We have bought Penny, our cat, a new litter tray. It has baffled her. It is much bigger and much deeper than her previous tray and, although she's given it a slight inspection and hopped in and out, she doesn't appear to want to use it. I am bracing myself for a dining room floor full of cat faeces tomorrow morning. I will discover it, no doubt, as I step into it all barefoot. She doesn't care the we have spent money on the upgrade. She would prefer to use her old tray, which had been soiled to a 'whathefuarewegonnadowithis?' level of disgust. Penny is a peculiar cat. She has thumbs and can pick pens, pencils and Wrigley's chewing gum up. She waits until we are watching her before ripping big threads out of the carpet and sofa. When she needs attention, she punches M in the eye.

Pizza for tea. I watched the delivery man pull up outside and then the phone rang, so I had to dash upstairs to answer it. When I picked up, it was the delivery man, who claimed he couldn't find our street. Had to tell him he had found it and was actually parked outside the house that was waiting for pizza. All very strange. And, when he'd laughed about how silly it all was, he drove off. And minutes later I realised that several parts of the order were missing. Grrrrr.

When I was in the bath getting scrubbed up for Harrogate I ducked under the water and realised that you can hear a train coming a good five minutes before you can hear it when your head is above water. Which is an absolutely pointless discovery unless you happen to be in a bath that's been chained to a rail track.

posted by dave - 9:36 pm


Tuesday, March 30, 2004
Got news on the date and venue for The Worst Seat In The House. I have been deemed a big enough draw to occupy a 9pm Friday slot at Hull Truck. Ever so slightly scary. We discussed a need to head to the sun to write the thing and with any luck we'll be booking a hol tomorrow. This is one shot that I don't want to mess up and I'm already planning the tour and accompanying book. Quite what form the piece will be in is anyone's guess, but I'd like to think that, in all modesty, it'll be the highlight of the Humber Mouth. Have three months before performance and, as I'm in the bloody thing, want to get it written well in advance to allieviate too much nervous mess in my pants. I'm a very busy bee at the moment, what with plays and one-man shows and possible career moves. Hope I'm not spreading myself too thin. But, as M says, the world is my lobster.

Life changing event tomorrow that's got me panicking: Trip to Harrogate.

posted by dave - 2:54 pm


Monday, March 29, 2004
So, Birmingham's 'Milan' Indian restaurant (yes, it's true. Whatever next? French cuisine at 'Guadalajara'? Dim Sum in the cosy surroundings of 'Le Macclesfield'?). I have never felt quite as insulted as a diner as I was here. Ok, so we didn't make a reservation and should think ourselves lucky that they squeezed us in at short notice. But we did hear them say, "we're very busy" and did all we could to be speedy diners. It's not our fault that the three course veggie banquet took a while to prepare. We didn't hang about. And I asked for the bill before we'd slurped down the last of our coffee. But I wasn't quite prepared for the "Right, now, can you leave now because this table has been booked" as my credit card was returned, with no sign of an after-dinner mint anywhere. So, next time you're in Birmingham, avoid heading to the 'Milan' quarter.

The Hotel Du Vin, though, where we stayed, is well worth a look into. And the room, with its massive bed and funky bathroom, certainly had the 'wow' factor. It's only on free trips like this that I enjoy being a member of Her Majesty's press corps. I've never seen such an impressive shower, nor been in such a deep bath. Oh yes, it was an incredibly hygienic stay, which is what you'd expect when your hotel is located in a former eye hospital. And no loose eyes anywhere, which was a real bonus. I'm absolutely certain that we had the worst car of all residents. And I wish I'd cleaned it inside and out before handing over the keys to have it taken to the car park. We must look a cut above because they tried to palm us off with a Jaguar as we checked out. Never have the words, "oh, no, it's a Toyota Yaris" sounded so out of place.

posted by dave - 10:52 am


Sunday, March 28, 2004
Phew. That was great. We've just got back from Birmingham. Yes, yes, I know. Dirty, tower-block 'n' concrete 'n' motorway junctioned Birmingham. But we had an ace time. Phew. Plush hotel with a 'serious' shower. Insults from the proprietor of an Indian restaurant called, for a reason that would baffle the residents of New Delhi, 'Milan'. And a top time in chocoholics anonymous drop-in centre Cadbury World. Phew. M is faux-annoyed that we didn't purchase the photo of us that was taken inside a Noddy-style Bean Car in Cadabra. It's not everyday that you get to experience such a wild experience as that!

