel,
I’ll finish up this canticle
And take one, sight unseen!

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Chicken

"It's Movie Quiz Time! Movie Quiz Time! Movie Quiz Time!"

 (Do you like the new theme tune?)

Yes, it's Movie Quiz Time once more. But even if it is a lazy way of blogging I still love setting them. So see if you can deduce the ten movie titles in this Poultry-Packed-Picture-Puzzler!

...Floating across America with a handful of balloons a purple, chicken-loving, bent-nosed freak sings about going back there someday, wherever 'there' is...

...In the distant future a man out of his time, holding a stick of celery and banana, runs away from a big chicken for fear of being pecked to death...

...While liberating hostages from Iraq a would be Rambo has to resort to using a chicken when he runs out of arrows...

...In mid-west America two teenagers stop dancing for a bit to play 'Chicken' with tractors in which the hero only wins because he can't get his 'foot free', or something like that...

...In the wild, wild west both a Dude and a Duke have been a one-eyed Rooster...

...In a 'Depression' hit New York a Rooster along with his sister and girlfriend sing about making it to somewhere called Easy Street...

...On a Mediterranean Island in World War Two an enterprising Mess Officer finds a way to make money from eggs - so what's the catch?...

...In the Music City a fragile County and Western singer finally has a very public breakdown in the shape of a chicken impersonation...

.. In the frozen Yukon one prospector becomes so hungry he imagines his little-tramp of a partner to be a giant chicken...

...In a Moroccan city one of three brothers tries to speed things up at hotel by saying - "If a customer asks you for a three-minute egg, give it to him in two minutes. If he asks you for a two-minute egg, give it to him in one minute. If he asks you for a one-minute egg, give him the chicken and let him work it out for himself!"...

Answers

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Evil

"...I feel in a sense that the Devil's had a very bad press, you know. After all, I mean, what is bad? I mean here we are in Lambeth... I think modern Christian's should have a bit less of the "Get thee behind me Satan!" and more of the "Come in me old mate and have a cup of tea"..." 

The Rev Mountjoy, 'Not the Nine O'clock News'

I have to say, and hope that those who know me would agree, that I can safely be described as a good person. No dictator nor despot am I. No amoral maniac. No psycho killer. (Ooo, what is this that this is?)  But we all know that evil lurks in the hearts of men and mine is no exception. I would never openly hurt anyone but as a kid, if I got angry, well let's just say you wouldn't like me if I was angry... 

Once again it comes back to shyness. I found it hard to share emotions, any emotions and so instead would bottle them up inside me. Of course anything stored under pressure is in danger of exploding and once in a while these pent up emotions would finely flare up. In the playground language of my day this was described as "Having a fruity". Lord only knows why.

Playground sayings have a microcosm all of their own. Sometimes restricted to a single district or even as localised as a single school. I was therefore amazed to learn recently that the expression "Jimmy Reckon" and "Jimmy Hill" (combined with the stroking of the chin) as an expression of disbelief was used almost nationwide in the late seventies and early eighties. I wonder if the saying "Cherub" and the tickling of the other persons chin as an alternative to shouting "Gutted!" ever made it out of my part of Essex?

But I digress... 

A bit like David Banner before me I had no control over when I'd turn mean and fruity. There was no Jekyll and Hyde style catalyst to help search for the evil inside myself. Rather it simply happened at the random dropping of the last straw. The red mist could having been growing over a matter of days, until finally I had to lash out. As a result I could easily find myself venting my anger on the wrong person, either because theirs was a relativity inconsequential crime or because they would turn round and beat the sh*t out of me! I could write a whole post on the ill-judged fights I have picked over the years. But the two most evil ventings were not fights at all but rather all out attacks!

My first transgression occurred when I was about four years old.  My big sister had her friend Ruth round to play but rather than let me tag along decided they wanted to leave me out - possibly because I was younger or maybe because I was a boy. I probably persisted which pushed the two of them into teasing me. Both were standing just inside her bedroom and saying that I couldn't come in. Before I knew it I had a weapon in my grasp, I could feel its weight as it nestled in my palm. One final taunt and I snapped! Before I could stop myself the missile was away. Granny Weeble flew through the air and struck Ruth smartly on the head! 

