Sully now available...

Please buy a copy of the play. Even if you don't want it, go on, put it away for that rugby league fan you know. It will eventually be available via Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and bookshops and retail outlets in Hull and Wales. But for now, for just £6.99, you can buy a copy of Sully via the internet, read it and weep. The play got standing ovations throughout its run at Hull Truck Theatre, where it returns for an extended workout in 2007. See if you can work out why. And there's only one way to do that. Buy a copy. Yes, buy a copy. Please. Just £6.99. Here.

Talking of rugby league, big game for Hull FC tonight. Just a win away from their first Grand Final. C'mon you Hull. Then it's Rovers turn to get in the Super League. Exciting times indeed. And, in the words of a recent text message a fan sent me the other day, "Oh please, please, please let it happen".

Tags: Sully, Lulu, Hull Truck, Hull FC, Hull KR

Not doing me any favours...

Attempted to watch The Favours doing an acoustic set at the BBC in Hull but, when I walked in, they were just setting up and guitar grrrrl and front lady Sara was just prettying herself and adjusting her stool, if you'll pardon the scatalogical expression. So I thought, hmm, it's 1pm, I'll buy myself a snack and a coffee from the in-house refreshment stand and wait for it all to start. But the refreshment post was closed for lunch. Just when, I dunno, people might actually want something to eat and drink. So I did a lap of the place, sneered at the smelly looking people using the free computers and made a quick exit, forsaking The Favours and, instead, heading to mother's to put up a curtain rail. How very rock 'n' roll of me.

The blog of an old Hull Daily Mail mucker has been discovered. Once upon a time the freakish, undeniably weird and sexily bespectacled Steve Regan was the most feared columnist known to man and/or regional journalism. He certainly never did fluffy. Good to see, over on his Last Resort, that he's now making new friends and enemies on Merseyside.

Listening: Bromhead's Jacket - Trip To The Golden Arches.

Tags: The Favours, BBC, Merseyside

#E4EEC9

A scintillating couple of hours going through the proof of the play and circling the changes. The green background on the cover was also a bit too strong, I thought, so that's going to be changed to #E4EEC9, hexadecimal-fixated kids. Am on the radio a week tomorrow, so am hoping to get a bit of an early plug in for the published play, in the hope that I can shift more than the one copy to my mum. Although the real sales, if there are to be any, will no doubt occur when the play returns next year. By which time, I'm reckoning, my house will be full of boxes full of the things.

In other self flagellation news, our names have made their way into a nice new Hull Truck publicity leaflet, where we nestle alongside the more established and esteemed talents of Richard Bean, Amanda Whittington and Gordon Steel and a mere paragraph away from messrs Godber and Ayckbourn. It was a nice surprise, as was the invite to the theatre's Christmas party that dropped through the letterbox earlier today. Who will we end up sitting with?

Listening: Van Halen - Take Your Whiskey Home

Tags: Hull Truck

Village?

Down by the Humber. Again. Strange, walking by the side of this muddy, murky estuary always makes me feel sad and blue and melancholy. Partly, I suppose, because there's never anybody else around. Looking at all the rotting jetties and rail tracks going nowhere I get gripped by these thoughts that a big part of Hull has just been allowed to slide away into the water. Why wasn't there any fight to hang on to all the industry that this area used to be packed with? Instead, some bright spark built a 'village' around, about and on top of what used to be docks. But it's not a village, just a weird, 21st century facsimile of what someone in an architects' office thinks a village should be - which translates into lots of cramped apartments with French balconies and a Spar supermarket. There's a pub - The Timber Dock - which is a very soulless establishment. But it all feels like such a waste of something incredibly important.

Took the proof to show a few people, all of whom were impressed by the real book-like qualities the publication possessed. I think I may be on to a winner.

Tags: River Humber, Victoria Dock

Proof...

Well, as you can see, the proof of the book of the play finally came. And the shock news is that it's like a proper book and everything! And that's my tiny hand, my laptop and my Robot Attack mug in the picture too. So now you know just that little bit more about me. Which must be marvellous for you. Anyway, watch this space for details of how to purchase a copy of Sully, a play that, I admit, has limited appeal beyond the city of Hull, a few hardcore rugby towns and what was the Welsh village of Splott before it was eaten by Cardiff. There's a few minor changes to be made but, well, I'm very excited to be finally holding this thing in my hand.