posted by dave - 7:32 pm


Friday, March 26, 2004
Ah, so, here I am. Redrafting my play. Only I'm not, of course. I'm burning CDs, I'm listening to CDs, I'm surfing the net, I've even put in a load of washing and I'm contemplating pushing the hoover around a bit. And I'm writing this. Such is the art of the redraft. Have had very little time to think of the play, really. My daytime job and travelling gobble up huge chunks of the day and a bit of the night.
So, Trolleys. Where do I start? Have decided not to 'expand the metaphor' and will, instead, be adding a bit more meat to the bone. In the critique it was suggested that we don't know who is telling the story, where they are telling it from and why they are telling it. The old who, where, why of theatreland. Here's me, a man influenced more by Spike Milligan than any playwright that ever existed, pondering on if we ever knew who, where or why the Goons bothered. Was it Bluebottle, Eccles or Neddie? It was neither, was it, because the perspective forever revolved. You know, the way it often does when you write a story that involves more than one person. And, unless you live in a one-dimensional universe, life, to paraphrase that font of all wisdom that is Avril Lavigne, is like that. I have Gage, a supermarket manager, Marco, a pimp, Gale, a prostitute, and a trolley attendant to pick from. Think we can rule out the last one. Maybe there will be an all-seeing eye...
Anyway, the story belongs to Gage. And his it will be. Nick suggests putting him in jeopardy, which I sort of hinted at in the first draft but it got lost in the gush of daftness. Gage is, like a lot of men in authority, a raging sexist who can't relate to women. And he will have got himself in serious bother with a woman at the play's start and this will drive the plot.
Nick adds that he is unsure about the objectification of women in the first draft. To which I would retort, it is the artists job to shock, and real art is shocking. It is not the male writers job to write from a woman's perspective (you can do, of course, but you're still a man). Yes, there is some nasty treatment of women. But that is how many men treat women. If a mostly daft play packed with nonsense and cartoon moments also makes a pertinent point about behaviour that has been stealthly accepted in 'society' (I hate that word) - because if you saw what Marco does to Gale in a street in the real world - the one I live in - you wouldn't intervene, you would just walk on with your head down - then that's a job well done methinks. That real threat (albeit on stage) that everything is about to tip over the edge, that the conventions of social behaviour are highly fragile, is vital to what I do. I want people to think, oh, this is weird, and then feel very, very uncomfortable (yeah, yeah, yeah, Brecht bla bla bla) and unsure that their reaction is, in itself, appropriate behaviour. Anyway, must get on!

Have heard many tales about waste products falling from aeroplanes. I feel that we have experienced a 'near miss' in this department. A huge chunk of ice dropped in front of the car this morning. It came out of the sky without warning. Cripes.

posted by dave - 12:28 pm


Thursday, March 25, 2004
The mentality of a newspaper editor. This is the kind of nonsense that drives the power crazy:

"..a very encouraging figure...we gained approx 8,000 copies last year from the first three days of the war in Iraq...

...The death of a Hull man in a bomb blast in Iraq, for which we produced a Breaking News Edition, resulted in an extra 1,500 sales."

no, i can't fucking believe it either.

Ah, Lenny Bruce. I listened to an old radio programme about him on the journey in this morning. The original Bill Hicks, the daddy of contemporary stand-up. The man whose downfall was using the word 'cocksucker' when a representative from the DA's office was sitting in the audience. And then they made up some stuff about him supplementing his use of the word 'cocksucker' with a 'masturbatory gesture'. Come on! And then he was found guilty. And couldn't get a gig. And died of an overdose. And his guilty conviction was overturned two years later. Cocksuckers.

Sometimes I wake up and can't quite figure out how to piece myself back together. Sometimes I feel like I'm fading away. And other times it's okay.

posted by dave - 10:49 am


Wednesday, March 24, 2004
Have received a full-blown critique of Off Their Trolleys, which is a play about supermarkets. Sort of. And how have to set about putting it right. Have been doing much thinking about what I can do about plot as it needs a bit more 'business'. Getting feedback was great tho I fear that the man that gave it now knows my work better than I do. Quite how I'll find the time to redraft this between all the driving I do is anyone's guess. And this weekend we're off for fun in Birmingham, so there's no time free then. But have told the man that needs to know that he can see what I've done by Monday. "No, email it Tuesday, I'm not in Monday," he said, as if emails disappear when you're not there to collect them. There is lots to do with Off Their Trolleys, though am not in total agreement about all the feedback. If I do all that is asked it will be a different beast. So will probably meet them halfway and see where we go from there. Am not interested in writing something that's like something else, because there's enough of that already. Theatre is, in my experience of sitting in it once or twice a week, mostly boring. Great big swathes and chunks of dialogue is dull. Plots are obvious. It's time it was interesting. And if that means making it more like a televisual experience, then so be it. Life is a series of vignettes, not a cleverly constructed comedy or tragedy with too many doors. lets not forget that.

