Category Archives: TV

For Those of You Watching in Black and White…

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Dear old Harry Carpenter. When yesterday I heard of his demise, I immediately thought that he’d died years ago, but that doesn’t mean I wasn’t sad to hear the news. Another part of my childhood snuffs it. Carpenter’s voice was ever-present in our house, commentating as he did on Ali fights (later becoming Frank Bruno‘s straight man), presenting the BBC’s coverage of golf, the tennis (it was only Wimbledon in those days) and the Boat Race. He had one of those friendly, comforting faces who instantly made you feel all warm inside. A bit like Frank Bough without the bondage and coke. Harry also had one on those faces which, like that of Michael Fish and James Burke, never looked how you expected it to look.

So, as I like to honour my boyhood heroes on these pages, I went off to find something suitable to pay tribute to Harry. Where better to start than the bored office-worker’s favourite site, Youtube?

Perhaps someone would have compiled a few minutes of classic Harry quotes? “Oh my god he’s won back the title at the age of 32” stands out in the memory (Ali beats Foreman). “Get in their, Frank!” (Bruno hurts Tyson before being demolished) is another. Indeed those and more were there to watch and enjoy, but I stumbled across this:

Come on, admit it, that felt good, didn’t it? Yes I know it didn’t include much of Harry, but sod that. When was the last time you heard the Sportsnight music? When I played that this afternoon I felt a warm glow all over me. Memories came flooding back: Harry Carpenter, David Coleman, staying up late on a school night, the BBC actually having some sport to show. This was when Sue Barker was half decent at what she was paid to do, Nick Faldo was still on his first wife, most of us in the UK still had black and white televisions and there were just 3 channels on TV. THREE CHANNELS (we pause here for my American friends to stop giggling). Sport on tv in the 70’s and 80’s was something to be treasured cos there wasn’t much of it, and what there was had to share what little bit of airtime there was on offer with other sports, all vying to be seen.

Sportsnight lasted about an hour on a Wednesday night, it’s sister show Grandstand had a 5 hour slot on Saturday afternoons. Fabulous if you loved sport, less so if you didn’t. What we now call narrow band-width meant there was no space for continuous broadcasts. The cricket would share air-time with horse racing and snooker. How did we put up with it? Every half hour we’d have to leave the test match at Lord’s to endure the 3.20 from Haydock, or the final frames of Doug Mountjoy vrs Kirk Stevens. Still at least on the BBC didn’t have adverts, unlike it’s rival over on ITV.

And it had Des Lynham.

ITV’s answer to Grandstand was World of Sport presented by the amiable and skunk-haired Dickie Davies. As I was on my nostalgia quest, I went to look for the theme tune.
I don’t know anyone who admitted to watching it, or at least not regularly, but now wish I had. Just look at this!:

Wow!! All-in wrestling, dog frisbee and log-walking. AND Eric Morecabe !! What a show. What a way to spend your Saturday afternoons. All that plus that haunting middle-eight bars of whistling in the opening music. Maybe I’d misjudged the commercial channel. Had I been too harsh on them ? As the Soviets did to Trotsky, I’d erased all traces of ITV from my childhood memories. So I delved deeper. On to the football highlights.

Everybody quotes tales of trying to watch Match of the Day while your they were supposed to be paying fond attention to the girlfriend, but no-one ever talks about fumblings on the sofa on a Sunday afternoon being interrupted when this came on:

Brian Moore’s The Big Match: ITV’s Sunday highlights show. Nobby Stiles, Ossie Ardiles and Butch Wilkins with hair!! IT WAS THAT LONG AGO !!. And those shorts must have chafed a bit.

I was hooked. GOD, I love Youtube. Where to next?

Now hang on a minute: Get a grip, man, it’s just nostalgia. Worse! It’s nostalgia for ITV shows. Pull yourself together.

