Who said TFI Friday?..

Well. It's Friday. And that means...work. Did the 5k yesterday and now there's another 1.5k before redrafting various bits and pieces of 12k I've done previously. The joy. I remember when Fridays were all about winding down, knocking off at lunch, heading to the pub, getting pissed and staying out until some time on Sunday. That was in the days when I used to have a pay packet containing cash thrust into my hand mind. Today, I look forward to little more than sorting out and sending an invoice in the hope that some bank transfer will occur within the next 28 days. As motivational strategies go, it sucks. Especially given the sun's out and there's a chair outside with my name on it. Oh, yes, I'll probably watch Hull City win the Asia cup or whatever that faux pre-season tournament's called at some point today. Playwriting weekend looms. Around ten pages until The End. Which, as I've said previously, means it's the beginning all over again.

Meaty return to blogging...

I neglect this blog so much these days. Poor. I hate bloggers that do that. But the blog is not dead, long live the blog. If I can generate in the region of x5 140 character tweets a day I should be able to cobble together something for this.


Last night I was asked what I did with my day after I'd tweeted, facebooked, read my favourite rss feeds, made a little cruddy film for the internet etc because, the askee said, that seems to take up an awful lot of my day. I write, of course. I should be on with some rather peculiar stuff about education right now. Instead, as you can read, I'm on here. I'm warming up the finger ends and the brain because I've got to drum up 5,000 words based on a forest full of dry documents between now and the end of the day. Nasty. But I suppose the answer that I should have provided the askee with was that I don't do nearly enough. Of anything. Especially sleep. Oh, and I have been redrafting big play - have promised to furnish the theatre with the next instalment by Monday.


We met to discuss filmmaking last night. Two more shorts on the way before the end of the year. I followed the meeting - in one of Hull's nicer public houses and a pleasant enough distance away from Chris Moyles who was up the road last night at some karaoke event - with a walk across the road to get myself something to eat, which I had neglected to do earlier in the day. My extremely limited budget restricted my choice and, in a pretty paltry effort to demonstrate that I can spend as little as possible when the need arises, I ordered a medium doner kebab. For me, this is akin to heading to a bar and asking for a Babycham. I have never ordered anything of a medium size in my life. Imagine my surprise, then, when I got it home and unpacked it to find that medium, at the belies-its-location-completely christened Victoria Bay = large, if not extra large, and doner meat was spilling out all over the place. It (pictured right) was so big that I couldn't even finish the thing off. Which, for me, is a miracle. So, well done Victoria Bay and my £3.80.


There, I'm a blogger again.

No vegetarians were harmed, or eaten, during the writing of this blog entry.

Sunday evening shindig #14...

Josh Rouse - Love Vibration
Step out into the sun
Step out into the world and love someone
Save yourself from hate
Save yourself from hate and all the hassle

Funny headline...

This piece of genius, from yesterday's Hull Daily Mail, speaks for itself:


Oh dear. Oh dear. Oh dear. Hull is one of Northcliffe's Centres of Excellence, as the above demonstrates. Of course, I used to work for the paper, so I don't like to laugh at its expense, the poor thing.

Wave your flag in the air...

So, I finally returned some extremely overdue items to the library. When I got there I was shocked to find that the librarians had taken the matter so seriously that they'd arranged a military presence. Not really. It was Hull's welcome home to the 1st Battallion the Yorkshire Regiment. A gent called Ben from the BBC, who had a strangely familiar voice, wanted to interview us re helicopters, or lack thereof, but we declined the opportunity on pacifist grounds. "That's a feeling that's being reiterated when I talk to people," he said before moving through the crowd of Union flag wavers. The parade was preceded by at least half-a-dozen Humberside Police officers pedalling like the clappers along the parade route on push bikes - seems to have joined sealing manhole covers and clingfilming waste bins as the norm on these crazy occasions.

Eye, eye...

There's more than one way to dispose of an hexagonal Smartie tube. Hence, Smartie Vision...

Sunday evening shindig #13...

Fonda 500 - Simon's Alphabetical Beard
It's all here inside my beard
All the letters that you need to spell with

Not bad...

