Monthly Archives: July 2009

Up There Where the Air is Clear

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And so we’re off to Gatwick at 4 o’clock tomorrow morning. Not my favourite thing to do. Aircraft and I don’t really mix. I’m hoping the sheer excitement of the kids (mine and The Incumbent’s) rubs off on me and momentarily lets me forget that I’m bloody terrified of flying. It won’t, of course, but maybe just for a second or two along-the-way I’ll be preoccupied with sheepdogging four youngsters in the right direction rather than concentrating on impending doom at the hands of an Easyjet pilot. I feel sick just typing this. Not having taken a middle-of-the-night flight for years, I’m more than a little concerned that I may not be able to drink my own bodyweight in scotch before I board. Are they open at 5 am? God, I hope so.

I’m not sure quite when this fear of certain excruciating death by plummeting out of the heavens gripped me, but I do wish it would go away. I have tried everything to cure it: Valium, malt whisky, sobbing uncontrollably, soiling myself, but nothing has succeeded in allaying my fears. I don’t like small planes as they get buffetted about by the smallest breeze, and big planes don’t look like like they should be able to stay up. If I walk across the tarmac towards the aircraft I’m always on the lookout for cracks in the wings, or rust on the fuselage. I drive myself nuts.

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This time, I’m sure, the kids will be killing themselves laughing as dad’s head turns purple and his knuckles white as the big orange bird soars into the sky (well that’s the plan anyway). They’ll think it’s hilarious, as I did when I was their age cos my dad always hated flying too. I used to love it, but no longer. Too many bouts of turbulence and dropping the odd-hundred have done for me.

And they keep happening: Flying to Amsterdam a couple of years ago we flew through the tail of that tornado which hit Watford, or wherever. I tell you here and now, we dropped so quickly that my whisky n dry was suspended in mid air, al la Warner Bros cartoons, before rejoining the glass from whence it came some several feet below. I was petrified, and not wanting to give the whisky another chance to make a bid for freedom I introduced it to several similar of its kind already residing in my stomach.

This time, as I’m driving for several hours at the other end, I guess I’ll have to take it easy on the gold watch, and for similar reasons Diazepam is out (Italian coppers don’t like Brits falling asleep at the wheel whilst driving around the Colloseum, and I think the girls would complain too). Imagine my thirst when we finally arrive at our villa, some 4 hours after we land ? Peroni me up, Guido.

See you in a couple of weeks.

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Going Upstairs for a Decision

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Take a note of the day you read this: I feel sorry for the Australians. I do, honestly. I had two clear LBW decisions turned down by the umpire yesterday, and at the other end, we had their opening batsman stumped by about a yard but their umpire refused to give it. Not even a referral. There is a theory (which I’m formulating) that no cricket match should take place without the setting up of cameras at either end, behind the bowlers arm, and square of both ends of the wicket.

Pub and village sides already have to supply the balls, stumps, umpires coats, even the sandwiches so would it be too hard to get four (six would be even better) of the team to arrive with a camera (with tripod, preferably) to position at strategic points around the boundary ? This would go a long way to banishing dodgy decisions from bent umps on the village greens of England (yes, yes, okay, and Wales).

Everyone has a camera (and therefore all think they’re photographers, especially writers) and most cameras these days come with a video mode. When an iffy call was made and challenged we could all troop to the boundary and study the footage. It wouldn’t take any more than fifteen minutes of argument, I’m sure.

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On the other hand we could just get on with the game, trust the umpires and players to be honest and decent. If we go down the video route and ask for each and every decision to be scrutinised by the fourth, fifth or sixth official we may as well get rid of the officials on the field altogether. We could call it Grid Iron Cricket, or somesuch.

For much of yesterday’s game we stood in light drizzle and strong, gusting wind. It wasn’t ideal, but we played on. We got the game finished and no-one was hurt (apart from a fielder who snagged his goolies on the barbed wire fence surrounding the pitch). Driving home last night listening to a phone-in on the radio one caller suggested to save losing time in Test matches and to make conditions “fair” for both teams the ECB should invest in a roof for Lords (and presumably all the other English (and Welsh) Test venues. I nearly careered of the M25.