Now where were we? Ah yes, football. Now this takes me back, the Beeb’s finest hour. Everybody remembers Italia 90, when we all got behind the English Team’s ultimately futile campaign (apart from the Jocks who got behind the West Germans. They deserve each other). Of all the superb concerts Pavarotti gave, in all the great Opera houses and concert halls of the world, this is what made him a star to millions in the UK.

I’m sorry, Auntie, I’ll never doubt you again. This was the last era when the BBC and especially the Sports Dept reigned supreme. A golden age. A time when their sports presenters and commentators were household names: Harry, Coleman, Lynham, Eddie Wareing, Richie Benaud, Peter O’Sullivan, Barry Davies (“and where were the Germans? and quite frankly, who cares?”), Ted Lowe, David Vine, Raymond Brooks-Ward (“come on David“) Bill McLaren and Dan Maskell. These are the voices, the sources of all knowledge of my youth, (even Tony Gubba who never actually went to a match but commentated on the highlights from a studio hours later).

Will the bloggers of the future be waxing lyrical over the opening titles to Sky’s Soccer AM or Ford Football Special ? Will they be posting clips from Superleague XIII ? I doubt it. They’ll be seeking out tapes of Booker T and the MGs playing Soul Limbo to herald BBC Cricket, or the theme to Pot Black or Formula 1 motor racing (knowing my luck they’re still be showing it).

So sorry, not much about Mr Carpenter in this one. I just got carried away with the music and the memories. Know what I mean, Harry?


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24 Hours from Ulcer

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The train standing at platform 4 is shite

Word has it that the next series of 24 will be filmed in London. Apparently it opens with Jack Bauer boarding a DLR train at Lewisham, heading for the Olympic Stadium. 24 hours later he’s still on it. Jack get’s into a heated argument with a Train Captain (ticket collector, to you and me) over which Zone Stratford is in, and has a difference of opinion with a fat bird who wants the window open. In episode 4 he gets a tad miffed with the bloke sitting next to him who’s iPod is blaring our through his earphones. Ok, it may not be most exciting of series of the popular show, but it’ll be the most realistic. I spent a week on the DLR last Tuesday, at least that’s what it felt like. It has to be the most useless mode of transport, even by London standards. How the fuck they expect to ferry the poor sods who turn up to the 2012 Olympics is beyond me. The sight of Jack Bauer whizzing along at 2 miles an hour, his plans going awry cos there’s no lift service at Pudding Mill Lane is unlikely to give a boost to the ratings.

I say all this, but I’ve never seen a single episode of 24. Neither, come to think of it, have I ever watched Lost or Prison Break, or MadMen, or Heroes or CSI…oh I could go on.Twin Peaks, Hill Street Blues, or Spooks or Thirty Something or Curb Your Enthusiasm. I have tended not to tie myself into any of these long series as I’ve never been confident I’ll be sitting in front of the TV at the same time every week to watch the next episode. There are places which serve beer which tend to be open when these shows are aired and they tend to jump out on me on the way home from work.

I have resisted the temptation to tape them as I’ve never enjoyed the pressure that puts you under. Falling behind for a one or two episodes then trying to watch them the night before the next one is shown on TV is stressful, and all the time your colleagues in the office have water cooler chats about the fantastic ending to last night’s show. Trying to go a whole day or two without hearing what happened in the episode(s) you’ve missed: Now that’s real pressure. (Anyone remember The Likely Lads “England F… ” episode?)

Don't nod off, Stanley, CSI is on in a minute

Pre-digi days there’d be piles of VHS videos under the telly with stuff I’d recorded but never gotten round to watching. Piles of 4-hour tapes (8 hours worth of longplay, if you like the quality of playback to simulate watching tv through a sock) with badly scribbled then crossed out labels, reading LIVE AID, DO NOT ERASE (that one was stolen from out of my car in a pub car park), or HOW THE WEST WAS WON (LP) . Or unlikely combinations of viewing as you filled up any blank tape space you had: ZULU/ENGLAND vrs FRANCE W.CUP SEMI F/O.G.WHITSLE TEST/TUC CONF. 1989. There they’d sit, with their tatty white stickers, clogging up the tv cabinet or the bookshelves, never likely to be removed from the shelf until I needed to tape over them again (always remembering to put some sellotape over that clip in the corner I’d broken off to protect them.)