We had a meeting in a pub re short filmmaking the other night and I was pleased to see that Michael Jackson will live on at our chosen venue. Quite how appropriate the placement atop urinals is I'm not sure, but, when I went to the toilet, a poster advertising MJ tribute act Mikki Jay was staring back at me. One of the finest Michael Jackson Tributes! no less. And only a fiver. You can find out more about Mikki Jay and book him to appear in your living room from just £650 (cheaper than 02 tickets were going for on ebay, surely?) here. A poster on the way out pointed out, possibly demonstrating some paucity of ambition on the venue's part, that "tickets are selling quite fast".

Robbie Maddison's next jump...

If it's a steeper incline than Tower Bridge that Robbie's after for his next jump he could do a lot worse than the Grade II listed Scott Street Bridge in Hull. A bridge that never closes and hasn't since 1994...

One small jump for Robbie...

On July 13th 2009, motocross legend Robbie Maddison attempted to leap Tower Bridge in London. Meanwhile, in the city of Hull, one gentleman was getting slightly over-excited about the 'live' coverage on Channel 5...

Bugged out...

When we were eyeing up that Thriller-era Michael Jackson costume the other day I couldn't help but notice a thing in the window that's been catching my attention since I was a small boy. Round these parts, as I've mentioned before, Dinsdale's Joke Shop is the stuff of legend. And for as long as I remember the window display has always contained some Super Quality Magnetic Insects, which dance around in front of your very eyes because of, well, magnets. They weren't £2.50 in my day, mind. I never did get round to buying one but encouraged Finn to gaze at them for a while. He wasn't interested. He will come the day they burst out of the window and take over the world.

Sunday evening shindig #12...

The Kleptones - The Underground Hand That Buttoned The Widow

There's fire in me body

I'm just 'there'

Off the wall...

Good to see that those mourning the death of Michael Jackson can still easily dress as the man if that will help them get over 'it'. Spotted this natty Thriller-style outfit in Hull's famous Dinsdale's Joke Shop, stockists of fake dog excrement, itching powder and, well, this. The 'King of Pop' is dead, long live plastic fancy dress.

Vs, Vs, Vs...

Went to see a photo exhibition charting Hull City's first year in the Premier League. And very good it was too, although the overall effect was a bit tarnished by some dodgy typo-riddled, apostrophe-mistaken caption cards. One suggested that the photograph had been taken at a game between West Brom v Hull City v Chelsea, which I'd liked to have seen, and another that the Tigers' opponents were a team called Spurns. Tottingham Hotspurns is their full name, no doubt.

Sunday evening shindig #11...

Groove Armada - Chicago

The saxman cometh...

This gent's a postive contribution to the streets of Hull. When we passed he was playing a whacked out version of the Pink Panther theme.

Snap happy...

This morning we set off in the car...with my digital camera on the roof. A few minutes and a few speed bumps later, a car turned in front of us, stopped and a tanned man in the passenger seat started to approach us. Trouble, I thought. But no, he was just pointing out my silly mistake. "Your camera's on the roof," he laughed, as he passed it to me through my open window. Which was a lovely thing to do.

Gagging for First Love...

Director Lee did us proud with his musical choices for Gagging For It. One of which was The Maccabees First Love - a smashin' track that makes great use of the word 'symmetrical'.

Gagging for it...

Back in June 2004, we were getting all involved with the Humber Mouth (via the writers' group at Hull Truck that we were a part of) for the second year running, having had our toe-in-the-water ten minute plays aired at the previous year's festival - which took place in October 2003. We were still dreaming of becoming playwrights back then, unaware that we already were. Gagging For It, which played to a lovely, up for it, capacity audience in the studio at Truck last night, completes a bit of a circle, I think, and sets us up nicely for the next stage in the journey.

I could do without the comedown. It is just how it is, but it's no way to feel after what was a bloody good night and a damn good working experience with some extremely talented people. I know it's coming - I've known that since October 2003 - but that doesn't make it any easier to deal with. In fact, it makes it even worse. Last night, for 60 minutes and a nice round of applause, we truly existed in the space we belong. Today it's all gone away. And we have to begin again. F**k.