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Apart from the small matters of cost, practicality, humidity and numerous other atmospherics, IT’S AN OUTDOOR SPORT, FOR FUCK’S SAKE!!!!!!! Did anyone see Tiger throw is five iron out of his pram when a gust of nasty Scottish wind caught his approach shot?? Perhaps we should put a roof over Turnberry, St Andrews and Sandwich? Let’s get video referees to see if a blade of grass got between ball and club, which was why Tiger didn’t get backspin? Stop play when it rains or gets a bit chilly?? Thank Christ for Tom Watson. He showed a few of these powdered ponces how to play the game as it was meant to be played.

Golf, like cricket (and, while we’re at it, rugby and soccer) are outdoor sports. They were invented to be played in the elements. Anyone who’s ever played full-back at rugby on a cold and blustery afternoon in January will attest to how bloody hard and miserable it is. But that’s the game. If you don’t wanna feel the wind gusting around, carrying the ball off in all sorts of directions, and your fingers, frozen to the bone and numb to the tips, fail you as you try to grab hold of this bar-of-soap before the entire back row smash you into the icy mud below then I suggest you either play all your games in Cardiff or buy an X-Box.

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If your idea of golf is a windless day, with perfect greens and nice, flat, soft, fluffy fairways which allow one to float a wedge into within 6 foot of every pin then you can go into Tiger Woods 09 on the Wii and select “turn off elements”. It’s a pastime but it’s not sport. A bit like tennis. I blame Wimbledon for a lot of things, particularly endless Tiger Tim and Morbid Murray headlines, and the rise of the middle class woman into the assumed status of ‘sports fan’. Listen, darling, two weeks of stealing the best armchair in the house, painting your face with a union flag and understanding Hawkeye doesn’t suddenly turn you into Desmond Lynham or even Kirsty Gallagher (bless her). But now that you have your bleedin roof over centre court all the other part-time sofa-jocks think it’ll work for every other sport.

Watch Brian Glover in Kes playing the PE master pretending to be Bobby Charlton and you lot will realise how football AND ALL REAL SPORT should be played. NOT in manicured sports halls, NOT under the supervision of fifty tv cameras but outside, on grass under the clouds and officiated by proper humans, complete with all the frailties, weaknesses and mistakes that humans bring with them.

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For the record, I hit 28 runs (16 of them off a 17 yr old girl’s bowling. It was her first ever game) and took 3 wickets (one of which was that of the girl’s even younger girlfriend). I feel it’s only a matter of time til I get a call-up for England. Move over Freddie.

Mrs Trellis*

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Two weeks into the new job and an unexpected bonus: On Wednesday I resumed the position of “World’s Best Dad”. Having spent the last couple of years as boring, square, fat dad I regained the initiative with my kids by placing a photo of them in the paper. We needed a shot of cute babies/toddlers for a story we were doing, so I raided my archives and pulled an old pic of my girls in nappies, sitting inside a cardboard box. Job done. Editor happy, me happy, kids feigned embarrassment when they saw it, before taking copies of the paper to school to show their mates and boasting “look what my dad did!”.

What’s more I was both photographer and parent so I could ask myself for permission to use this photo, knowing I would be unlikely to change my mind and complain to myself about using pics of my semi-clad children in a national newspaper (their mother couldn’t wait to see her kids cringe). In this post-Blair bonkers world where parents aren’t allowed to attend school sports days, you can’t photograph your own kid in the park lest someone else’s get snapped in the deep background, and holiday snaps are frequently reported by the girls at Boots for being iffy, I knew I was in the clear with this one.

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Or so I thought. Turd in the water tank.

On Friday one of my new colleagues approached me and asked if I knew who the kids were in that photo.
“Yes I do” I smiled “and I know the snapper pretty well too” I added, smugly “that’s a pic of my girls years ago”
“Oh!?!?” my friend said, eyebrow raised.
I felt something was awry. “Whassup?”
“Well, I’ve had a call from a woman who is very upset that we’ve used a pic of her daughters on the cover”
Guffaws in the office, the meerkats popped up over their pc screens.
“She a loony?” I asked?
“No, she sounded pretty normal, just very pissed off” he replied. “Wanna give her a call?”
“Love to”
“Mind if I stay and listen?” he said, rather excitedly.
“Not at all, old bean”
He passed me the slip of paper with the woman’s number on it. As I dialed, three more interested chums pulled up chairs to listen to the action unfold. How would the new boy handle this one? Was the reader a nutter ? Was Bealing so hungover that day that he’d forgotten what his kids looked like?