Not much has changed now that I’ve gone all hi-tech and TiVo-fied. I’ve got 30 hours of stuff to watch stored on my TV’s hard drive, plus the whole of the last series of In The Thick of It, (which is the exception that proves my rule as I did make it home to watch all of those.). 30 hours worth! That’s 14 movies. I’ll never get round to watching them, cos every day something else is released so I go onto Amazon and buy that, then something else is shown on TV one night which I’ll record , never watch that either and the backlog just gets longer and longer.

Did I remember to Videoplus the snooker?

But having said all that I find myself believing, and saying “I have nothing to watch”. How come? Well, a couple of years ago the Incumbent, bless her, bought me (us) the box set of The West Wing. We devoured it, were obsessed. We lived The West Wing, we breathed The West Wing, we ate West Wing sandwiches. We quite liked it. What’s more, we could watch it at our own pace. One a week. One a month. Eight in a day. As many we wanted to watch WHENEVER we wanted to watch them. Being a good few years since the show ended on TV, there were no colleagues in the office discussing last night’s episode. It was sensational telly and we didn’t want it to end. Then it did. Bugger.

So what to watch now ? I had this collection of films I’d taped and had never watched, but I couldn’t be arsed to see them now. There was this show which everyone was talking about called The Wire. “Oh I can’t believe you don’t watch it, Mike” they would say. “You’d really like it Mike”.
“Listen” said I, ” I’ll tell YOU what I like and what I don’t, thankyouverymuch”. I dug my heels in, I refused to join their gang. Two months after the last episode of the last series finished, we bought the box set of the whole 5 seasons.

I'll tell you something, bro, I haven't understood a fucking thing you've said in 3 seasons

Fuck me. What a show. It was and is the best thing ever to be made for telly. Sensational. All-day-long sessions watching Avon Barksdale, Stringer Bell, Omar Little and the rest were completely compelling. I just wanted there to be another 5 seasons. But there wasn’t. So, after that had finished I conned Mrs B into watching Band of Brothers with me (I’d seen it before, but I could watch in on a loop), telling her it wasn’t about war but about people. To my surprise she now thinks THAT’S the best show ever made. I’ll never work em out. Finally, this January we started on the Sopranos box set. That’s a bloody good watch too, and another that no-one can believe I’d never seen before. Oh well, I have now, alright? so shuddup!

Now there’s a vacuum, a void in my viewing schedule. The Pacific (Band of Brothers with palm trees) is launched on Sky Movies soon. I won’t be watching, for all the reason’s stated above (and I don’t have Sky Movies). I shall pre-order the whole set from Amazon and try to survive til then. But I will need something to get my teeth into while I wait. It’ll probably be MadMen, it won’t be Lost. Maybe Kiefer Sutherland armed only with an Oystercard, stuck on a train at Deptford Bridge is my only option. Unless I watch The Wire again. Or Phoenix Nights. Or World at War, or…

Return to Stratford, please

Norton Your Nelly

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The dreaded Eurovision Song contest will again soon be upon us. Once Terry Wigon decided he’d had enough of the block voting, any fun to be had pretty much disappeared. I freely admit to spending many a happy Saturday night each spring, chuckling away to the wit n wisdom of Terry as he ripped in to the acts, their costumes, and their dreadful, dreadful songs. For the past few years it has been presented on the BBC by Terry’s fellow Irishman and reluctant celebrity Graham Norton. Eurovision is a poor imitation of its former self.