So, Gordon Brown, then. He has all the personality and looks of a slug, doesn't he? But my, how we laughed when he said: "I'm more interested in the future of the Arctic circle than the future of the Arctic Monkeys." Doesn't he have any thoughts on the Monkeys' difficult second album? For a band so intent on writing lyrical social realism one wonders how on earth they'll keep it up now they're big shot celebs so far detached from the grubby back streets of Sheffield. Surely what follows debut Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not needs to be of major interest to a self-confessed 'fan'? But there's Brown, busying himself with his plans for wrecking the environment. We can't trust him, I tells you.

Tags: Gordon Brown, Arctic Monkeys, Sully, Splott, Rugby League

Feeling...

Feeling my way towards this new play. I have a meeting to discuss all in a couple of weeks and, so far, it's just a collection of abstract sentences and addled thoughts. Feel as if I should go into the meeting with a clearer idea than I have ever had before, lest this career starts and ends with Sully. And also because I want the play to be mine, at least during the writing process, and the more I have to say on the subject the better. The subject matter, once again, doesn't lend itself too obviously to comedy. I like that - it means I have to work hard to find the laughs. So today I've met some new characters (some of them might have to go away), scribbled out a loose plot, had my nose in and out of The Tempest, got just a little bit closer to what I might end up writing. Which is just about where I should be right now.

Attempted to secure some short-term bill-paying employment with a leading recruitment agency. Needs must and all that and I'm not shy of a bit of work (aside from painting the front of the house). But apparently, and this is a first, my CV is too glittery and glamorous for such work. "You're obviously very creative," I was told, "the employers we deal with don't like that." Oh. I asked if I should have lied. But it was too late, her mind was made up, I'm just too good, in her eyes, to do menial work. Gizza job, someone?

Listening: Lil' Chris - Checking It Out / The Vines - Get Free. Watching (via You Tube): The Office - S3 ep1

Tags: writing

Colon cleansing...

Keen to jump on any and every new cyberspace bandwagon I do flirt with Myspace now and then, although I find the whole experience rather unfulfilling and realise it's a young persons/Rupert Murdoch medium. However, great news this morning in my inbox: " You have been invited to join the Colon Cleansing Treatment group on MySpace." How can I resist such a tempting offer? Imagine the friends with clean colons I could make if I head along. One of them would be the lady in the picture, group leader Elizabeth, whose US-based colon, if we could remove it, would surely smell of fresh roses. Sadly, though, the whole thing is a scam. It's not a community with clean colons at all, but a shameless advert for the services of Bowtrol. Mind you, I did visit Bowtrol's site, where you can order bottles crammed full of their natural herbal colon cleansing treatment that has changed hundreds of thousands of people's lives by allowing them to kiss goodbye to their dirty, filthy colons. It's safe and effective and, from the look of the young lady with the clean colon who is being thrown about on the Bowtrol website banner, it certainly does the trick.

I mean, you wouldn't indulge in such Premiership-style clean colon celebrations if you had loose stools or uncomfortable cramping, would you?

Tags: colon, Bowtrol, Myspace

Tantalising carrot...

Got back out there this morning and finished that painting. It started raining as soon as the paint brush was moved back and forth, but I ploughed on regardless. The problem with a cul-de-sac is external work paranoia - I really did feel as if all eyes were on me, and they were all wondering what the hell I was doing painting during a downpoar. But the sun eventually shone and the job's a good 'un. Bit of an old-fashioned lazy Sunday. Watched the quite dreadful but slightly humorous Fantastic Four with my two sons. Eldest son abandoned his own DVD after 60 of the 101 minutes to hit his PS2, but we perservered. The moral was don't get caught in a cosmic storm or, if you do, use the after-effects for good, not evil, and try and avoid being the one that ends up as The Thing if you can. Then it was listening to Hull KR head into their Grand Final with the tantalising prospect of Super League rugby the carrot being dangled in front of them. It would be great to resume the old rivalry and have two teams from the city playing in the top flight. The traditional Sunday roast was replaced by chilli con carne.