In car entertainment: Beck's Mellow Gold

posted by dave - 11:43 am


Tuesday, March 23, 2004
There is a wonderful middle-east style tension at work today. i guess every office has a patronising, loud, obnoxious imbecile with all the intelligence of a half-bitten peanut. No, it's not me. Anyway, said person is upsetting several others as I tinker with my blog. I was thinking yesterday that there are some people who go about their lives unable to say anything interesting/funny/all of the above ever. How on earth could you get through a day knowing that you're like that? But, I suppose, you don't know it. There should be a war on the humourless. The humourless should be assassinated Sheikh Ahmed Yassin-style. Apropos of which, who would have thought that a 67-year-old halfblind, almost wholly paralysed Sheikh could pose such a threat to Israel? All together now, don't you know, we're on the eve of destruction. The world has indeed gone mad.

posted by dave - 11:15 am


Monday, March 22, 2004
Our neighbour, Liz, appears to have walked off the set of League of Gentlemen. I am expecting Steve Pemberton to wipe off the make-up and clamber out of her one day, during an inane conversation about how her fence blew down and how the cyst on her back is ripe for burtsing. "I saw Dr Mancy. Dr Mancy said, Liz, you're a medical miracle. When we saw the size of that cyst we thought you'd have gone by Christmas. And look at you. Healthier than ever." Apart from the oozing cyst on her back, that is. What a man returning from eight hours of work and a 1 1/2 hour drive in heavy traffic doesn't need is a woman talking about the cyst on her back, quickly followed by an "ooh, you'll be ready for your tea now." I'd rather live next door to Papa Lazarou. At least you know where you are with him.

posted by dave - 8:03 pm


Sunday, March 21, 2004
Holly failed to notice that I said hello to her the other day. I refuse to say it to her again for fear of being bombarded with requests...

It's been a while since I went to one of those oddly British 'family gathering' style Sunday events like the one I enjoyed today. And when I say enjoyed, I mean it. It was fun and M's family are a nice bunch of people, very chatty and good at making a shy boy like me feel at home. I did feel like something of an observer for a big chunk of it. But, then, that's what I'm like wherever I am. Watch out for the new Mike Leigh-Secrets and Lies-style play, Afternoon at Anne's, which will reveal all.

What's a boy supposed to do on Mothering Sunday? Take round a box of choccies, or a bunch of flowers? Perhaps take her out for a meal? Lavish her with treats? Or take her to a game of rugby league? Yes, that's right, I opted for the latter. Such is the open-minded joi de vivre of my old mum that she loved every minute of the rather lopsided 46-4 victory that Hull FC enjoyed over the London Broncos. She enjoyed the hospitality on offer in the executive area of the KC Stadium. She marvelled at the amount of women in attendance. And was thrilled to discover that stadia in the 21st century contain elevators. Next year am thinking of taking her to Xscape, the indoor adrenalin sports centre in Castleford. Am certain she'll be up for that.

posted by dave - 9:58 pm


Saturday, March 20, 2004
I scored 50 out of 75 in the BBC's Test The Nation general knowledge fandango. That puts me in the 'brilliant' bracket. Apparently, I am a Great Briton. I am ashamed. But not as ashamed as M, who is now claiming to be an anti-monarchist, anti-establishment gal to cover up for the obvious gaps in her Catholic school education (I have been forbidden from publishing her poor score). Scott managed 23, "a good try". It's probably more than that - he's only 11.

posted by dave - 5:05 pm


Friday, March 19, 2004
Saw the Luc Delahaye exhibition in Bradford. Not much to say, really, other than his massive panoramic images were just gobsmacking and it all made me sad about the war in Iraq until I got to a shot he took of the September 11 memorial service in New York, then I felt a bit angry. Oh, and there are some images of poverty stricken Russians taken in the late 90s that make you realise that running out of cash once in a while ain't that bad compared to what some people have to put up with everyday. Have a look here if you're interested... http://www.nmpft.org.uk/delahaye/ ...

It was very windy in Bradford. My, how we all laughed as we negotiated the hilly northern streets. Who would have thought being blown into moving traffic could be so much fun?


posted by dave - 5:28 pm


Thursday, March 18, 2004
I fear that I turned into Michael Douglas in Falling Down tonight while stuck in traffic. But my psycho state of mind eased somewhat when I went past the two car crash that had caused the snarl up. Someone had been cut out of a car that had gone headlong into a stone wall. At least I got home, even if it was several hours too late.

We have a very strange 24 hour Tescos at the end of the street. Strange in that, despite having Open 24 hours! plastered all over it, it is never open 24 hours ever. Unless that's the weekly opening hours. If you look a little closer at the sign it also says Open 24 hours! (not Saturday and Sunday). Not Monday-Friday either! In need of cat litter and cheap bread on way home from the theatre we went to Tesco last night only to be refused entry by a crazy, arm-waving security Nazi, who made it clear we would not be welcome inside the store when we had moved a mere three paces from the car. Keen to survive on zero finances, we devoured a lovely baguette tonight that cost us a piddling 25p. But we also wasted £1.17 on a rather tasteless, rubbery 'mild cheese' that M is, quite rightly, refusing to eat. Slightly odd comment from bakery staff member after request for hot-cross bun style bread loaf: "I work on in store bakery and I know we don't do those. Not on in store bakery. But you might find some with the bread." Huh? Traded in our winning scratchcard (value £1) for a losing one, thus making us even - this time at least - with the Lottery.