We can thank the competition for ABBA, and rue the day it introduced the world to Riverdance and the morbidly offensive Michael Flately. The music has always been biblically average, the fashions tragic, and the judging makes FIFA or the IOC seem positively fair and above board. The Russia/Ukraine dynamic will be worth a watch at the very least this year. But none of this really ever mattered as Wogan was as cutting and funny on commentary as Norton isn’t. With the correct amount of Guinness, single malt whisky, chicken dansak and convivial company a Eurovision party was a great source of ironically camp mirth and merriment. And you could always run a book on the outcome while giggly along to Terry’s witty, if mildly xenophobic banter. Norton likes making himself laugh, which he does a lot, but laughing out of context is no real substitute for his predecessor’s class.

Of course to some sections of society it still is one the highlights of the year. The ESC is, rather unsurprisingly, hugely popular in within the gay community. A pal of mine (a confirmed batchelor) runs an extraordinarily popular blog dedicated to Eurovision, which tens and tens of thousands of people visit to find out everything they ever wanted or needed to know about the song contest. Now while I’m not suggesting that everyone who clicks onto that site catches the other bus (I just clicked on it for research purposes, honestly) it’s clear that there is a huge appetite out there for this mincing wince-fest.

The newly-admitted eastern European states have embraced the contest with their huge hairy arms as a chance to express themselves. Where once they only had the excitement of annual Soviet Bloc cabbage-throwing competitions or acid rain drinking contests, Eurovision has given them the chance to show the watching millions how their prog rock and endless folk ditties can compete with the worst that Europe has to offer.

Over in Ireland it’s as eagerly awaited as The World Cup, the Second Coming of the Lord, or the Third Cumming of a Catholic Priest. The Irish have had their share of success over the years (certainly more than they’ve had in soccer or rugby) and to win the contest sends yer average Dubliner into fits of orgasmic delight. Heaven only knows how Gay Irishmen react to a win. Kleenex and change of underwear all round, I would think.

So no, it won’t be on my must-view list this year, I’m afraid. I’m not Irish, I’m ball-breakingly hetrosexual, there’ll be no Sir Terrance W and no song this year (or any other) will ever match My Lovely Horse. They really should have entered it, you know.

Big it up for Channel 4 who won’t let me embed the Father Ted video, but you can see it here.

and now a word from our sponsor…

DOUZEADVERTS

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And The Winner Isn’t (Original Screenplay)

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Scrolling through the list of nominees for this year’s Academy Awards it dawns on me just how few movies I’ve been to see over the past 12 months. I saw Up on a plane and Hurt Locker on DVD. Although a huge movie fan, I’ve always shied away from going to the cinema, preferring to wait til the DVD release. Yes, I’m fully aware that films were made to be watched on the big screen, but a trip to the flicks has always been a less than underwhelming experience for me.

Whatever The Drifters may think, Saturday Night at the Movies was a miserable, wasted night. I could never get comfortable, movie houses having a penchant for packing you in, in rows of seats with airliner leg-room. You couldn’t get a beer (well not in the UK anyway), which means 2 1/2 hours of your weekend wasted, and I always manage to sit in front of someone annoying bastard from one of the following categories:
1. He’s seen the movie before and would give his mates/girlfriend a commentary of the film, using helpful phrases like “oh, this is a good bit” or reciting the upcoming line 2 seconds before it was delivered.
2. He’s bought out the concessions stand in the foyer and would rustle and chomp his way through the whole movie, right in your ear hole.
3. Him and his missus are copulating throughout the film with the accompanying squeaks, giggles and groans being very off-putting. And it’s even worse if the couple happen to be sitting in front of you. A silhouetted head bobbing up and down in the row in front of me once made me miss every third frame of Schindler’s List
4. He laughs heartily at every single gag in the movie, as if he was the scriptwriter.
5. He’s pissed, so all of the above could apply.

And before you tell me that multiplexes now have huge sofas and bars with proper food and drinks served to you, it’s too late. The die has been cast, and anyway it’ll still be full of gits.