Tags: Hull KR, Super League, Fantastic Four

Birthday treat...

A swanky continental market in the city centre, one of those that tours cultureless cities around the country. Because, I suppose, we would never be able to sample fancy things like cheese, crepes and salami unless it's brought to our doorstep from these distant foreign lands. An excuse for tracksuited sorts to exclaim "eeurgh!" in the direction of bread they don't like the look of, and for ladies to show their superior knowledge of paella when someone wonders "what's in the big pan?" Inexplicably, amongst the foodstuffs and the flower bulbs and the trinkets, was a stall selling rather un-continental "winter sets" comprising the sort of badly-made woolly hats and scarves once fashionable in the 1930s. Sadly the smell of nice food was somewhat overcome by the smell of Hull's city centre drains, which don't appear to have been "flushed out" as per a recent announcement. People who claim to be big city centre movers and shakers were on the local radio and television yesterday saying that Hull has the potential to be the "Covent Garden of the north", a rather bizarre, intangible thing to aim for and, even if I could work out what it meant, I feel it's probably a long way off. And, given the fishing heritage and the stench, maybe we should gun for aping Billingsgate Fish Market first.

Youngest son Sam was 11 today. So, by way of a really special treat, we took him to the Ferens (free admission) to cock a snoop at the Master of the Sea - Charles Napier Hemy exhibition, which opened today. Lots of oily marine paintings from the late 19th and early 20th century. All rather drab, really, I thought, although the odd one did capture the danger of working at sea. Sam agreed, stating, after he'd looked at one, "This is boring". So off we trotted for a party tea, with jelly and ice cream and everything, even though he's far too old for that sort of thing now and can often be seen in art galleries.

Listening: Faithless - Don't Leave.

Tags: Covent Garden, Ferens, Charles Napier Hemy

Builders...

The builders working on a house a mere two doors away with drills making such a piercing racket that it rendered all attempts to sit at the laptop exruciatingly painful and pointless, prompted me to get out front and get that exterior paint that's been blocking up the hallway on some flaky but previously painted brickwork. There was some slight ladder envy at work: The three-man team of builders had two sets of triple extenders while I had two mediocre pairs of steps, one slightly taller and more complicated to use than the other. I looked at them and they looked at me and I promptly made a right mess of putting up the more complicated sets of steps, putting on a performance that Norman Wisdom would have been proud of. They shouted things at each other, such as "pass me a screwdriver!" "The posi or the flat ended?" and "ruddy hell, this brickwork's shot to pieces." Meanwhile I hummed Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue while thinking to myself, "This garden was his garden and it always would be, no matter how hairy and intimidating those builders next door-but-one might be."
After about an hour of being up the steps holding a pot of paint, the lack of physical work on my part over the last few years began to show. The arm holding the pot began to shake uncontrollably and my legs had gone all aquiver. As the builders stood about laughing and talking about ladies breasts and bottoms, I nipped inside for a sugary lollipop to boost my engergy levels. Sadly, they were cheap lollipops and didn't really do the job, so after another hour or so, with the job half done, I admitted defeat and, taking my inferior steps, brushes and heavy pot of paint with me, skulked back inside for a rest. It could be paranoia but I swear the builders, all three of them, smirked as I left them to their drilling and triple extender ladder-stroking.
It is now around 20 hours later. I still ache. Thankfully a small amount of rain has given me the excuse not to go back out there. There's that saying, isn't there, that "hard work never killed anyone". It is, I think, a very silly saying. Because hard work can and does kill people, especially if, say, you have a heart condition, or if, like me, you left the real world of work behind to bash away on a keyboard for a living and have thus become a bit of a softy with no muscles. Well, I say a living, at the moment it could hardly be described as that - if I'd been busy earning money from the writing I would have employed a decorator. At the moment, though, that kind of decadence is but a distant dream.

Tags: Gershwin, Rhapsody in Blue, decorating, Norman Wisdom, ladders

Hessle Rurd...