posted by dave - 10:54 pm


Wednesday, March 17, 2004
Feelings of bewilderment immediately after the piece of theatre I saw last night. Why that, why not my stuff? If that's the end product after months of toil, if that's as funny as your comedy gets, maybe it's time to put your hands up and say, wooah, let's not do this, it's not good enough to be aired in public. Ages ago, when I first met the editor of a magazine I do a lot of stuff for now, I told him that I was busy writing plays because I couldn't believe the amount of absolute crap that I had to sit through. And it is. 95% of it is just shite. I can do better than that. I don't just think I'm a good writer. I know it. I know it because I know that there are things that I'm not good at. I'm not good at sport. I'm not good at playing the drums. I'm not good in the company of lots of men. I'm not good at being patient. I'm not good at holding down a normal job. I was never a great bricklayer, a great milkman, a great debt collector. I'm not so sure I'm a great dad. I'm not a good news reporter (I'm not remotely interested in news, a bit of a drawback when you work at a newspaper!). But I am a good writer. I know it, because people pay me to do it. When will the people in the world that I want to earn a living in realise that? And will they ever? Because, from where I'm sitting, they appear to prefer sticking with what they know, even if that is neither original, funny, dramatic or interesting.

In a fit of Nick Hornbyesqueness I have decided to post my top ten albums (or the top ten as dealt by my current frame of mind - this will have changed by tomorrow). If I had to choose between those two forms of escapism that are books and music, it would have to be the latter for me. I have been thinking about this in the car on the 1 hour drive in this fine Spring morn. I was listening to the Rolling Stones Stripped, wondering if that would get in there. I fear there may be a bit of heavy metal in this...

1: Rolling Stones - Let it Bleed. How can you argue with this? You can't. Unless it's to suggest Beggars Banquet be there instead? Monkey Man's on here, for Jagger's sake, a track I was first introduced to by a guitar wielding Johnny Depp on 21 Jump Street. Don't let that put you off. This is the Stones at their post-Brian Jones sitar strumming best

2: Damien Rice - O. I'm so glad we found him. What a voice. The album upon which a relationship was founded. Well, there's more to it than that, obviously. But this, and especially The Blower's Daughter, is a part of my life now.

3: Bob Dylan - Highway 61 Revisited. This was the first Dylan album I ever bought. It was the third 'real' piece of vinyl I ever bought. And I used to absolutely fucking despise it. I had it about ten years before I realised what a work of genius it was. It just languished, having been played three times. His first full electric album. Like A Rolling Stone is just a wonderful ode to the homeless and how everything can be snatched away. As Keith said, "thankyou Bob".

4. Prince - Sign O The Times. I can't really explain why I like Prince so much. I just know that, when he's up there, when he's playing, he means it. He is, for me, the greatest singer-songwriter ever. But poor quality control and a ridiculous image will see to it that he never gets the acclaim he deserves. I choose Sign not because it contains my favourite tracks (they are scattered everywhere) but because it is his only complete album. They could have all been like this if he'd surrounded himself with the right people.

5. Oasis - What's The Story Morning Glory. Or should it be Definitely Maybe? There's some justice that that this band have come unstuck. All that misplaced arrogance. As if you could follow up the genius of Wonderwall. Noel Gallagher is a fool. What's The, for me, is just about a time and a place. It takes me to Maine Road, the greatest sing-a-long gig I've ever been to. A time when music and laughter were high on the agenda and anything seemed possible. It still does. This is also the album that made people pick up guitars again. Well done, Noel. Now go away.

6. Jeff Buckley - Grace. I usually laugh at angsty musicians. But not Buckley. Buckley singing Leonard Cohen's Hallelujah is music. There's some rubbish on here. But there's also that hint of greater things to come, that untapped promise. A cautionary tale about the perils of jumping in the river for a quick dip, eh?

7. Nirvana - Nevermind. Once upon a time music was so far in the doldrums that we needed Kurt Cobain to come along and pull us right out of them. He gave himself for us. I remember the excitement of Nevermind. There was nothing around like this. It was real. Nothing they did after compares. It was inevitable that he blew his face off. How do you follow something this good?

8. The Housemartins - London 0 Hull 4. No bizarre Hull-tinted glasses on here. I emerged from a dalliance with heavy metal and bought this. Ridiculously short 'n' catchy songs. Sheep. Happy Hour. That anti-monarchy rant Flag Day. And the really moving finale Lean On Me. I knew all the words to all of these songs. I probably still do.

9. Sex Pistols - Never Mind The Bollocks. I can't claim to have been a punk. I wasn't. But we had a funny gang when I was at senior school. Denim clad rockers and punks united. As long as you didn't like 2-Tone you were fine. I did like Crass. Was toying with the idea of putting Stations of the Crass in this list. But I've grown to love this album. It's nothing short of perfect. Didn't change a thing, did it, but, come on, the opening riff of Pretty Vacant!

