Spunking money...

“We keep testing things in dribs and drabs. The fad for commissioning pilots is a waste of money. I don’t think a pilot will ever demonstrate the power of what a series can be - it’s a bit like spunking money as far as I can tell."

Paul Abbott on the state of television drama. Reported in The Stage.

A surplus of meat...

More weird stuff encountered. I was intrigued, shall we say, when I drove past a small refrigerated lorry that was emblazoned with 'Royal Meat'. Is this meat that is for consumption only by those with royal blood - surely not, that would be too niche a market - or is it meat carved from royals? Or, most likely, just some skanky processed meat company with delusions of grandeur. I so wish I'd had a device with me that would have allowed me to provide photographic evidence. A quick Google throws up several companies with the same name. There's obviously a surplus of royal meat about.

Then, there was the most peculiar puppet show we witnessed at the Pearson Park 150th birthday celebrations. Now that I did take a photograph of. While the show itself was somewhat, well, unusual and a consummate lesson in audience alienation (the children above were all sneering at the puppeteer), I'm utterly baffled by the creepy looking man that appears to the left of the image, who I didn't notice at the time. What is he doing? Why does he squat so? Does he have CRB clearance?

Peculiar encounters...

Out early. Which might account for a couple of strange people I avoided fully engaging with this morning. Walking past the cemetery gates I eyed a gent in full cowboy regalia; the illusion that this might be an actual cowboy shattered by his frenetic mobile phone keypad punching. Then there was a chap on a main arterial road waving a copy of a book titled No Mercy from the Japanese in my face. I think I've seen the latter before - several months ago and a little bit further up the road, that time brandishing a weighty tome about the Somme, which he held up and displayed to passing traffic. As much as I love this city and its people, it does throw up some peculiar encounters.

Disparate strands...

My hair is currently a ridiculous mop of disparate strands atop my head. It is wayward. It is unruly. It has a life of its own (in my most paranoid moments I'm convinced it is having more fun than me). It is a mess. It is mostly grey. It is everything that a chap's hair should not be. Yet there are so many more things I need to do with my money right now (such as, say, purchase food) that I fear that I may not be getting the barnet cut and restyled any time soon. What does history tell me? Samson's strength was, of course, the result of the Nazirite never having his hair cut. Yet the thought of killing a lion with my bare hands or killing 1,000 Philistines with the jawbone of a donkey doesn't really appeal. Should I self-cut? Now there's an option that could end in tears.

Getting sentences to work...

"I got halfway down the first page and realised to my astonishment that this was a story for young people. And I felt liberated. It was an area where I could renew myself. There were moments when I was spellbound by what I was writing. I thought, if I can just gather it, control it, then maybe the spell will go out to the reader too...

"People say to me, you're so prolific, and I think, now I am! It's the payoff for all the time I spent getting sentences to work properly. Like anything, you develop a skill through hard work."

David Almond - interview in The Guardian Review

Oh buoy...

Accompanied daughter to Hull History Centre. She was doing some research into the Grade II listed Trinity House Buoy Shed which, well, used to be a store for buoys when Trinity House was responsible for such matters (according to a Heritage and Development Management document "the former buoy shed is a rare surviving example of a largely unaltered building characteristic of port or harbour installation"). The History Centre is a relatively new facility and it's great, nay fantastic, that there's a 'one stop shop', as brainless marketing turds would have it, for the city's archives. It was also almost guaranteed to attract a herd of strange, eccentric and wayward folk. There was no shortage today, including one chap who appeared to be photocopying almost every historical map the centre holds. Then there were the others, whose sole purpose appears to be not to look at any archive material at all but just to announce, very loudly, what they already know of Hull's history. The staff take all this in good spirits. I was especially impressed with the understanding shown to one chap who turned up at the counter with the strange request "I need you to tell me what my father's real surname was" and another who had arrived with a dusty map that he insisted must be loaned to the archive because "folk will be interested in it." No doubt they all thought we were lacking in something too, as we digitally captured some vaguely relevant documents. Hanging about, while daughter did her thing, I learned some new stuff. Oh, and I laughed at P. Larkin's polka dot bow tie. Anyway, here's Hull, 1852:

Party in the park...