I'm telling you, this city really is going places. Hessle Road is in west Hull and was once home to everyone that's ever been connected to the fishing industry and the odd actor, like Tom Courtenay (whose family once worked for a living in, you guessed it, the fishing industry). Hessle Road was known for its community spirit, its down to earth folk and fine drinking establishments, like Rayners, where people used to entertain each other by taking their horses into the bar or knocking the shit out of each other in no-holds barred bare knuckle fighting contests. But in the 1980s the fishing industry had all-but disappeared and Hessle Road became home to dirty people who claimed state benefit and ate their children. They continued eating their children for 26 years, until high-class supermarket chain Lidl built a flagship store near the Hessle Road flyover, buying the land off an under-funded primary school and everything became happy and rosey and lovely again. So much so that, when I was on Hessle Road the other day, I noticed that we had a celebrity visitor. So, welcome to the city, Dr Dre, and your Volvo, and I do hope you and your rap entourage enjoyed the fish and chips from Challis's and the bargains to be had up and down a main thoroughfare that is, undoubtedly, enjoying a renaissance.

I vaguely remember a song about Hessle Road that was released on vinyl in the 1970s. The beginning contained the opening salvo: Way down Hessle Road, There are some mucky women. The rest, sadly, has faded from memory.

Listening: The Rifles - No Love Lost.

Tags: Dr Dre, Hessle Road, Hull, Lidl, Rayners

Smaller sizes now in stock...

There are some wonderful 'specialist' shops in Hull and, if you're ever on a train with John Prescott, do ask him about Gwenap. But one of the finest specialist emporiums making this northern outpost a Top Ten city is Cuddly Girls, which deals with clothes for ladies of a certain size. I love the slogan the owners have pilfered from 10cc. "Big Girls Don't Cry" it says on the shop front, just in case you were pondering having a nervous breakdown because you couldn't fit into that size 14 dress sold over the road in Ethel Austin. That man and his child are obviously heading in to pick up a loved one a nice posh easy-fitting get-up. On the way in he will notice a baffling sign on orange fluourescent card: "Smaller sizes now in stock". It seems that the proprietors of Cuddly Girls are forgetting which side their bread is buttered (or, rather, smeared with lard and chocolate spread) and are reaching out to stick thin model types, such as Kate Moss and her ilk, who will no doubt, because of that little sign, be heading to our upmarket city. Sadly, Cuddly Girls does not have an online presence I can point you to. I know this because I have conducted some in-depth internet research and I wouldn't want you seeing the things I have just seen.
Once I got past the large ladies' shop we found a mint condition Game of Life, for just a quid. It wasn't 'til we got it home and ripped off the plastic wrapper that we realised it was a special 'media' edition, aimed at KS2 students, and not the one we had fond memories of (the advert went something like: "You've defaulted on your poll tax and gone bankrupt! Please attend a court hearing and prepare to have all of your worldly goods repossessed!"). Instead, you have to come up with natty advertising campaigns and smear dirt on celebrities en route to becoming Rupert Murdoch. Which, to be honest, I can live without.

Letter from the people at the Arts Council, telling me they have received my application for funding, which is a relief given the complex nature of sending something in an A4 envelope these days. And I only have to wait six weeks to find out how I've got on! "Think about what you will do if we cannot fund your activity," it says. Oh no, I didn't fink of that.

The smarter reader will have noticed I've been mucking about with Technorati tags, although I'm not sure whether it's worth the bother, even with some fancy scripting that means all I have to do is type in a few words. For starters, please excuse the techno-babble, Technorati reckon I haven't updated this blog for 140 days despite many attempts to ping them to prove otherwise. Any suggestions IT people?

Listening: The Long Blondes.

Tags: Arts Council, Technorati, Cuddly Girls, Gwenap, Rupert Murdoch, outsize

Shame on you...

I fear that my daughter is on her way to becoming a terrorist. I have looked at John Reid's handy guide to spotting signs of radicalisation and there are a lot of ticks in boxes. Odd hours - check. Strange new friends - check. She's not dropped out of college yet but she's only been there for two weeks so there's plenty of time for that. But Mr Reid has me running scared. As he says:

"There is no nice way of saying this. These fanatics are looking to groom and brainwash children, including your children, for suicide bombings. Grooming them to kill themselves in order to murder others."