10. Crunch time. No heavy metal as yet.....crikey......AC/DC - If You Want Blood.... Hilarious live album. You can just see Angus being carried around on Bon Scott's shoulders. Another casualty. Another album that saw me through those troubled teenage years. All together now, Angus, Angus. There's a guy at the HDM called Angus Young.


posted by dave - 10:02 am


Tuesday, March 16, 2004
Yesterday's excitement about the Humber Mouth has now turned to apprehension. Am off to discuss my play over at Hull Truck in about an hour. Time to bite nails down to the knuckle. I can barely remember the thing. Have also started writing another one so am more interested in that right now and think I will find it hard to switch my brain between the two. But looking forward to getting some feedback about Off Their Trolleys. One of the actors that was in the ten minute version last year has read it and speaks highly of it, so am quite confident that it's not too bad.

Had to explain to someone at work the meaning of the abbreviation btw. I can't believe that there are people that don't know all that stuff. Come on, we've all spent weeks on end in chat rooms, changing our gender... It's taken me back to the swan song of illegal CB radios. We all used to use the jargon and then a new breed came along that couldn't be bothered to utter "10-4 for a copy" and "what's your handle?" and started talking 'normally'. and suddenly the magic and mystique of being involved in an illicit act was gone. IMHO we shouldn't let it happen again. Or we should at least go down ROFL.

Feel bad about posting some comments to Pik (see link to his blog on right) and I hope he took them in the spirit they were intended, ie tongue in cheek and in an effort to be helpful. It seems weird that I've known him for over 10 years now. He was in short pants back then and always wanted to sit on my knee while I read Elmore Leonard excerpts to him in a crazy American accent. Sometimes I wish he lived up the road and we could nip to the pub together. I don't feel like that about everyone I know.


posted by dave - 11:22 am


Monday, March 15, 2004
Great news, blog fans (including Holly - hello!). I have been awarded a Special Commission to put on my as-yet unwritten one-man (and possibly a couple of performers) theatre critic show for this year's Humber Mouth. Oh dear, what have I done? I am confident that, between now and this year's festival, I can come up with something that resembles genius. They knocked a few quid off the cash I asked for because they are now going to provide a venue. But there'll be enough left for a nice shirt and the odd meal at the Fox & Roman (for research purposes, you understand). This has put me in a bouyant mood after last week's push too far in the daytime job. I trust you'll all be in attendance.....

posted by dave - 1:07 pm


Sunday, March 14, 2004
There's nothing quite like writing a great paragraph in the early hours and then your computer crashing before that all important ctrl-s could be pressed. Just hit 21 pages with the script when the above happened. Thankfully, I didn't lose as much as I first thought I would. Not that it's a work of genius right now. But it would have been a painful experience. Appear to be plagued with repetitive virus syndrome since going broadband. Every other day we have Nachi-B, which keeps causing programmes to crash and others not to start up. Grrrrr. Oh for the glory days of quills and parchment.

So here I am. 1.10 on a Sunday morning. And about to call it a night. John Osborne's Looking Back is getting better with every page. He writes in great, sarcastic detail about his very odd grandparents, aunties and uncles. I have very little clue about my ancestory. I don't even know my grandfathers' names. Must ask mum when I nip in on Monday. I like Osborne, though a lot of his stuff aside from The Entertainer and Look Back In Anger is very tedious. But his autobiography is a right romp and proves his socialist credentials without harping on about it all. But there's time for that yet - I'm only 60 pages in of around 500.

There's a curious noise in the air in the dead of night here. Can't work out where it comes from but assume it must be to do with the overhead powerlines above the rail tracks. Like a kind of swirling humming sound. There's no such thing as silence these days, is there? Anyway, am happy that I've written stuff these last couple of days. There are times when you think nothing will ever come. Not writer's block - we don't believe in that - just a kind of inertia that prevents you from ever sitting down and doing anything. And the problem of not being able to get your ideas down in the way you thought you would. That's already happening with this thing - I envisaged something dark, menacing. But it's like hard-core Benny Hill.

Earlier on we were belting out an appalling version of Green Day's Time of Your Life. Me on guitar, M on vocals and Penny on vibes. There goes the neighbourhood.


posted by dave - 1:05 am


Saturday, March 13, 2004
Underway with a new play. It's called Sleeptalking. And, rather predictably, it's about a guy that talks in his sleep. Spent much of yesterday staring out the window, listening to music and working out twists and turns. Then put two fingers to keyboard and turned out lots of cliched rubbish. But there's a glimmer of a decent idea there, methinks. Found out yesterday that sleep talking is actually called somniloquy, so might rename the play that. It's something I suffer from, though not, I don't think, as badly as this guy will.