Ah! That's more like it

No, even for one with such tolerance for and love of my fellow man, I prefer to watch my films at home from the comfort, peace and quiet of my own sofa, where the only sound is the door of the fridge opening when the Incumbent opens another couple of beers.

It’ll be the first time in ten years that I won’t be participating in TIME magazine‘s Oscar Sweep, where we’d predict/guess who will win which category. But seeing as I’ve watched very few movies this year my chances of winning would be, at best, minimal. Although some of the awards they hand out are so obscure that it’s a complete lottery anyway (who makes notes on their favourite Writing from an Adapted Screenplay ? Certainly not that girl sitting in the row in front of me blowing her boyfriend)

So when the time comes I will be hoping that Hurt Locker romps home with the award for Best (Only)Nominated Picture Seen by Me This Year and UP walks away with Best Animated Feature shown by Oman Air Last November.

Obviously we’ll all be biting our nails, hoping Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen wins in the category of Sound Mixing.

Say it with Socks

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Whilst trying not to get carried away with the whole marketing con-fest of Valentines Day, the Incumbent and I did exchange gifts on the day, as token of our affection for each other. I bought her a pair of socks and she, in an obvious bid for another term in office, bought me a bottle of Lagavulin. Seemed like a fair swap to me. It’s my favourite brand of whisky, and she gets cold feet. And never underestimate the aphrodisiac properties of a good pair of thermal socks. Or is that overestimate?.

One thing I’ve leaned over the years: whatever I buy her for Christmas, Birthday or other occasions, she will always best me in the forking-out department. They do that to you, women. Clever bastards.

As chuffed as I was with a bottle of Scotland’s finest malt, I felt a bit deflated. What I really wanted was one of those chairs. You know the ones I mean. The Mogul Chairs. You must have seen them this weekend when watching the yawnathon that is the Vancouver Winter Olympics ? Competitors in the Freestyle Skiing event, get to the bottom of the hill and if they are in a medal position they get to sit in one of three huge comfy chairs and watch the rest of the field come in. If someone then comes in and posts a faster time, he or she then gets to rest his bum in the apposite seat, while the previous holder of that position either moves one seat down or buggers off into non-comfy-chair anonymity.

This is proving to be much more entertaining than the ‘sport’ itself. Just watch the devastated faces of those who were holding onto the bronze medal, only for someone to come in with a better time. “ I don’t wanna get up! I’ve just got settled”

I’m not sure if all the events at the Olympics have comfy chairs at the end of course. The luge organisers have surely got to come up with an alternative to their original idea of scaffolding poles, broken glass and razor wire at the bottom of the run. Someone could hurt themselves on that! But it’ll obviously be their own fault if they do.

Hold on for a moment… … … sorry… … … ahem … … excuse me … … it’s very hard to remain composed when I watch Jacques Rogge (a right Belgium Count) get his onion out of his handbag and mock-blub at that news conference the other day. Sweet baby Jesus, what is the world coming to. Alastair Campbell , Gordon Brown, now Jacques Rogge CRYING !!! Who’s next? Sepp Blatter? That really would be a full set of crying crooked Counts.

No Hammer, Just a House of Horrors

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In a rare moment of sobriety this weekend I decided to do a few jobs around the house. Nothing major, you understand, just a few little bits that needed doing. I’ve never been Mr.D.I.Y for several reasons : I’m crap at it; I’m a lazy little bastard; there’s something I wanna watch on telly; Dad will do it for me; I can pay a mate / local tradesman to do it for me. But times being as they are with the piggy-bank being empty, I need to forget my lack of enthusiasm for or skill with a screwdriver, drill or hammer, act like a man, get off my arse and do it.

