(Written with numb thumbs on a blackberry. Please excuse the typos)
Ok, time for a re-think. God has bowled me a bouncer which I managed, for the most part to swerve out of the way of. Ok, it clipped me round the back of the head and I’m being patched up in the pavillioin, ready to be re-introduced into the action.
But it’s not as if I’m like those other poor sods I’ve seen over the last few days on the boundary’s edge, who’ve clearly taken a pearler straight between the eyes, or Brian Close-like straight under the heart.
I’ve had a touch. A stroke of luck, you might say.
So the list is looking like this:
Item 2. Learn to Walk.
Item 3. Cheer up you miserable bastard
Item 1. was dealt with at 6.07 this morning, as those in the Thames Estuary area who were woken by the “All Clear” siren this morning will understand.
Was moved in comedy fashion last night from Kings College to Darenth Valley Hospital. 2 young men doing poor ambulance-driver impressions turned up 4 hours late, then all but preformed 3 drive-by dumpings using me and 2 others as cadavers, throwing us from the back of their van. (I say “ambulance” drivers but on closer inspection it was a Ford Transit with the word AMBULENCE (sic) written on it in crayon.
Spruce Ward & Adam Waste
I’m now in Spruce Ward (named, I think, after a character from Batman)
But I am due to be moved any minute. I don’t mind that. I seemed to have traded my neighbour the serial soiler for a perpetual puker. They’re running out of buckets for him, poor old sod. Like I say, I’ve had it easy.
Dartford also has tvs in the rooms so there’s a good chance I’ll be able to watch the cricket tomorrow. Having missed the Open Golf and the Murdoch show yesterday that’ll be a huge bonus. That is if I’m not busy with ‘how to stand up’ lessons, or “waking slowly round the room for beginners” classes.
I’m hoping to get to what young parents call “cruising” stage” pretty quickly. Then at least I can get my own self to the loo, should I ever feel the need to go again.
Though judging by this morning’s events I feel that unlikely. I feel happier already. Number 3 may be crossed off the list soon.
Artist Aelita Andre might only be four years old, but that has not stopped her opening her first art exhibition in New York.
She is said to be the youngest ever professional artist with nine of her paintings on show at the Agora Gallery, in Manhattan, already selling, with pieces priced up to $9,900 (£6,000) each.
Angela Di Bello, the director at the gallery, said Aelita had already developed a style of her own.
Her parents, Nikka Kalashnikova and Michael Andre, who are also artists, both agree that their daughter’s art has an innocence to it. (BBC NEWS, June 5, 2011)
Doesn’t that tell you everything that you need to know about the art world ? I never know whether to laugh or cry when this sort of stuff comes up. You tend to find the people who defend this sort of bollocks are the same mob who can’t wait for this year’s Turner Prize winner, or Tracey Emin‘s latest con-fest.
When I see this sort of stuff, I inexplicably start humming The Emperor’s New Clothes (the Danny Kaye version, of course). It never fails to amaze me how many hitherto intelligent people get conned – year after year – by Man Shits in Bucket or Lump of Old Rope by the latest Brit Art genius at The Tate. They really are geniuses judging by the amount of cash they screw out of the art world and its followers.
Every now and then some elephant (usually in Germany) gets hold of a brush and makes a few daubs and is hailed as the next Jackson Pollock. A chimpanzee rubs his arse over a canvass and is predicted to have as much talent as the elephant, or even, indeed Emin herself (which is actually true). Brilliant. Well Done. Open a gallery and have a peanut. (Or can I tempt you with some German beanshoots?)
But these are not new arguments of course. There have been old farts moaning about new art (I desist from call it modern) for hundred of years. I dunno why we get ourselves so upset? Leave them too it. I have several mates who despise my views on art. They get very defensive indeed when I scoff and try to tell them they have been conned by a charlatan and a pile of old tutt. I just can’t help myself.
But my doctor has told me not to get so angry any more. So I shan’t. I’ll leave it to someone who can explain and expose rather more eloquently than I ever could. This is over 50 years old, and remains as spot-on as it always was.
The other night I was held at gunpoint and forced to watch Inception. If I hadn’t nodded off I suspect it would have been an excruciating cinematic experience to rival Face-Off or Armageddon (you remember Armageddon: where instead of teaching Astronauts to drill holes, they trained miners to become Astronauts).
Meanwhile, filed under the category “Movies I’d Pay to See” would be this little offering from Robert Blankenheim. Sadly I’ll just have to wait for Don’ you go Rounin’ Roun to Re Ro.