Just watched a DVD called Spellbound, which is a documentary about the American phenomenon of spelling contests - the lexical equivalent of those dreadful beauty pagaents. It's a really great little film that shows another fucked up side of the States. Lots of talk about the 'American Dream' which, unbelievably in these terror-packed days where American citizenship guarantees hatred, still drives everyone on that side of the Atlantic. For the parents of Angela, her place in the National Championships was the culmination of a dream that started when they crossed the border from Mexico - her father can now die a happy man, albeit one who hasn't himself learned to speak the English language his daughter is so adept at. Neil's dad - who pushed the poor lad into learning several thousand words, their definitions and origins every day - said that America is the only place in the world where hard work automatically leads to success. Yeah, right. One of these kids, Harry, was certifiably insane. The joy of being a critic is that, once in a while, an absolute gem like this turns up in the mail.

Finally got round to starting John Osborne's double-biography Looking Back. I've had it for about five years and bought it for £2 from one of those bargain bookshops. It's bloody good. Meanwhile, on the turntable, Michelle Shocked's Short Sharp Shocked spins as I await delivery of that weekly highlight, the Doner Kebab.


posted by dave - 5:13 pm


Friday, March 12, 2004
I emailed my blog URL out to a few people yesterday. And now I'm scared. What if people are actually reading this? What if they are thinking "what the fuck!?!?!". Anyway, if you've joined me, hello. I'm trying to get a 'comments' thing sorted out so that, if there is anyone out there, people can let me know how low an opinion they have of all these ramblings. But, true to form, when I opted to put my blog on webcrimson I apparently chose the only service not compatible with lots of free software stuff that you can use elsewhere. I'm thinking of shifting to blogspot but I kind of like the fact that webcrimson isn't supported by lots of nasty adverts. Oh well. So watch out for the 'comment' button and use it (should it ever arrive).

Am sat in our home office (some people would call it a spare bedroom, but we're swanky York folk. And that's not a silent S!). Am watching lots of trains go past - we're a house away from the mainline in and out of the city. A rather lengthy GNER has just rumbled past, shaking the house a bit. The worst type are the transporters carrying steel and other mucky industrial stuff. It's not as bad as it sounds - in fact, there's a real feeling of security from living so close to these massive diesel beasts. Maybe it's a back to the womb thing. Mind you, with the track record of rail safety we might end up with one in the living room one night. "Woah! Watch the XBox!"

Am doing some stuff for M this morning before turning my attention to a bit of playwriting. I'm here alone. Just me, the cat, an EWS shunter and Eminem on the CD player. I've only got myself to blame if I don't get a few pages out!


posted by dave - 10:00 am


Thursday, March 11, 2004
York is a strange place sometimes. The entire contingent of passengers on a park and ride bus had to disembark because a 'gang' or 12-year-olds decided to play with the doors in the middle of the 'bendi-bus'. The driver of the bus tried to persuade the 'hooligans' to get off but they refused - so everyone else had to go! Weird. This is the same city thats Top Ten of Serious Criminals banned from the city centre includes a woman whose only crime appears to have been that she once stole a can of deodorant from Boots. Meanwhile, a parish councillor has just resigned because they've just discovered that she runs her own porn site with live streaming video. I love it here!


posted by dave - 3:43 pm

Picked up Hunter S Thompson's Better Than Sex off the bookshelf today and read a few pars just for the sheer hell of it. It's nonsense. I'd forgotten what a mess it is. But that's the kind of journalist I'd like to be if I have to be one. Optimistic that I can get some words down this weekend and have so many ideas for new stuff, as well as revisiting an old piece. We're too poor here in York to be able to have too much distracting cash-fuelled fun. We need to write our way out of this one!

posted by dave - 10:23 am


Wednesday, March 10, 2004
Three years on low pay but doing a great job means nothing to an employer the moment you suggest a more flexible working relationship that would have benefitted both parties. All they can see is a man who wants to skive at home, rather than someone who's trying to sort his life out. Fuck 'em.

posted by dave - 10:16 am


Tuesday, March 9, 2004
Skint. Not even enough money to put petrol in the car. It's like the 1930s all over again. Help!

posted by dave - 7:39 pm


Monday, March 8, 2004
A surreal few hours. I read 105 pages of Gabriel Garcia Marquez'z'z 100 Years Of Solitude. Sat in a car park. In Bradford. Then I went to watch a bunch of nimble hotsteppers - Phoenix Dance - leap around and pack babies and adults in bubble wrap. At the end of their show an office/factory is trashed and debris is scattered all over the stage. When I exited the foyer looked the same - a woman had vomited everywhere and they had covered it up with tiny balls of polystyrene. "I'm just sorting this sick," shouted one usherette to another.

posted by dave - 10:35 pm


Sunday, March 7, 2004
Wanted to write about removing the ramp at my mum's house. It made me feel sad. Underneath the ramp - which was built for my dad when he became wheelchair bound towards the end - was just loads of old dust and crap. And we swept it away. And it was as good as new again. But it reminded me that me and dad had laid the concrete on that drive just after they moved in there. And I could remember it all. And it made me feel sad.