I limbered up with a doorknob. That’s not something I’d admit to in public, but nevertheless it’s true. I’ve had to open my kitchen door with a teaspoon ever since the knob fell off a few weeks ago. The spoon makes a good jemmy, and doesn’t scratch the paint. I have gotten quite used to it. It even has it’s own little home on top of the heater beside the door and The Incumbent has pronounced it all to be ‘funny’ as opposed to it being a pain in the arse . But what with the imminent arrival of Mum , who will not see the funny side of it, and having invited some pals round next weekend for beer and curry, I knew I had to get my act together. Railway Cuttings is no mansion, no show-home, but it’s a slippery slope down to Trampsville when you have to open doors with cutlery. Next stop: J-cloths as reusable toilet paper. I don’t wanna go there again.

Two squirts of ‘No More Nails’ later and my two new knobs were affixed (one each side of the door, DO keep up!). What was dad thinking of, using screws and nails and things ? This is the future of DIY!. Yes, yes I realise they’ll last about ten days. I realise this stuff isn’t quite the miracle cure for sticking everything they tell us it is, but once the guests have left and my knob falls off I’m happy to go back to the spoon. (God this is thrilling stuff! Dick Francis ??? Pah!) Encouraged by my success, I moved on to repairing the curtains. This too seemed to go swimmingly, with the aid of another ‘labour-saving’ device, some iron-on adhesive tape ( a bit like Wonderweb- the batchelor’s friend). “End Curtain-Sticking Misery Now ” Why get out the needle and thread when there’s stuff like this on the market ? Back of the net!. (continued after this advert)

Wales Rugby T-shirt

As I knelt on the floor, ironing two halves of some purple curtains together I wondered if this was the sort of thing that other male icons such as Humphrey Bogart or David Niven would be doing on a Saturday afternoon ? Try as I could to convince myself they would, deep down I suspected not. They would be doing something far more mundane: A glass of scotch on the porch while shooting tigers, a quick fumble with the missus (or somebody else’s missus) on the polar-bear rug, then off to play poker all-night with the guys in some smokey bar, Claudia Cardinale draped around their shoulders, vodka martinis coming our of their ears. Hmmmm…………

I was deamily immersed in my thoughts, all the time making sure my seams were straight, when suddenly I was roused by the unmistakable of a wooden doorknob hitting a veneered floor : ‘Clunk’, followed by the unmistakable sound of an annoyed bloke. ‘Oh Bollocks !!. The Incumbent, bless her, did her best not to titter. I had to leave the ‘no more cotton’ activity on the floor and return to the ‘No More Nails’ scenario in the kitchen. I refused to be defeated by this fucking doorknob, even if I had to go down the path of ‘Some More Nails’.

A mere several hours passed and both jobs were finished. The curtains were back on their rods and, if you sit in just the right position (and ignore where the glue is already coming unstuck) they’re looking magnificent, if a little pissed in places (as oft am I). In the kitchen, the knobs are stuck securely to the door, as long as you don’t touch them. Apparently, the trick is to hold them in place for 35 minutes while the adhesive dries and hardens. I might as well have used my own faeces. Next time it’s hammer and nails time.

Tomorrow I’m fixing a heater to a wall in the hallway. Or maybe I’ll get my dad to do it.

Catching 40 Winks in the Rye

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I wasn’t going to write about the death of J.D.Salinger. Surely enough has been written? (and he never bothered to leave a comment on these pages). But then I thought I could perform a great service for anyone tempted to read him for the first time following the acres of copy written after his demise. Mr Salinger was a renowned American author, though for many of us, perhaps moreso on this side of the pond, I suspect his name first came into our consciousness via the reported antics of juvenile assassins and teenage mass-murderers.

When I was but a surly youth it seemed that you couldn’t turn on the evening news without someone having been shot down by the NYPD or similar for killing some celebrity such as Lennon or McCartney (well,you can dream) or instigating the massacre of a whole commune of cultish (spellcheck please) and religious nutcases somewhere in the Great American Midwest. Time and time again it seemed that the doers of these dreadful deeds appeared to have read Salinger’s novel The Catcher in the Rye before they decided to pull the trigger.

