Sunday evening shindig...

After 25 Sunday evening feelings, I think it's time to perk up a little bit. Besides, those feelings of dread have subsided somewhat given that my journeys to an office elsewhere have come to an ending of my own making. So, here we go...

Elbow - One Day Like This

Cause holy cow, I love your eyes

And only now I see you like

Yeah, lying with me half-awake

Stumbling over what to say

Well, anyway, it's looking like a beautiful day
So throw those curtains wide!

One day like this a year'd see me right!

Close and oppose...

Saturday was M's cousin's stag day/night. And very good it was too. Physical exertion in the form of Go Ape at Dalby Forest followed by Mexican-themed fun in the city of Leeds - food, sombreros, Zapata mostachos, a penata carried by the stag and, naturally, copious amounts of alcohol. Once the latter wore off, rather late on Sunday, well, the aches and pains resulting from swinging through the trees became all too apparent. The odd thing about Go Ape is that I pretty much hated everything other than heading down zip lines but, although I'm aware that this will sound contradictory, also loved the experience. Lessons were learned - I am far from fit; despite spending my first decade in the world of work balancing precariously on ladders, walking across ridge tiles and up several lifts of scaffolding, I don't appear to get on with heights anymore; the advice 'don't look down' is impossible to follow when you're trying to place your foot on a piece of rope; 'close and oppose' is essential information; I hate cargo nets and; once the small wooden swing that you're standing on starts to sway violently from side-to-side it takes an inordinate amount of time to stop that motion because a) you're aware how stupid you look to the people waiting to follow you and b) you don't want to look even more stupid by falling off the thing. I am still removing bark from various crevices and, last night, found a lovely spell lodged in the back of my leg.

We stayed overnight in a Yorkshire cricket lover's paradise - Headingley Lodge, which is, to all intents and purposes, a collection of hospitality boxes containing beds, all of which overlook the hallowed playing surface at, you guessed it, Headingley. But I am no cricket lover and the view was pretty much lost on me. On Sunday, whilst in the recovery position and gulping down tea, we watched, from the room, as the covers were removed and a young chap jet washed one of the wickets. My roommate found serious flaws in the young chap's technique. We would have shouted instructions but, sadly, the door leading to the seating area and the outside world is secure on non-match days. Which is just as well otherwise there's a distinct possibility that we'd have been tearing up the grass when we got back to the hotel after our Mexican fun ended. Good use of a facility that would otherwise be standing empty though.

Sunday evening feeling #25...

BB King - How Blue Can You Get?
I gave you a brand new Ford
And you said "I want a Cadillac"
I bought you a ten dollar dinner
and you said "thanks for the snack"!

The madhouse rules...

The difference between headphones and earphones is quite clear to me. The former sit on your head and clamp around your ears, the latter go inside your ears. Russ Abbott, formerly of his eponymous Mad House, mudied the water today, though, when he appeared on Loose Women. When asked if he still plays his guitar he said yes, adding that he does so not through a huge stack of Marshall amps but via his Hearphones. I like this Abbottism, and can't decide if he meant it and has patented this device or not. He may, of course, be adding the aitch cos ee were on telly and wanted to sound all posh and that - eg, hello, high ham pleased to make your haquaintance, how har you?

*Antler Headphones via Craziest Gadgets

Who polices the police???

Who indeed.* Nobody in their right mind would expect Her Majesty's Chief Inspector of Constabulary's review of the G20 policing - ordered by Paul Stephenson - to uncover anything resembling the truth. Heck, they've already attempted a cover up. But at least we can look forward to some of those 'bad' police taking early retirement as justice is corrupted and perverted in the manner we're accustomed to. I'm already looking forward to David Peace's novel on these unfurling and underhand events 30 years from now.

What the papers say...

*Bystanders with mobile phones and cameras. Surely a ban on the use of these devices is imminent?

When the Easter bunny heads back to its warren...

...TK Maxx flogs off its relatives. How vulgar are these things? Any wonder they ended up in this cut price haven or, in TK Maxx's words, this "unstoppable combo of experience and close relationships with famous label manufacturers and top designers"? After I'd taken the pic on my phone I turned around to see lots of women in strange floral print 'designer' label dresses that were on the cusp of fashionable four or five seasons ago staring at me as if I were insulting them and their adoration of the Pilates Deluxe Kits and artisan crafted glassware that fills the rest of the store.

No strength to change...

Rugby League does like to shoot itself in the foot. Repeatedly. Only in this crazy, odd-shaped ball of a sport would a club help launch an anti-domestic violence campaign one day and announce, the following day, that they had signed a player that had pleaded guilty to a charge of domestic violence. The club is my beloved but increasingly bonkers Hull FC, the campaign - NHS Hull's Strength To Change - directly targets those who commit acts of violence towards women, the player is ex-Warrington Wolves full back Stuart Reardon, and he will be sentenced for an assault on his estranged wife Kay on April 23. Reardon needs to play somewhere, of course, but, given the high profile launch of the campaign, it shouldn't be in Hull. Yet Hull it is. The club deserves to take some serious flak for what is, at the very least, a serious PR blunder. No shortage of backs and the need to get some cover in asap can excuse this crazy move. "The timing of his arrival is ironic," pointed out Dave Hadfield in today's Independent. Not half.