Now, throwing a Weeble is not to be confused with 'Throwing a wobbly'. For one thing it's far more affective. It would be nice to say that Ruth wobbled and then did fall down, but she didn't. Instead time froze for a moment until broken by Granny Weeble hitting to the floor. This was then closely followed by Ruth's screams of pain and a dash by me to my room. I'm glad to say that Ruth, myself and Granny all lived to play another day and that my punishment was either lenient enough to be forgotten or so traumatic I've locked it deep inside....

The other time I flew into a rage was I few years later while in the Infants at school. One day my best-friend at the time, Richard, told me that I couldn't see the puppet show that some other kids were doing. Why I didn't ignore him and simply walk past I don't know. Instead I argued with him a face-to-face. When this didn't change his mind I took what I saw as being my only other option. I grabbed one of his ears in each hand and bit him squarely on the nose!

Being young our falling out only lasted until the end of the day and I'm guessing he forgave me. We still played together after the event but in the days that followed my crime haunted me in the shape of two straight scabs across the bridge of his nose which stared at me accusingly.

Thankfully my emotions came under control in my teens, mostly due to my discovery of acting which proved to be an excellent outlet emotionally. I successfully exchanged nose biting and Weeble tossing for Berkoff and jazz hands! Now that I'm entering the fifth out of the seven ages of man I have far better control of my inner evil. And if all else fails I can always find release within the confines of my iPhone with the help of numerous Irate Avians... 

"Ha! Ha! Ha! (* evil laugh*)  Yes! Three stars! Cherub little green piggies! Cherub!"

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Nuisance

So here are the facts - about a month ago I moved house, so for what seems like forever I have been either putting things into boxes or taking them out again. Everything else went on hold (which is why I've had to step away for the keyboard and hence the hiatus in my world of Random Words). But the end is now in sight and the Randomness may continue.

Although all this packing and unpacking is a nuisance in a perverse way I enjoy it as the only thing that gives me greater pleasure than packing things away 'correctly' (I practically drool my way through the storage section of IKEA) is the arranging and rearranging of my 'things'. So why if I'm in 'sorting' heaven, and importantly in a lovely new house who everyone (including the cat) feel utterly at home in straight away, do I find myself without a sense of closure. Because I have one grand drawback - books!

For the first time in my life I own a property which has enough space to comfortably accommodate all my books (and boy do I have a lot of them). You can blame my father for this as he also is a great collector of the printed word. So I have inherited the 'book' gene that not only compels me to read, hoard and worship these paper-packed-pleasures but also to revere them. It has been drummed into me from an early age never to fold down corners, lick your thumb to turn a page or over-bend a spine (Jeremy Goode I feel your pain) But a personal quirk of my own is getting the books just right on the shelves.

There are two ways of tackling the problem (three is you employ the dewey decimal system but even I'm not that bad!). The first is to adopt a neat-freak approach by either sorting alphabetically (by author or title) or by size or, and some people do do this, by colour! The other is the total scatter gun approach of chucking any book in any order anywhere, as long as they are on a shelf and sometimes not even that. I'm afraid I'm a little too anal for the second approach, but at the same time I love the effect. It always reminds me of a second-hand bookshop, the place in the world were I am probably the most happy. For my fortieth birthday I took a weekend trip to Hay-on-Wye to simply indulge the pleasure of being in in a town where there is a bookshop on every corner and the tomes outnumber the residents 10,000 to 1.

My shelf stacking style therefore has elements of both approaches. I need that slightly haphazard look as a result of just a hint of higgledy with a dash of piggledy. But at the same time I need to be able to find books at a moments notice. Because you never know when you'll need to reread 'Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency' for the hundredth time or the first two stories of  G K Chesterton's 'The Innocence of Father Brown'. Or the poem by E E Cummings that mentions the universe next door. Or remind yourself just how superior Moore's 'The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen' is compared to the crap movie. Or look again for the clues in 'The Murder of Roger Ackroyd'. Or... well you get the idea.