You’d have thought that spending a life in the public eye for being a master in your chosen field would warrant you a few well-chosen lines in the national papers’ obituary columns when it came your turn to snuff it. But the Law of Sod often has one last laugh at your expense by somehow arranging to kill-off another celebrity and thus depriving you of the plaudits your time on Earth deserved.
Thus when Mother Teresa of Calcutta threw a seven, she had the misfortune to throw it during the official month of mourning afforded to that other living saint, Lady Diana Spencer, Princess of the People’s Hearts and unofficial Patron of the English Rugby Team. Old Ma Treesa didn’t get a look in. The world is only geared up to mourn one deity at a time and the aged nun missed out by a short head.
When the brilliant Ian Carmichael finally curled up his tootsies, you’d have thought he who brought us the celluloid embodiment of Bertie Wooster, who starred in the Trade Union-bashingI’m All Right Jack and thrilled us in School for Scoundrels (the funny one, not the 2006 version starring Billy Bob Thornton) would have warranted page upon page of tributes and gushing obits. Sadly for Ian, Alexander McQueen had recently shuffled off and there wasn’t enough column inches to dedicate to two geniuses [sic] at one time unfortunately and the frock-botherer prevailed.
Now I have nothing against Elizabeth Taylor. If you are a certain generation I’m sure she was the greatest thing since sliced cheese. I’ve seen a few of her movies and she was no more or less wooden than the rest of her fellow actors (I never really got Richard Burton either. How could Mark Anthony have a Welsh accent?). I know Liz won a couple of Oscars and her charity work is legendary. Fair play to her.
But did she ever take 7 wickets for 79 runs against the Australians at Sydney ? Fred Titmus did.
Did Dame Elizabeth ever take 9-52 against Cambridge University at Fenners ? Fed Titmus did.
Did Liz ever lose four toes in a freak boating accident yet the following season take 111 wickets in the season, while at the same time topping his club’s batting averages ? No she didn’t but, incredibly, Fred did that too.
Did Taylor ever open the batting for her country against the West Indies in Barbados, whilst suffering from Bells Palsey and confined to a wheelchair due to chronic gout, nevertheless scoring a half-century in 43 balls including two sixes ? No, neither did Fred, but it would have been a great story.
So while you’re ploughing though the tributes and re-runs of Liz Taylor and nestling down in your armchair to watch the seventeen hours of boredom that is Cleopatra or maybe the drivel that is National Velvet, spare a thought for Fred Titmus, a man who’s career spanned five decades, was a great all-rounder, and had a very fine song written about him.
This is Meryl Streep playing Thatcher in the new bopic The Iron Lady.
According to the press release the film is about “a woman who smashed through the barriers of gender and class to be heard in a male-dominated world. The story concerns power and the price that is paid for power, and is a surprising and intimate portrait of an extraordinary and complex woman.”
As reported in The Guardian, Jim Broadbent plays Denis Thatcher, with Olivia Coleman as their daughter, Carol. Anthony Head is Geoffrey Howe, Richard E Grant plays Michael Heseltine, Julian Wadham is Francis Pym and Michael Pennington Labour leader Michael Foot. Tom Cruise is Colin Moynihan with Samuel L Jackson in a cameo role as Enoch Powell (“there is motherfucking blood in this motherfucking river”). Michael J Fox will play Ronald Reagan but although Jude Law was originally cast as John Major he was dropped when the producers thought his performance may be too wooden for the role. Will Ferrell will play Neil Kinnock. Badly.
Ok, I may have made some of them up and am just being silly. But they started it. Memories are still strong of The Comic Strip‘s “The Strike” when Peter Richardson played Al Pacino playing Arthur Scargill, with Jennifer Saunders playing Meryl Streep playing Scargill’s wife. I would show you a clip, but the wankers at Channel 4 won’t let me embed it, but you can see it youtube. Anyway, I’m not sure this new movie will be quite as funny, but it has all the potential of being a classic. Er…
Please do feel free to tell me what the movie’s like when you go see it. I’m busy that day.
I found myself searching for some music to get myself up and ready for the day ahead, and at the same time commemorate the passing of the great John Barry. I could have chosen the theme from The Persuaders but it didn’t feel quite right. Neither did Dances with Wolves – not really the right mood for a damp morning in Dartford. Perhaps Midnight Cowboy would be more my style ? – there’s certainly a touch of the Ratso Rizzo’s about me this morning. Obviously I’m no Sheen Connolly, so the 007 Theme‘s right out.