Modern digital IP phone (isolated on white)

Let’s not use the lady’s real name.

“Mrs Trellis?”
“Speaking”
“Good morning to you, Michael Bealing from The Times. I understand you called my colleague with a problem.”
“Yes, I DID” her hackles were in the upright position—notsomuch as a ‘good morning’. “I’d like to know how and why you have use a photograph of my daughters in your newspaper?”
“Erm… I’m afraid we didn’t, Mrs Trellis, they’re my daughters”
“NO THEY ARE NOT. That is my photograph of my twin daughters, taken over 20 years ago.”
I was a model of calm and restraint.
“I’m sorry, but they really are my daughters. That’s Kate on the left, and her elder sister Lucy on the right. It was taken about twelve years ago.”
That’s impossible” she barked “My daughters are twenty-four!”
I hesitated as I tried to work out what that meant. My workmates could see I was perplexed. One of them was making little circles with his index finger around his temple area, querying the woman’s sanity.
She went again “I have that exact picture of my girls in a cardboard box. Even their haircuts are the same!”

(Even the haircuts are the same????? Kate was 9 months old—she’d never had a haircut!)

“Honestly, Mrs Trellis, I took that photo of my girls in the box years ago, I guess a lot of children like cardboard boxes.”
I was inches from offering to send her a copy of the photo, but then thought “Sod it”. And a good job too, cos in a flash she relented
“Well I suppose I’ll just have to believe you” and with that she hung up. It was over as quick as that. I would have offered my apologies again for her mistake, perhaps my phone number, and I don’t-know-what, but I was hoping I could convince her and placate her. But she’d gone. Buggered off. Vanished, like an old oak table, to coin a phrase.

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You know when you know you’re right, when you know black is black then someone comes to you with such conviction that black is, in fact, white and you start doubting yourself? Well, that’s how I felt. She’d made me doubt what I knew to be fact. I had a mental image of Mrs Trellis, steam pumping our of her ears, crawling around the attic looking for that photo album to find that picture. For the rest of the day I kept one eye on the phone in case she called back triumphantly, having found the pic and demanded compensation and a written apology in the newspaper (not what a new boy needs in his first couple of weeks on the firm). Luckily, no such call came.

My colleagues and I resumed work on our next story. It was about the merits of breast feeding vrs the bottle. We chose a lovely photo for the cover: a delicate close-up of a baby suckling from a mother’s breast. Baby’s eyes wide-open, lips clasped around the nipple. Beautiful, classy, classic and very tasteful. I just pray to God that it’s not Mrs Trellis and her daughter.

*©H.Lyttleton

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T3

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Ok, I admit it. I’m knackered. Not physically, but mentally shot to pieces. No, mentally too— due to that poxy bed of mine— but both my brain cells have been spinning about all week trying to take it all in. My regular reader will have noticed the distinct lack of entries on these pages. I’m sorry— I haven’t had a minute to scratch my arse, let alone compose my flowery, illiterate prose. It’s hard to believe just a week has gone by since I was saying my farewells to friends and colleagues, leaving the office and the employ of a huge, American news organisation to take my seat in the office of a huge, American news organisation. Variety is the spice of life, so they say.

Telegraph, Time, Times. What next? Tatler or Take a Break ? Answers on a postcard please. Pity Titbits is no longer with us. When I finally throw a seven, and I’m called to meet the great Chief Sub up on the celestial back bench he’ll no doubt ask me to account for myself, and ask me what I’ve done.
“Who have you worked for, down on earth” he’ll ask, not bothering to look up while trying to come up with a pithy headline for a page seven lead (they never look up at you).
“Conrad Black, Jim Kelly and Rupert Murdoch”, I shall bleat, sheepishly.
“That doesn’t seem very many employers for one so old?” he’ll query.
“Ah, yes, well I did freelance for Richard Desmond on the Express for six months, and a couple of moonlight weeks on The Mail”
“Really?” he shall ponder “But it says here you’re a socialist!”
“Yessir, I am, but I was trying to bring down the system from within. Robert Maxwell had snuffed it before I got a chance to work for him”
“Piss off. You are shallow, unprincipled charlatan. You’ll have to work for our Sunday tabloid—The News of the Clouds.”