So if I have the will, the space and most certainly the books where's the rub you may ask? The problem is that as yet I just don't have the shelves. We have grand plans for shelving all over the place and I'm already seeing in my mind certain books in certain rooms but as yet, nothing. Apparently there are more important thing to consider such as heating, wiring and food! (Food! Why can't the kids live on beans for a month? Is that too much to ask? Obviously yes.)

So all my ideas will have to remain just that for now and the books will just have to stay in their boxes. As the saying goes "The best laid plans of mice and men... er..."

(Damn it!...Which crate has the quotations book in it?...Oh!... Pants!...)

...well, it probably has something to do with cheese but I'm not committing myself...

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God

Knock! Knock!
Who's there?
God!
God who?
*Fiery lightning-bolt smites the door's owner*
There is but one God! (Sucker!)


I don't want to offend God (be it the God or a god), especially as the end of the world has been pencilled in for tomorrow, so I thought I'd go with yet another movie quiz. This time name the films which contain a deity. I love to watch a deity movie myself but you have to be careful, too much and you may go blind!

...On the roof of an apartment building in Manhattan four spectral exterminators learn the hard way the correct answer to the question "Are you a god?"...

...In a Grecian wasteland a son of a god, having already been given a nifty sword, shield and helmet set, is also presented with a clockwork bird...

...In a distant galaxy, following a trip through a round window, some US Army types meet some Egyptian-god-a-like types...

...While out 'riding' in Britain a king and his knights meet a rather two-dimensional God who sends them on a quest along with an explosive holy-relic...

...In New Jersey God is beaten up by some hockey players but makes a recovery later by changing back into a young woman. Isn't that ironic...

...In deep space a starship captain and his crew forget about 'new life and new civilisations' for a bit and go looking for God instead...

...In a remote mountain kingdom in India one of two ex-soldiers is mistaken for a god following an archery mishap. Word of advice, in that situation watch out when having a 'bite' to eat...

...In a diner in a town in Pennsylvania a man decides he must be God after suffering a serious case of deja vu...

...In a far distant future a warrior in a red mankini takes a trip in a flying stone head before settling down to read a children's classic...

...In the Fortress of Ultimate Darkness the Supreme Being has his old workforce collect up all the bit of Evil before rehiring them at a 19% cut in salary, backdated to the beginning of time...

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Seconds

      "Shall we say pistols at dawn?"

"Well, we can say it. I don't know what it means but we can say it."

     "My seconds will call on your seconds."

"My seconds will be out. Have 'em call on my thirds. If my thirds are out go directly to my fourths."

Can you identify these ten great cinematic duels? (Answers on a postcard please)

...At a secret island base a man with an extra nipple and a licensed killer duel with guns, one being rather more expensive than the other...

...On a desert highway a businessman becomes the first victim of road-rage...

...In the frozen landscape of 19th Century Russia two French soldiers find themselves face to face with pistols drawn until the arrival of a group of cossacks robs them once again of their final moment - until the next time...

...In an Egyptian market a man in black makes the mistake of bringing a sword to a gun fight, but was an upset stomach really at the root of it all...

...In an office in America two men pull silly faces and get a bit veiny until finally one of their heads explode...

...On Boston Common one man makes the mistake of challenging an immortal to a duel. Luck for him the immortal is drunk and so incapable of killing him but also incapable of dying...

...In an undisclosed, New York location the world's greatest male models try to out 'walk' each other, and only Bowie can decide the winner...

...In the Kentucky wilderness a man and a boy have at each other musically before the man and his friends set off to do a spot of boating and to meet the locals...

...On the Cliffs of Insanity two left-handed men duel with swords using Bonetti's defence and Capa Ferro. However, they both have a secret...

...On a moon in a galaxy far, far away, master and student face off for the last time. Hang on. That's no moon...

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