posted by dave - 10:29 pm

Watching rugby league used to be a more interesting affair. That's what I thought watching Hull FC at the 25,000 seater KC Stadium (it was only half-full, or half-empty). Back in the day the players used to come in all shapes and sizes. And you could recognise who was who from the amount of stomach over-hanging their shorts. No chance now that they're all athletes. Heck, they even have two players with the same name! Funniest chant of the day was "There's only two Richie Barnetts". Which isn't really funny at all - sporting humour doesn't travel beyond the terraces. I remember being impressed by those folk that start off the chants when I was a kid at the Boulevard with Neil Pound. Those people don't seem half as original as they used to be and these days invariably have to get the word wanker in there somewhere. And yes, if all else fails they just shout "get 'em on side referee", like they always did. Rugby league is no longer a game for the working class. It is now also a game for the city's many bleach-blonde, large-earring-wearing Kappa track-suited teenage girls. Final score: Hull FC 24, Warrington Wolves 18.

One less tooth today than yesterday awarded to: Scott Murakami just completed: The Elephant Vanishes


posted by dave - 8:09 pm


Saturday, March 6, 2004
A Saturday in Hull. Moptop siblings Scott and Sam needed a hair cut. Sam wanted some 'tracks' cut into his hair. The hairdresser admitted she had never done them before. "Go ahead," I insisted, "He's your guinea pig." She did ok. Simultaneously, Scott's hair was re-styled by the man of the salon. Scott had opted for "something a bit like that picture on the wall". I watched this hairdresser closely. He kept glancing at the picture but, judging by the finished product (a bit like Alex Parks of Pain Academy fame), he is either blind or not qualified yet. A snip, as they say, at £8 for two heads of hair.

We (myself and the trio) stayed at mum's. I was thinking that kipping together in such adverse, cramped conditions might actually bring us closer than we could have been otherwise. At least that's what I hope. I like watching them sleep. And watching them laugh. Watching them laugh in their sleep can be a bit disturbing, though. I love them. I'm not sure they realise how much.

Learnt to play on piano: Keane's Somewhere Only We Know Discovered on keyboard: A button that makes the noise of laughter


posted by dave - 8:00 pm


Friday, March 5, 2004
Stuck in traffic. Staring out my side window at the Cornmill Hotel. Elderly woman in car travelling in other direction, also stuck in traffic, must have thought I was staring at her so stared back at me. Then she started mumbling to her passenger. So I did stare at her. And she mumbled a bit more. So I stuck my tongue out at her. And she shook her head. And M and me laughed hysterically. These are the moments I savour.

Fell to sleep listening to:Belle and Sebastian. Cheese to accompany soup: Cheshire


posted by dave - 11:56 am


Thursday, March 4, 2004
For some reason, while watching the Merchant of Venice in Scarborough last night, I found myself thinking about the view I had at the Ritz Carlton when I was in Hong Kong. My room was on the top floor - get a pic of the skyline and I can even point out the window I'm now dreaming of looking out of - and I could look out over Hong Kong harbour, over to Nathan Street in Kowloon, the place where the Star Ferry lands, over to a big illuminated tourism advert that said 'I Love Hong Kong'. I remember getting in the room and being totally gob-smacked by that view. And feeling that everything was alright, that life, no matter how many brick-bats smack you in the face, how much you fuck it up, how much you miss people that aren't around as much as you want, can be great. And it is. But shit, I miss that view.

There was a gang of school girls on the front row opposite us last night. And one girl - the only one dressed in uniform - started mimicking the actors and generally laughing hysterically at everything in an uncontrollable, couldn't give a flying fuck manner. That, my friends, is how we should all behave in the stuffy, pretentious confines of the make believe world.

A busker has just made me laugh. He really was appalling. But he was singing a tune that appeared to be called "I Can't Sing". And he couldn't.

Trainer watch: M has bought an uncharacteristically (for the manufacturer) funky pair of Adidas Overdraft status: Red alert


posted by dave - 12:16 pm


Wednesday, March 3, 2004
What a first half of the week. Not just work, not just the arduous York-Hull-York travelgasm, but out every night, doing theatre-related stuff. Monday it was Trap For A Lonely Man, one of those bloody awful travelling travesties of a murder mystery starring Peter Amory, who used to play a corpse in Emmerdale. Shit's not the word. Last night I was at a trustees meeting of Northern Theatre. Tonight I have to endure The Merchant of Venice, in Scarborough. It's just been loads of get in the car, get out the car, get in the car, fall asleep, wake up business. I can't wait for Thursday. Just to curl up on the sofa with a packet of jaffa cakes in the company of a good woman. Heaven. No, you can't have a jaffa cake. Life's moving too fast right now. And I don't like it. I need a time out. Not the chocolate wafer biscuit kind. I haven't written anything for ages, and I feel mad about that, because that's all I'm interested in. Instead, I have to come here everyday and endure the ramblings of complete imbeciles.