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As I’ve often had to explain to my father every time I take another job with a less-than-liberal organisation: we can’t all work for the Guardian. Or the Co-Op, or Greenpeace or even Amnesty International. I never bothered to become a doctor, so Medicine Sans Frontiers is out (I even failed to get into Jeux Sans Frontiers as Stuart Hall’s replacement), and my application to succeed Ban Ki Moon has yet to be answered (I put myself down as Mi Ki Bee, as they all have silly names).

So, like most of us, I’ve just followed the fun and the money. Well, that’s been the plan—often it’s been bereft of much of either. I’ve applied ice-cubes to topless girls nipples (both professionally, and for my own amusement), covered Royal funerals (ditto) sent photographers to shoot wars and world cups, elections and erections, found pictures of tsunamis and toon armies, famines and farmers, operas and soap operas, child molesters and politicians*

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And that’s why we all do it: for the randomness of it all. And the best thing about doing it on a daily paper is that the night before, when someone asks you what you’re up to tomorrow, you can honestly say “I haven’t got a clue”, it’s the fun of covering the news. 4 seconds before a plane hit the twin towers on 9/11 I’d put my jacket on in preparation for a pint of lunch. No-one could have ever predicted it (outside the CIA, of course). That pint came eight hours later. And it was good. The adrenaline that flows, and the beer that flows with it is something to behold and savour after a big news day. And that’s why we do what we do in this sometimes silly, often exciting, occasionally distasteful business of, what my mate Tom calls “The Never-Ending Quest for the Truth”. Hmmm.

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My new colleagues at our sister paper The News of The World have been the story themselves this week, having allegedly been naughty boys when obtaining private information on celebs through the medium of Private Eyes and phone-taps. It’s all a matter of opinion, I suppose, but why you’d go to such lengths to listen to what Elle MacPherson, Gwyneth Paltrow, Boris Johnson and Gordon Taylor have to say baffles me. Taylor is as dull as gnu shit, and if you can translate anything Boris says into a coherent sentence, you’re a better man than I am, Gunga Din, have a large wad of cash for your efforts. Trust me, I used to sub his stuff. Fluent Swahili.

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So what has been my contribution to News International’s production this week? Well, I bought a round of coffee a couple of times, found a photo for a shopping story, had a row with the IT department (yes, honest), edited a photo shoot of a transvestite nurse (story killed), reshuffled the rota which fucked-off half the department, and got lost on the way back to my desk from the loo. Twice. Not a bad start to my career. But I’m in, I’m a coiled spring, waiting to pounce and source those snaps for the next proper story to hit the headlines. All the gardening stories, shopping features and late-breaking makeup covers act as practice and preparation for the big stuff when it comes, say Thatcher’s death or and England test win.**

So the real stuff starts next week. As soon as I get a pc that works and can remember anyone’s name, I’ll launch myself into action, and they’ll know what they’ve getting for their money. Oh bugger. Better polish-up that CV.

*delete where applicable
**perm any two from two

Nessun Dorma Windows

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It’s all gone a bit how’s-yer-father. Things are not how they should be, here at Railway Cuttings. Between us, the incumbent and I are managing an average of three hours sleep per night. The reasons are many and varied. For starters I have a crap mattress. I forget where I bought it, but by the feel of the springs poking though the sheet, into my left shoulder blade it would appear it came from the set of Midnight Express. My significant other has lost the use of her right arm and shoulder, and the mattress is in the frame as the chief culprit. There are other factors to consider:

Even on a pleasant, temperate night temperatures in my bedroom reach around 240 degrees (gas reg 9), but over the past several days London has been gripped by a heatwave. My bedroom has turned into an Aga. Lay down on my bed and after a couple of minutes you get to appreciate how a Pop Tart must feel during its last few in-tact moments. I tell you, it’s fucking hot. The sweat reaches Cool Hand Luke proportions. Windows need to be opened, fans need to be engaged. Sod it! I remember that I’d donated my room fan to Kate’s youngest son a few weeks ago— he was hot. Bugger. Pas de problem, windows at each end of the house are opened—get a nice breeze through. Ahhhh that’s better.

