Hotel bar...

So, I had this idea for a caper set in a hotel bar. A short play. And I was in Leeds, with two hours to spare. So I went to Eddie Waring's old haunt, The Queens, and wrote it there. I wasn't looking my best - a sort of Larry David number; trainers, jeans, New York Rangers t-shirt topped off with a 'sports jacket' - because this was M's day, and today she was the smartly dressed one. I strode confidently up the red carpet The Queens insists on securing to the steps in front of its main entrance, nodded at the concierge, and found myself stood in the lobby. There were no clues to the whereabouts of the bar so I decided to ask for them. "Where's the bar?" I mumbled to a woman putting together a promotional display about the hotel's beds - a display that included a hotel bed. She suggested, having looked at me and my Larry David get-up, that there wasn't a public bar available to the likes of me. "There's a pub in the station," she said, ushering me along. I know there's a pub in the station. It's a Wetherspoons. Good prices and good company if you like old gents with bulbous red noses but not a place to write a caper set in a hotel bar. Then she spotted the NY Rangers t-shirt, which proved to be my passport to the high life waiting just around the corner. "My husband is a big New York Rangers fan," she said, rather too proudly given their recent and last day, end of season defeat that kept them out of the Stanley Cup play-offs, with no suggestion that she wanted to get me into the promotional bed that was located in full view of anyone that ventured into the lobby. "It's a nice t-shirt, where did you get it?" The Rangers chat went on for some brief minutes with obvious nonsense about online stores and a lack of forechecking until whatever test I was being asked to pass, I eventually passed. "I was just looking for somewhere to do some work for a couple of hours," I said, thinking of alternative bars I could go to, not realising what was within very easy reach and was now mine. "Well, why not go through those doors, order a drink and take a seat?" And, lo and behold, I had entered the bar that was not available to the public, although very obviously was, because while I was sat there all shapes, sizes and sorts of public wandered through, some of them just sitting down and not even ordering a f*cking thing. Mainly, these were rude business types of the kind that believe they can commandeer tables to enable them to unfurl printouts of their Excel spreadsheets before talking very loudly about stakeholder engagement, regeneration and other such contemporary babble. But occasionally there was the odd writer sort looking for a place to hide, watch, drink and work.

Where do they go?..

My daughter, so she tells me, spends much of her time in this rusty Jenga-meets-obelisk of a building, which houses lots of Leeds Met and its design-orientated students. I have just discovered that this Cor-Ten steel-clad construction cost £45m. I quite like it. Apparently the rust, contrary to my expectations and shoddy understanding of corrosion and oxidisation, makes the steel more durable because it provides a naturally built-up protective layer. I have no idea, really, what Danielle does in here, although a lot of it involves designing staircases. She does try and tell me. But I'd rather there be some level of vagueness on my part because I'd hate to know more than my next generation, who will, I believe, save the planet and mankind from destroying itself. With, in Danielle's case, the deft use of staircases. For me, it's impossible to equate the Danielle who makes regular appearances within this rusty structure with the little girl that used to sit on my shoulders, although the two of them still look very similar. This makes me feel both proud and, ridiculously, a little bit sad for myself, because I realise that, like the Cor-Ten steel, I've started to look very weathered on the outside and, unlike the Cor-Ten, on the inside too. I'm afraid my protective layer has failed rather dramatically.

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.

Wet stuff...

Meeting re plays, which was all very positive and, dare I say it, rather inspiring. More deadlines set, buffet provided, a few laughs, plenty of ideas bandied around. Then to Leeds, to pick up Danielle, who finished her first semester at university today. The roads were a tad tortuous. Mad Friday, of course, with a lot of people hanging up their work boots for a couple of weeks, so there was a lot of traffic about. And a lot of spray as a result of the heavy rain. Then, when I got back to Hull, a few beers to wash away a hectic week working in someone else's office. I am used to winding down for Christmas but unfortunately, the pace has picked up to a level that I would describe as "f*ck this, I really am losing the will to live". The asterisks, by the way, are for you, little Charlie Hornshaw. I finish work for a few days at noon on Tuesday. It can't come soon enough.

It's the economy, student...

Daughter headed to Leeds, where university life begins next week, today. How exciting. For her. For me. An ending and a beginning. It is 'a moment'. But not a sad one. She will do well, I'm sure of that. And she is only a few miles up the road should I need to deliver food and/or money. She will be living in the building on the left. On her accommodation application she said she wanted to live with 'lively and outgoing' students. Which would suggest that, for Danielle, at least in her first year, sleep is now a thing of the past.


For three years - or maybe more - of higher education, at least Danielle won't have to concern herself with the world of work, or non-work, given the current doom and gloom. None of us makes anything anymore, do we? There is no longer a 'real economy' based on selling our labour or products to someone who requires them. It's all hot air and digit shuffling. Or it was. Recession? It'll be worse than that, won't it? A nice, financially unhealthy negative slide is on the cards. We'll be stashing the cash under our matress, given that banks can't be trusted, although quite why we'd hang on to money isn't that apparent, as capitalism and materialism heads for the hills. Money? Let's barter! You know, this is a good thing. The end of greed, perhaps, something of a leveller (unless the robber barons have their wicked way), certainly a reality check. We've got it wrong, we've been getting it wrong for years. We don't need any of that shit we surround ourselves with. We certainly don't need credit. We need to stop bailing the banks and financial institutions out - let them go to the wall and we can all start to live again.

Concrete and play...

Normal life resumes. Drove 17-year-old daughter to Leeds for the first of several university interviews she's heading to. A nice day and a reminder that I'm not as young as my inner child would have me believe. Lots of hanging around the upper floors of Leeds Met's School of Architecture, Landscape and Design tower block. The view through the glass was The Plaza - not the fancy hotel it sounds like but another addition to the student accommodation around these fancy parts. The interview went well. Tomorrow, she's heading to the Leeds College of Art & Design. Seems like five minutes ago she was leaning over a colouring book and frantically sribbling away with some chunky Crayolas. Amazing. And frightening. We - daughter, her current beau and lil me - went for some food then I headed for home, leaving them to enjoy this city of a thousand tower cranes.

The play? There were a few final nips and tucks to the script. The cast are flying now. Me? I'm overwhelmed, dizzy, wandering around in a daze. The temptation to head to the theatre every night is very high. But that would be weird and incredibly vain. So, tonight at least, I'm here instead. And, of course, I just sit here, unstaring at the TV screen, all of life out of focus, wondering how it's going. I feel rather peculiar. If anyone stumbles across my sanity can you let me have it back?

I'm into wide open spaces...

This is my view, yesterday lunch. At least when the opera gets too much, I can sit in a big wide open space just up the road - Millennium Square, Leeds. Harry Gratian was on the big screen, whittering on about the history of Leeds and, given what was on the Hull screen the other day, I guess there's some big "you've never had it so good" propaganda at work right across the country. 20 minutes in to Harry's very exciting film and I got a call from a lifeboat coxswain. As much as I've been putting it off, I guess the ride of a lifetime on a Severn Class lifeboat can't be avoided forever, can it?