posted by dave - 10:51 am


Tuesday, March 2, 2004
Hull has come top of a new obesity league table. We eat chips. Apparently that's because we're poor and northern and don't know how to eat properly (Humber Online: "The most likely to be overweight were white, working class families who have poor education and do little exercise." - that really is a fair description of everyone I know in Hull). Natch, a large white loaf is cheaper than a brown organic one. I did a fat count when I was eating my white loaf at lunch and only spotted three people that were what I would class as obese - maybe the others are housebound - but resisted the temptation to shout fatty abuse at them. They were, after all, bigger than me. A medical expert came up with the following words of wisdom..."These are white working class people living in areas of council flats where diet is poor and exercise isn't taken regularly." Why, those lazy poor fat bastards.

posted by dave - 3:24 pm


Monday, March 1, 2004
Emma Alcock's 'Interview With A Theatre Critic' questionnaire arrived. Emma is a journalism student at Staffordshire University. I wish her well. Bloody student. I remember how helpful Mark Romano, who directed loads of Madonna's music vids, had been to me when I was struggling to write my dissertation - ie, not at all, despite dozens of transatlantic phone calls. So I filled it in. I feel 'blogged-out' at the moment. So, with your agreement, I shall post that here instead. Who am I talking to????

1 Why do you think musicals are so popular with the British public?

People like tapping their feet. They like entertainment that they don't have to think too much about. And blockbuster musicals are just that. The British public are, sadly, quite unambitious in their leisure pursuits. Rather than watch something radical, they would prefer to be herded, sheep-like, into The Lion King or We Will Rock You. They think they've had a good time if they do that. And they can tell all their friends in an attempt to 'impress'.

2 Are you a fan of musicals? Have you a favourite?

I strongly dislike what musicals have become (see answer to question 1). There is no originality these days. But, having said all that, I don't dislike musicals per se. My favourite musical would be the West Yorkshire Playhouse's version of Singin' In The Rain, which was a wonderful evening. Sorry, can't remember when it was (five years ago, perhaps). Stuff like Stomp, that's more like the night out I'd enjoy. And a piece called Cooking, set in a Chinese restaurant, that I saw in Edinburgh four years ago was damn good.

3 What do you think of new musicals such as Jerry Springer the Opera?

I've not seen it, much to my shame. But I feel that I could get on with it, because, from what I understand, it is more about the real world than some piece of crap by Ben Elton or a revival of South Pacific ever could be. More of Jerry Springer, less of the other stuff, and then, perhaps, the musical will survive.

4 Are there any new musicals you know of from America and Europe that you have got excited about?

I'm very world-weary. Nothing much excites me. I don't think we should import shows. We should head to Europe and America and watch them in situ. Importing shows is just lazy.

5 How do musicals differ from broadway to the West end?

I don't think they do. Musical is musical is musical. I think the audience might be different. I would suggest that a Broadway audience is more discerning and has bigger bulls**t detectors than its West End counterpart.

6 Do you think that ticket prices are too high?

Yes. Theatre is totally inaccessible to people earning an average wage due to prohibitive ticket prices. But staging a musical is expensive. Running a venue is expensive. So what can you do? There's no easy answer and I can't think of one.

7 Why do you think musicals such as Chicago and Les Miserables have been around so long?

Word of mouth. I might have to eat my own words here, because there's obviously a broad appeal with these types of show. And x1000s of people can't be wrong. Or can they? Chicago and Les Miserables are more to do with tourism than theatre, aren't they? They endure because people want to go somewhere and do 'something'. I think the whole Les Miserables/Miss Saigon/Martin Guerre triptych and lots of other tosh besides should be hurled in a dustbin. Think of something new!

8 Why do you think big celebrities are increasingly becoming involved in them for instance Amanda Holden in Thoroughly Modern Millie?

It sells tickets, and percentages have to be high for venues to survive. Writers, directors, plays even, are not a draw at all, apparently. Someone has decided that we need a Nicole Kidman to encourage us to see The Blue Room, because we're too stupid to work out that it's a great play. And we're in the age of celebrity. But, again, it's very, very, very lazy. 1x big celebrity does all the work for the marketing department.

9 What made you decide to become a theatre critic?

Fate. Seriously. I didn't decide. I just woke up one morning and realised I was. I'm actually more interested in pursuing my career as a playwright. But I'm just interested in and fascinated by the theatre and, despite all the cynical words I have written about musicals, I love it. It's live, it's real, it could go wrong at any moment and there's nothing quite like sitting in the dark and watching another world come to life right in front of your eyes.

10 Whats the best thing about your job?

Free entry to shows. The odd free drink. An occasional buffet. Kudos. Getting to meet and talk to some really interesting people. Realising that actors, directors and writers are the most fragile people in the world. Getting to fill in questionnaires :-)

11. Whats the worst thing about your job?

Travel. Filing copy overnight. Having to talk to PRs who are useless, tell you that they can sort everything out for you and then forget to leave you any tickets at the box office.

(Disclaimer: The answer to Q11 does not refer to ****** at the **** ******* *****)


posted by dave - 3:22 pm