A conveyor belt of judges and jurors were subjected to the flimsy defence of surviving adolescent would-be murderers, blaming Rye for tipping them over the edge, such was it’s subject matter. It’s touted as a book with “themes of teenage confusion, angst, alienation and rebellion”.Read this book, so the theory went, and you’d immediately develop a hatred of tutors, teachers and authority figures everywhere.

“That sounds the very thing for me!” thought a young me, who had already started grooming his black puppy. So I bought myself a copy of the book, fully expecting to turn into an axe-wielding homicidal maniac. There were a few teachers at school who deserved to be vapourised, and this sounded like the very accelerant I needed.

My targets, however, were saved by one small yet important fact : The Catcher in the Rye is a bag of old shite. It is THE dullest collection of self-important ramblings ever written (and I’ve read The Daily Mail). It IS , honest. There I was, aching for an excuse to end it all, and as far as I’m concerned it’s a cure from insomnia. The only people I wanted to kill after reading it were Salinger, his agent and his publisher. I may be wrong about this, but I doubt it. Feel free to tell me otherwise.

If you really want to get angry or depressed, or dabble in a spot of murder why not ingest a tome by Elizabeth Gilbert? Her brand of sickly shit chick-lit has already landed her a movie contract for the dramatisation of her first great work Eat Love Pray, a piece of celluloid sewage soon to be at a movie theatre far away from me, and starring Julia Roberts (shame on you). It’s another example of the creeping crud that is blighting all our lives. Let’s strangle this bollocks at birth.

If on the other hand you don’t live your life through Desperate Housewives or Bridget Jones, and would like to rebel against this post-feminist, Spice Girl/Anna Wintour/Alpha Female fuckfest which is infesting our arts and media (and would enjoy having a wee titter along the way) can I suggest you look no further than the magnificent drinkcursehate.wordpress.com. It’s a website written by three blokes who want to live as blokes in the world they thought they were growing up into during the 70’s, not as the cowering, emasculated sheep which a diet of Sex in the City, Strictly Come Shopping or Eat Love Pray would have them be. It hopes to be the antidote to Marie Claire and the Mail on Sunday. You might like it. Especially if you happen to be a fella.

Finally, a little self-congrats: Happy 1st Anniversary, The Sharp Single. Who said it’d never last? Tell your friends, tell your enemies, tell anyone with money who might want to pay me money to write this kind of rubbish.

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Bada Bing, Bada Bank

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One Saturday afternoon recently, I was sitting on the sofa, happily watching an old episode of The Sopranos (you know the one: the episode in which Carmella cooks something, Christopher and Paulie Walnuts shoot someone, and Tony shags his mistress). We’re wading thru the box set which The Incumbent gave me for Christmas, and we were engrossed. However, my enjoyable afternoon of gratuitous sex, Mafia hitmen and Italian home cooking was soon interrupted.

Ring Ring, Ring Ring (that’s my telephone impression)

“Hello?”
“Hello, Mr Bealing?”
“Yes?”
“It’s Malcolm, your account manager from the bank”
My heart sank. He’d been trying to get hold of me for weeks, and I’d been evading him. He was new to the branch, and therefore to me, and so I’d agreed to go down to the bank to meet him. Two things I learned during that meeting: 1) All my financial worries would be gone if I made a few simple adjustments to my lifestyle and account; 2) Malcolm was about 16 years old (or at least looked it) and with all the enthusiasm for life that I had when I was that age (yes, honest).
I knew what this phone call was about. He wanted to talk to me about my mortgage.
“I’d like to talk about your mortgage, Mr Bealing” (told you).
“Ah, ok Malcolm, but I first want to let you know that for training purposes this call may be recorded”.
That confused him.
“Pardon !?”
“Now,” I continued, “Can you tell me your date of birth and your mother’s maiden name?”.
“Er…no, Mr Bealing,” he laughed, a little nervously “I’m supposed to ask you that”.
“Oh, Ok then” I said in mock indignation. “Does seem a little odd, though: I’m trusting you with my money and I have to prove my identity to you ! You see what I mean? Arse-about-face, isn’t it?”
“Er..no, not really, Mr Bealing.”he snapped.
‘Hmmmm…big mouth for a little bloke’ I thought to myself. ‘He may pay for that snap.’