So I plumped for the music to the first Harry Palmer movie, The Ipcress File. As a kid I always hoped if I really did have to be a British Secret Service agent, I’d become one like Harry P. and not Mr Bond. He seemed altogether cooler and more straightforward. He made his own breakfast and wore lounge suits not dinner jackets. (I’ve seen me in a dinner jacket – I look like a bloke with a head transplant.) And hopefully I could work with the great Nigel Green and not the truly dreadful Desmond Llewelyn.
Anyway, while I was doing all that I would be humming this theme to myself in preparation for a good day’s spying, a jolly good cup of tea with Nigel, and a quick knee-trembler with Sue Lloyd before she rushed off to star in Crossroads.
And all the while I’d have Mr Barry’s music to whisk me along and keep me out of mischief.
You can bet a pound to a piece of shit that when someone opens a sentence with “No offence but…” they’re about to say something offensive. You can wager your left testicle that if you book Ricky Gervais to host you awards ceremony he’ll say something that someone somewhere will find in poor taste. That’s why you hire him, right ? Apparently not. The US media (aided and abetted manfully by our own wonderful boys in Fleet St) have launched a thermo-nuclear retaliatory strike on the once-weighty wag for his performance at the Golden Globes.
Now personally I find him hilarious, but that’s just my opinion. Looking around the audience it seems that Robert De Niro and Alec Baldwin do too, though Steve Buscemi looks absolutely terrified of what Gervais may say next. And what about Mel Gibson ? Well, who gives a toss what he thinks ?
Are Hollywood’s finest fair game for merciless and personal attacks by someone who, let’s face it, could be described as a one-joke act ? It’s a matter of opinion, I suppose. How may years can one bloke get by with the “Charlie Sheen is a drunk” routine ? Only time or Charlie’s liver will tell. Personally, it makes me laugh. A lot.
The US media went berserk. Gervais was hounded from pillock to post by critics and columnists condemning his act as hurtful, offensive and/or unfunny. All of which is, again, a matter of personal taste and values, but such was the furore it caused Gervais felt it necessary to appear on the Piers Morgan show on CNN to defend himself. It must be a tv first for Morgan not to have been thought of as the biggest git in the room.
Meanwhile, the Golden Globes get huge play in the media, Gervais’s next tour or DVD will break all records and someone somewhere will book him again next year to host an awards ceremony. He’s either very, very funny, or he isn’t. He’s brilliant or a blasphemer. So here’s an unoriginal thought: There’s always the off-button if you don’t like him.
The off-button option is one I’ve been using quite a bit recently. I know I’m not alone in finding the BBC’s Come Fly with Me offensive in the way it portrays various minority groups, but beyond the thinly-veiled racism is the one thing that really offends me: It’s not funny. I mean, really not funny. Even though I pronounced this latest offering from Matt Lucas and David Walliams as rubbish having watched the first show, and having read the outrage from similarly enraged viewers, I decided to give it another go this week – to give it a fair crack.
It was even worse than I recalled. Yes it was still racist but it was even less funny than I gave it credit for. I really tried to give it my best shot, but after fifteen minutes of this tosh I found myself yearning for the blessed relief afforded by my grandfather’s service revolver. Fortunately for the sake of my family and the wallpaper, I chose the off-button instead.
Ooh look, everyone ! A fat, lazy black woman !
I find David Walliams trying at the best of times. When I am King people like him will be detained under my strict Anti-Smug Git laws. Quite what he has to be smug about Allah only knows. His characters are at best weak and predictable, at worst blatantly stolen or copied from elsewhere. There’s nothing wrong with nicking jokes. This site is made up almost entirely of stolen photos, jokes and videos from other sources. If Humphrey Littleton or Tony Hancock were alive today they’d probably sue me for blatant plagiarism (for this piece alone).
But I’d like to think I’d never use crap 70’s sitcom Mind Your Language as a base for my material, let alone pass it off as original. But again there’s that little button at the top of my remote control that lets me turn him off, almost a fast as he turns me off. This show offends me but I’m not compelled to watch it, any more than you’re forced to read this twaddle.
If only messrs Gray and Keys had known where the off-buttons on their microphones were. These two Sky TV football pundits were caught giving their considered opinions on the appointment of a woman to run the line for the weekend’s Wolves vrs Liverpool match.
Who would have thought two middle-aged, old-school soccer experts would express such sexist feeling towards women in the man’s game ? Women’s groups were up in arms. Karen Brady was apoplectic. Suspensions and apologies followed, and between the giggling, private support and wholehearted agreement Fleet Street’s finest gave the Sky boys a proper going over. So everyone’s offended. You hate Ricky Gervais, I can’t abide Matt Lucas. She wants Andy Gray banned, he wants Russell Brand fed to the wolves. And everyone, EVERYONE would like Frankie Boyle stapled up by his goolies.