Blimey. I better get a grip, just in case the headline grabbing berk has a point. Which, of course, he doesn't.

Tags: John Reid, Abu Isadan, radicalisation

Drugs don't work...

Illegal drugs are bad for you, although they can make you feel nice sometimes, but mainly they are evil and nasty and ruin your life. Everyone knows that because we all saw what they did to Zammo in Grange Hill years ago. Damn ruined his relationship with the lovely Jackie Wright, them drugs did, and Zammo ended up hating Jackie for she sent his packet of smack down the sink. But today, reading the website of the local newspaper around these parts, the Hull Daily Mail, which calls itself the Mail to differentiate itself from a national newspaper of the same name, and also because it has delusions of grandeur, I realised that there is a more serious problem that drugs can cause: They make you resort to cliches and sound a bit like you might have been made up by a reporter. And I quote...

"...one former child drug-user told the Mail he started using cannabis at 12 before graduating to harder drugs within 18 months.
He said: "My personal advice is don't do it. I've been there, done that and got the T-shirt and it's not a good life." "

Surely talking like that is worse than any dependancy or drug-induced paranoia or psychosis. If, indeed, the former child drug-user did say any of that. But, if he did, is he suggesting that going places, doing stuff and wearing a T-shirt is not a good life? Say the weather's really nice and you're enjoying the rays, walking here and there, doing things, feeling utterly at one with the world, maybe even enjoying a natural 'high' and wearing your favourite T-shirt, isn't that good? I'd jolly well say so.

The Mail also does a marvellous job of stating the obvious, in the most obvious manner by using the word obvious, just in case you're one of those readers that is a bit slow on the uptake:

"Obvious signs of drug abuse include syringes, needles and pill boxes."

Y'don't say! Although, "pill boxes"?! That's a posh drug user, ain't it? As for needles, Sharon's Knit Things might have something to say about that. Anyway, after telling us that it's young kids that are taking drugs and we should all panic because they're getting out of hand and that none of this would have happened a decade ago (although it was certainly happening when I was a 'kid', two and a half decades ago) because a decade ago everything was lovely and right in the world and drugs didn't exist then, and nor did evil, someone, apropos of being shouted at by a news editor no doubt, adds a quote about 16-59 year olds to fill the last paragraph up nicely:

"A recent survey claimed 31 per cent of people aged between 16 and 59 in England and Wales had taken drugs at some stage in their lives, with two-thirds no longer involved."

And that, folks, is your Drug Horror Story in a nutshell. More in your Mail.

Listening: The Fratellis - Costello Music.

Technorati Tags: Drug abuse, Hull Daily Mail, heroin, cannabis, Grange Hill, humour

Macho bed fellows - rugby & knitting...

So, the new cover for Sully. I think there's a balance been struck between the black and white and red and white club colours, taking on board the previous comments. Experimented with red washes but they all looked a bit girly and pink and not suited to a play about the 'man's' game of rugby league at all. Instead, went for something altogether neutral and picked out some red on Sully's HKR moments. Waiting for a proof copy of the full thing to land in my hands and then, when the changes have been made, it's going to be available to you and you and you. How exciting! Naturally, I expect this to be the moment when my reader tells me that the red cover was better.

Exciting times too over on Sharonsknitthings. My interest appears to have sparked a period of serious productivity for Sharon, of Michigan, USA. She's produced a quite exquisite baby sweater (I am assuming this is for Jerome, the lucky fella!) and, for the grandson of one of Sharon's many tennis buddies, a Vogue-influenced sea boat sweater. And, heck, there's the prestigious commission Sharon received from her friend Marcia to knit five, yes FIVE, sweaters! Those sweaters are going to take Colorado by storm! Please pay Sharon's blog a look as I'm sure you'll agree with me that these items are more than mere knitwear - they are Art with a capital A! These children are very blessed indeed to have such a talented knitter working the needles for them.

Technorati Tags: Rugby League, knitting, Sully, Hull FC, Hull Kingston Rovers, Michigan

Sharonsknitthings...