To cut a long story just a tiny bit shorter, we arranged to meet at my home (yes, that’s what I thought) at my home the following week, one night after school. That night soon arrived:
“Ding dong” (see, I do all of them) I opened the door and was confronted my young Malcolm and someone I presumed was his dad. It looked like “Chris and Paulie- The Early Years”. But it wasn’t Malcolm’s dad, it was my “Financial Adviser”.
“I didn’t know I had one”I said
“Well I’m the financial adviser for the branch”came the reply. “ Malcolm thought there might be a few services you could benefit from.” This was turning into an organised hit.

For the next two hours (count ‘em, TWO hours) I was told my account was in a mess, my loan was killing me, I was paying too much for my mortgage, I had no insurance in case of sickness, no Will in case of death and my coffee was shit. None of this was a problem, apparently: I’d remortgage for a larger amount, including the money I would pay my current mortgage-lender as the early-release penalty fee. Apparently I’d save that in interest within two years. All that means I’d be about 300 quid-a-month better off. Bada Bing!! Bye Bye overdraft!!!

But, (and aye, here’s the rub), they recommended I took out sickness insurance to protect that mortgage and other bills (£117) up my contents insurance (£60) and use their Will-writing service at a fee of 100 of your British Pounds.

Two hours came and went, in which time I’d read reams and reams of paperwork and forms (my very favourite), listened to lots of chat I didn’t understand, and agreed to sign up to Mr Walnut’s various insurance schemes. I would, I was told, be getting calls from the mortgage dept, the will dept and a nurse from the insurance company. They left, off to find a decent cup of Kenco no doubt.

SHARPSINGLEPIEADI took a call from the nurse at 9 am Saturday morning:

Pause. (I had the phone on silent)

We went thru a rather probing medical questionnaire which took 45 minutes to complete, and I answered as honestly as I could. I couldn’t remember if I went for a jog 3 or 4 times-a-week so I said 5; Only drank mineral water  — that sort of thing. You get the picture.
No sooner had I replaced the receiver when the mortgage girl (named Kelly) called me. This call took an hour, either side of a 45 minute interval when her computer crashed. More bankspeak which I didn’t understand, but we got there in the end. It was all over by noon and she said she’d call me early the following week and send out the offer toute-de-suite.
The Will people called yesterday. Took the girl at the other end 20 minutes to tell me she was sending me a form.

This morning at work I received a call from Kelly, the mortgage girl. Having established my D.O.B., password and favourite pet’s middle name she told me my application for a mortgage had been rejected.
“What????”I blurted, café latte dribbling down my chin.
“I’m afraid your account has not had sufficient funds in it several times over the last quarter” she said
“I know that” I spluttered “that’s because I’m paying too much for my current mortgage”
“ I will let Malcolm know, I’m sure he’ll call you”
“But this was his idea!! He came to ME and suggested the whole thing!” I was winding up.
“hmmm… oh well, that’s a shame. But we won’t grant mortgages to those who go over their limit within the last three months”
“but he has my account. He handles my account. He knew I’d been overdrawn. I’ve spent hours with him and his mate and this was their plan to get me out of trouble. I’ve answered all your questions, most of which I didn’t understand. You’ve wasted Hours of my life!!!”
“I’m sorry about that, Mr Bealing” said Kelly “ but the bank doesn..”
CLUNK. That’s my impression of me slamming the phone down on poor Kelly.
Two minutes later I picked up the receiver and called the insurance company nurse and suggested a few anatomically impossible acts which he might like to perform with his questionnaire. Then, after I threatened to cut his hands off, he agreed not to make me an offer I couldn’t refuse.

Then I booked an appointment with my therapist.

But waddya gonna do?


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