But there’s another snag: Although it’s not quite Elwood Blues‘ apartment, my house is located quite close to the local railway station—as my pet name for it implies. You don’t notice the trains during the day, nothing more than a gentle hum in the background when you’re grilling your bangers on the barbie. But lay down in bed on a hot, humid night, windows open, and it feels like you’re getting your head down at the far end of platform cinq, Gare Du Nord. They come in and out of the station about every 12½ minutes—synchronized brilliantly with the time I manage to position my body between the razor-wire springs and the boulders in my mattress, get as settled as I can, turn over the sweat-soaked pillow, and drift gently into the land of nod. The sound of the 12.21 from London Bridge sounds like that tank in the last scene of Saving Private Ryan. Terrifying.

Come here, there’s more. Once the last train (The Vomit Comet) carrying the piss-heads of South London home to their caravans has gone through, we then get treated to the heavy artillery: I don’t know what these night trains are they’re carrying, may be milk, maybe coal, maybe nuclear warheads or toxic waste for landfill, but these, slow-moving, creaking, rumbling fuckers make the window frames rattle, the half-full dishwasher dance around the kitchen floor downstairs, glasses rattling therein, and the toilet seat crash down to the closed position (yes, I know).

No matter, at least we’re not being slowly sauteed in our own perspiration. The breeze feels good, though I suspect that it’s the gentle zephyr through the window that’s also contributing to our cricked backs. It’s a price worth paying. When cricket umpires start collapsing at the wicket, as one did yesterday, you know that this global warming which we’ve all been hoping for has finally arrived. Around 4am I try another tack: BBC News24. If anything can induce sleep, surely that can? Well, in part. I drift in-and-out through the night and seem always to wake up at the same time past the hour, therefore catching the same news item, time and time again. Last night I saw brief highlights of the Ladies Singles Final at Wimbledon FOUR TIMES. I didn’t want to see it once. That can be a tad frustrating. I start getting angry with myself that I’m not asleep— which means I can’t sleep.

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So I get up, go downstairs to make a cup of tea and to help the garden greet the morning sun. Kate’s been up for hours, her back pain being too much to bear (she’s watched the same report on Michael Jackson’s memorial five times since midnight). We grunt sympathetically at each other and shuffle around the house. We wait for a decent hour to start functioning properly, when we can convince ourselves that it’s not Saturday night any more, it’s actually Sunday morning. Proper conversation starts at about 7.30. and we plan our day. Nothing is open til 10 o’clock when I’ll go get the papers and some eggs from breakfast. Then perhaps a stroll before lunch, and a mass newspaper-reading session in the garden this afternoon. It’s only to delay the inevitable: going back to bed to try to catch up on sleep. If I go to bed before 10pm I’ll be wide awake by 4am, at best (British Rail allowing), so I’ll have to hold out.

Perhaps a couple of sundowners or nightcaps later will help? I start a new job tomorrow and I’m as nervous as a Brazilian backpacker on a London Tube. Yes, perhaps a modicum of claret will chase away the nerves tonight, block out the pain of the springs, and the noise of the chuff-chuffs? But moderation is the key. Hungover, exhausted and walking hunched over like Marley’s ghost is no way to arrive on your first day of a new job.

Dunno, maybe I’ll sleep on it.