Light the torches, hand out the wooden stakes and the garlic bullets. Make effigies of Jonathan Ross and burn them on News at Ten. In the name of Mary Whitehouse, Peter Tatchell or all that’s decent and holy let’s rid society of these dreadful, dreadful people.
Alternatively, switch the sodding telly off. If enough people stop watching them they’ll soon go away. My one-man campaign to get Gavin and Stacey off the air has failed miserably because one fewer to the viewing figures doesn’t make a blind bit of difference. But if enough switch off, from Chris Moyles, for instance, one day soon those that offend your ears will be but a distant, uncomfortable memory, like Bernard Manning or Kenny Everett.
My main preoccupation over the past few weeks has been knocking Railway Cuttings into shape in preparation for viewings by prospective tenants. The floors have been scrubbed, the electrics have been fixed, checked and double-checked and anything that needed mending, sticking or nailing down has been mended, stuck and nailed down. Short of a once-over with the roller and whitewash the old place is looking as near as damn it perfect. I’d rent it myself, if I didn’t already own it. Shame really, but them’s the breaks. Times are tough and needs must etc etc. The Potting Shed awaits and with the fiscal climate the way it is, moving home is the best way forward. And as my mates Dave, Nick and Gideon never tire of telling me: We’re all in this together.
This photo has nothing to do with this story. It’s merely to remind you of your enemy. (Osborne is 2nd from right)
Thus far I’ve had 3 couples come to look at the property. The first people were very pleasant indeed. An Asian (possibly Indian) couple who looked over the place, upstairs and down, asked all the right questions, smiled, left and were never heard of again. A little bit of me wanted them to be the ones who rented my house, but I suppose I was just being a little optimistic to rent it out to the first people to come along. And anyway (I told myself later) if the first viewers had said they wanted it I would have kicked myself cos I was obviously asking far too little in rent. It’s like putting a treasured item on eBay, spending an angst-ridden hour deciding carefully on the reserve, then some git swoops in and buys it for the price you asked for. Shit.
Anyway. For a week or two no-one else rang to express any interest in my little place and so now I’m thinking I’m asking too much for the place. Shit shit. I looked online to see what the going rate for a Railway Cutting was, but it seems I’m in a bit of a niche market. It seemed that whatever the price, too high or too low, I wasn’t getting out of here in a hurry.
Then, just before Christmas, some good news. My letting agent told me that he had a couple who really liked what they saw in the ad and wanted to come by and see it the following day. Great ! It was the last business day before the holiday, but that was no problem. The place had a nice Christmassy feel about it. I had a quick hoover round, made myself a cup of coffee (they tell me the smell of fresh coffee is attractive to home-seekers) and settled down in front of Film4 to wait for the potentials to arrive. An hour or so later the doorbell rang. Up I jumped and went to the door to let them in.
“Hello, we’ve come to see the house. The letting agent sent us”
“Oh…..er…hi”. I was blushing. “Just give me two secs will you?”
I sprinted back into the lounge in search of the tv remote. I’d been watching Tora Tora Tora which in a snap judgement I decided wasn’t going to go down well with the two Japanese people on my doorstep. Remote found, crisis averted. They were very nice people too. Though they spent less than ten minutes looking around, and I pretty much knew the house wasn’t for them. But I was content in the knowledge at least I hadn’t upset them with my tv viewing habits. (And before you ask, yes I may be ignorant enough to misjudge their ethnicity but I wasn’t taking any chances.)
Christmas came and went and I was fretting about changing the price of the rent (either up or down) when today, out of the blue, the phone went. It was the agent telling me they had a couple in the office who wanted to come round right away to look at the house. I ran a duster and the mop and bucket around as well as I could, but within minutes the new viewers were at my door.
As I greeted them on the threshold they shook my hand and introduced themselves.
“Hello, I’m Tomas” he said in a thick european accent. “Hi there, I’m Mike”
“Hello I’m Christianne” said the woman”
“Mike. Please, go on through”. Hmmm… Germans, I thought, how very cosmopolitan of me.
We walked through to the lounge, and only then did I remember what I’d been watching on telly. There in full view of all three of us was a particularly lavish battle scene from The Longest Day, blaring out of my tv in the corner of the room. I gave an internal shriek and bounded between them to push the off button on the remote. I’m not sure how much they saw, and I don’t even know if they cared. But I did and I do.
Tomas and Christianne were very nice indeed, and I hope I hear from them again. I have another couple coming round tomorrow. Before they arrive I’ll just ensure ITV isn’t showing The Last of the Mohicans. Well you never know do you?
The Sharp Single 