Went to the free West Fest "arts and sports community festival" in Hull's West Park today. We went early. It was a bit quiet. More security than anyone else. Ground underfoot was a bit soggy after last night's rain, so I'll let the city's residents off for their tardiness. I'm sure when it firmed up everyone headed out and by the time Rolling Stones cover band Stikky Fingers took to the 'Party Stage' the park was bursting at the seams with punters. Walked past then had a quick look in the acoustic tent. Felt a bit sorry for the lad on stage (Martin Wainwright I think - although do feel free to correct me) who was putting a lot of effort in. As I say, it was a bit quiet.

Tryptich...

I was going to perform a poem about graf writers and star-crossed lovers at the Adelphi the other night. But it was a bit long. Unable to bore an audience with it there and then I unveil it here and now, just for you.

Everything is loss...

"Can you make laughter and seriousness so close that they are the same thing? There's nothing more wonderful than when the comedy's got horror in it, got blood in it. And the seriousness is at all times aware of its own preposterousness. What's it for, this seriousness? Everything is loss, is nothing, in the end."

Howard Jacobson - interview in The Guardian Review

No photographic evidence...

Omid Djalili's Q&A in The Guardian's Weekend mag today amused me and also reminded me of a pointless incident in my misspent youth. Djalili's favourite read, he tells us, is "Asterix and Obelix books". Mine too back in the early 1970s. I was so enamoured by Obelix's permanent super strength that I wrote a letter to the publishers Hodder & Stoughton. "I would like you to send me a photograph of Obelix when he fell into the vat of magic potion and got his strength. If you have one of him sitting in the vat I would like that one." I got a short response soon afterwards informing me that "no such photographic evidence existed". I do believe that this is the moment in time when I became a cynic.

Jacko's house...

Hopped on stage last night at the Adelphi to do a couple of poems - part of Write To Speak. Much fun. A couple of folk performing had never been in the legendary venue - which has seen performances by such stellar acts as Radiohead, Oasis and Pulp - before. They, like so many others before them, were quickly taken by the 'unique atmosphere' of Jacko's house and the damp aroma. A very special venue indeed. Prior to last night I was probably one of the few people of Hull to not have done some kind of performance on the Adelphi's stage. Pleased to be able to cross that off my long 'stuff to do before I'm dead' list. Naturally, any time you go to the place you wake up the following morning covered in mildew. Currently bagging up fungus to send back to Jacko.

Overcharge...

I question the price when woman behind the counter demands £3.60 from me for the bacon sandwich (admittedly I'd made it a large one) and single chocolate cup cake that currently sit on top of the counter, crying out to be placed in my carrier bag. I get her to do the sums. Not once. But twice. Another member of staff enters the fray, taking control of the cash register and reminding me that the tomato atop the bacon is 15 pence. Nothing adds up. Then they go through it again. "And two cup cakes is..." I didn't want two cup cakes. "That's what you asked for." "No. I asked for a cup cake in the singular." "You what? Anyway. I heard you ask for two." "If she says you asked for two, well, you did ask for two..." mutters the other one. I consider leaving the stuff on the counter and exiting with an eccentric flurry to bring proceedings to a close. Then I think again. "Have you introduced a new policy," I ask. "One where the customer is always wrong?" "No," says counter staff #1, "it's just that I thought you said..." "Please. Just take the cup cake I didn't want and still don't want out of the bag and charge me accordingly." "You did say..." "Take the cup cake out of the bag..." A pause. They stare at me. They clearly think I am a trouble causer. "Please." Oh, my, the fun I have.

A pigeon defecates...

Hang about ... the blurb on the rear cover of Daren White and Eddie Campbell's comic book The Playwright sounds familiar. As spotted in Forbidden Planet.

Buy carrots and turnips...

"The more you give, the more you are. Think of Chekhov, with his patients and his crowds of dependent relatives, whose living room became such a public space that he had to put up no smoking signs. His advice to young writers was "travel third class". Ralph Waldo Emerson's was to 'buy carrots and turnips'.

"For centuries, writers have sung the virtues of staying connected to the routine and the mundane. Real creativity should feel like a game, not a career. Having to hang out the washing or get up and make breakfast helps you remember that your "work" is actually fun. And for it to stay fun, you have to be unafraid of failure. It's very powerful to be surrounded by people who love you for something other than your work, who are unaware of the daily, painful fluctuations of your reputation. I discovered recently that my youngest child thought I spent my days typing out more and more copies of my book Millions, so that everyone could have one.

"Writing is a peculiar balancing act between freedom and discipline. Writers are free to spend their days doing whatever they like; but if they don't write, then they are not writers."

Frank Cottrell Boyce - The parent trap: art after children in The Guardian