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Time after Time

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Every morning in my office at 10.00hrs (ZULU) all the journalists in the office assemble in a meeting room to discuss the schedule for the day. We call it the Story Meeting, elsewhere on other publications they call this Conference (note no “the” or “a”, just “Conference”). It’s at these gatherings where ideas are tossed around and discussed and the magazine/website takes shape. Now I say “all” our journalists attend these 10.00 meets—they do eventually—but there is one guy who never EVER manages to make a 10am start. He bowls up at 10.04, 10.07, sometimes he even gets as close as 10.02 but never does he make it in for 10.00. Occasionally we meet at 12.00 and guess what? He can’t make those on time either. 12.10, 12.08— sometimes he doesn’t bother showing up at all! He’s not alone in this. Over the years we have had several serial offenders, those who struggle to make the trip from London to London for 10 o’clock. It can’t be that difficult, can it? A photographer once called me from his car saying he was going to be late for a 10 o’clock assignment cos the traffic on the M25/M4 junction was heavy. At 9.30 in the morning. Really??????? YOU CABBAGE!!!! After reading him his life story and suggesting he might have thought of getting up earlier to beat the traffic (if you’re an hour early for a job, you can go get a cup of coffee) I pulled the line on him. Never employed him again.

Let's think of something to write about

Let\’s think of something to write about

I hate being late. If I am ever late for anything I get all anxious, sweaty and nervy. I’m anal— at least that’s what I think the ex-wife called me. If a party invite reads “8 til late” I turn up at 8 o’clock —and more often-than-not 7.45. That’s not because I want to get there before the booze runs out (honest), it’s just because I treat tardiness as an insult to the host, and therefore when people are late on me I tend to get a wee bit peeved. Of course none of us can ever be on time for everything, but repeat offenders don’t cut much ice with yours truly. And everyone will know one of these types. You will all have mates or couples who are always late for appointments/drinks/meals/concerts etc. They leave you hanging around at the bar, outside the cinema or in an eaterie for minutes even hours. And they do it every time you arrange to meet, AND YOU STILL TRUST THEM TO TURN UP ON TIME THE NEXT TIME!!! They all do the same trick of gigling when they finally arrive, laughing it off “oh sorry, I fell asleep, tee hee”, “sorry, mate, the cab was late, ha ha” “have you been waiting long? Jesus you look pissed, snigger”etc etc . Well I don’t think it’s funny. I think it’s fucking rude!

Late is very rarely a good thing: A late tackle in soccer or rugby is never to be condoned (unless you’re a South African, apparently); If your girlfriend tells you she’s “late” that usually focusses the mind; The Late Michael Jackson, doesn’t cheer a lot of people up; Andy Murray looked cream-crackered after his match went on late into the night; the US turned up late for the last two World Wars (been nice and early ever since though) and my postman seems to have swapped his morning delivery for one in the late afternoon. On the other hand if you get a “late one” in a pub, you’ve had a result!. But in general, late bad, early good.

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So we come to Andrew Flintoff. Master bowler, intimidating batsmen and an all-round piss-head. He turned up late the other day for a bus which was taking the England team to a bonding session as part of their build-up to the Ashes. Apparently there had been a players’ “dinner” the night before and Andy felt a little “tired” in the morning so missed the bus. He has previous with this type of thing and it’s getting worrying for us fans, annoying for the coaches and staff. A hangover is a self-inflicted injury, and not an excuse to miss work, whatever you do for a living. It’s definitely not the sort of thing you should be sporting a week before you face the Aussies in the series of all series. If you wanna go out and play in the pub on a school night then you have to face the consequences of feeling like shit in the morning. But GET INTO WORK whatever happens. I myself am not adverse to the odd one of a midweek evening, but whatever state I get into, I make it into work the following day and I expect others to do the same. The worse thing that could happen to me is that I stick all the photos for the magazine in upside down. A hungover or off-form Flintoff could LOSE US A TEST MATCH!!!!!!! For Christ’s sake !!!!

C'mon Andy, you're in next

C\’mon Andy, you\’re in next

A worrying line that came out of official England channels was that Flintoff “working very hard to avoid issues fuelled by drink.” I put it to you, yer honour, that if you have to “work very hard” at not getting pissed you really do have a problem. I’m sure I must know lots of people who don’t have to work hard not to have a drink, I just can’t think of any at the moment. So enough, already. Come on, Andy, knock it on the head for a few weeks. Yes we all wanna laugh at you, rat-arsed, walking down Downing Street at the end of the summer, but try to keep the cork in the bottle until you’ve given the Strines a mauling. It’s really much more important than going on the piss.

I don’t believe I just typed that.

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