Sunday evening feeling #24...

The Stone Roses - I Am The Resurrection
Dont waste your words
I dont need anything from you
I dont care where you've been
Or what you plan to do

Meatballs and pucks...

The rain scuppered our designs on taking a leisurely stroll. We darted to the nearest Subway for, in my case, a footlong meatball marinara, before listening to the Tigers coming unstuck at Middlesborough and catching the penultimate day of NHL fixtures, getting myself up to date on proceeedings before the play-offs for the biggest piece of silverware in the universe commence next week. The internet's a beautiful thing, giving me access to every game. Way back when I used to stand in the kitchen - the only place I could get reception - listening to what snippets of US sports I could on AFRTS between the dreadful washing machine noise that Amplitude Modulation provided its listeners with. Long may these live streams continue.

Amongst the opposition...

One of the great pleasures of attending rugby league as a lad, aside from the game, was hearing grown men swear for 80 minutes. Now, as a grown man, I find myself listening to lads swearing for 80 minutes. Today I was a black and white amid a sea of dirty, dirty red and whites (I attended with a couple of Robins and, when I suggested that we "go up near your lot" didn't expect to find that their lot would outnumber our lot to such an extent. Silly me). A few seats up, two eight year olds were quite vocal. A shout of "Run at Calderwood. He's shit!" coming out of one mouth was quickly followed by a "Sit down you black and white bastards!" aimed at the East Stand opposite (I had very little to stand for throughout). Quite shocking, it were, out of the mouth of bairns and all that. Hull FC left it too late (ie the last 20 minutes) to turn up for the game and, thus, lost 14-18. In retrospect, and my sulking aside, it was quite a good, hard fought game.

Storm before the calm...

Tinkering with yesterday's finished script for a couple of hours first thing and then that delightful moment that is getting it off our hands and into someone else's. M has had a seriously busy week, creatively, and for the first time in ages I feel as if I'm on top of stuff. Which is nice with the Easter weekend looming. Here's to some relaxation!

Mostly writing...

Today has consisted of mostly writing combined with some feverish script editing. Which will please some performers who are patiently waiting for a script. You will be able to see the end results in June. The famous M and myself have come up with an interesting way to co-write, brought on by Mr Finn and the crazy hours he keeps. My time spent in the heady (ie shit) world of PR (a world that sometimes consists of moments when you are convincing people to print something based on absolutely nothing) has me thinking that our co-writing approach could be exploited to its full potential in exchange for a few column inches and, more importantly, bums on seats.

Truck, 2009 model...

When I trotted around the new Hull Truck last week I took some photographs but agreed to respect the press embargo, not that this 'ere blog is a member of the press, nor has any readers. Besides, the pix were mostly for my own benefit, so I could keep reminding myself of the space I'm writing for. In all honesty, my snaps were pretty lousy. If you want to get a real glimpse of the innards, Ian's got some nice ones on his flickr pages.

Sunday evening feeling #23...

Marvin Gaye - What's Going On
Picket lines and picket signs
Don't punish me with brutality
Talk to me
So you can see
What's going on

A kick in the Barack...

G20 Summit or no G20 Summit, the sad fact is this: we no longer make anything that people in other countries need or want to buy. You can pump as much money into the IMF as you want, but that sad fact will not change. Where's the real money going to come from? We are, to use one of my favourite profanities, f*cked.

In with the new...

So, yesterday I got to glimpse the future. Well, the sparkly, not-yet-used auditoria at the new Hull Truck. If ever there was a kick up the arse to make my current commissions for said theatre company the best work I've ever penned it was walking into those two spaces. I do believe that my Artistic Director pal smiled somewhat sadistically when he heard my nervous cry of "f*cking hell!" upon walking into the main house. I got to romp about on the stage, test the new seats, and explore the rest of the building. The third most performed playwright in the country was on one of the building's many sun terraces, sitting on a little folding camping chair (a slightly absurd sight). I complimented him on his new world class facility. "We didn't do bad for the money," he said.

Free the Ped Egg Terrier...

I can't think of anything that would convince me to purchase one of those horrible Ped Egg feet scrapers, which are designed to grate the hard calloused skin off your plates of meat*. I do know, however, that some things would convince me even more that my decision to steer clear of a device that "is perfectly safe and will not even burst a balloon but miraculously takes off dry skin very easily and smoothly" is the correct decision. One such thing is the outlet of a vendor of this "revolutionary new way" not only being home to dozens of Ped Eggs but also a small terrier dog. The small terrier sits amongst the Ped Eggs in a cage-like contraption, a cage-like contraption ideal for street vending no doubt, and I wouldn't be suprised if, half way through another day of declining sales, that the small terrier and the pads beneath its paws are used to demonstrate the power of the Ped Egg, an ergonomic wonder that fits snugly in the hand and, as if that's not good enough, "all the shavings collect in the egg and it is mess free". When I sought permission to take the photograph of the terrier amid the Ped Eggs, the vendor sneered a "yes" at me, the sub text being that the dog was perfectly happy and amongst friends. Please join me in demanding the release of the Ped Egg Terrier and decrying the strapline "You & your feet will love the Ped Egg" as nothing more than a crime against canines, humanity and beautiful feet the world over.

*This is an example of Cockerney Rhyming Slang