You blog hop, you get assaulted by all manner of nonsense. A click on the 'next' button in Blogger and you quickly realise it's all out there - blogs celebrating the work of Al Gore, blogs by fascists, crypto-fascists, neo-fascists, Catholic clerical fascists, third positivists, Islam-o-phobics, Islamic fundamentalists, left-leaning geeks, right leaning geeks, idealists, Ikea-lovers, fundamentally ideal Ikea-lovers, Maoists, Marxists, Leninists and Stalinists, anarachists, social anarchists, socialists, libertarian socialists, dog lovers, cat lovers, dildo lovers, eco warriors, eco haters, economists, capitalists, Baathists, penis enlargers, big corporations bastardisng Blogger, geeks removing the Blogger tool bar, Internationalists, Trade Unionists, state of the Unionists, 'adult' bloggers, blogs where you can buy Girls Bling Necklaces, new blogs, old blogs and a lot of shit blogs. But one of the most entertaining blogs I clicked my way towards last night was Sharonsknitthings, on which Sharon, from Michigan, USA, talks about the things that she knits. It's not a daily blog - in fact, Sharon's output is rather sporadic but, heck, she does a lot of knitting too and that keeps her away from the keyboard - but I read with awe and more than a pang of jealousy the March 2006 post about the new blue sweater Sharon knitted for her grandson. It darn well makes me want to pick up the needles myself. I especially loved it when Sharon pointed out, just in case we couldn't decide for ourselves when looking at the beautiful image, that "The sweater fits good, though it could be longer." Not half. Luckily, Sharon can "lengthen the sweater easily, since it's a top down pattern." Great news. I'd like it if Sharon could maybe redesign her blog to include a fantastic tag line that is actually taken from her own blog post this month: "These are busy times, with tennis, gardening, fishing, and of course KNITTING". Amen to that!

Listening: Gram Parsons - Whiskytown

Pointless...

Play-related journey to Spurn Point, the three and a half mile sandy stretch of land where the River Humber meets the North Sea. Desolate place, constantly battered by the elements but, today, very pleasant and calm. Full, as it always is, of freaky twitchers trying to spot Marmora's Warblers amid the seagulls and seaweed inbetween walking three abreast down the too-narrow single lane road with an attitude that suggests that they have the right of way over a Toyota Yaris because they wear camouflage shorts, are carrying an obtrusive and ridiculously large pair of binoculars and haven't washed their hairy legs for weeks. The last time I was here it was late autumn and it was a much scarier environment - you felt that at any moment the Point could be carved from the mainland by a crashing wave and you'd be forced to become an RNLI crew member to work your passage home. Today there were also poor unfortunate children who had been forced to accompany their fathers for a spot of fishing - daddies were having a great time as their kids sat on the sand bored shitless, wondering why this seaside didn't have any amusements, deck chairs or ice cream.

Listening: Joni Mitchell - Case of You

Sowing the seeds of love...

Am about to start work on a new play. Not the writing, just the preparation, the putting together of ideas and unearthing some research, maybe coming up with an actual story to go with the subject matter. I have been asked to do this. So, naturally, I spent the afternoon gardening. I have re-seeded the front lawn. I have no idea if this is a good time of year to do this kind of thing but I followed the instructions on the packet. Apparently, I will see signs of new growth within 14 days. Whether any work on the play has been done by that time is anyone's guess.
Met some newspaper people in Lamp, one of Hull's better establishments. The newspaper people are all becoming multi-media 'experts', such is the direction of the printed press, and were in training to make sub-standard, amateurish news videos that are then posted on the HDM's website, along with some hideously embarrassing 'news bulletins'. Somehow the paper won an award for innovation for this extremely poor branch of its business. It's only innovative if we can discount a few decades of television news. They get a few hours training which, apparently, is all you need and probably accounts for the terrible end-product. If those in charge at the paper had any understanding of what the internet actually is and the potential for news organisations it harbours, they might stand a chance. But The Guardian they ain't. Yesterday I saw several thousand copies of the Manchester Evening News given away, which is a sure sign that traditional print media, desperate to keep a readership at any cost, are living in fear of losing all their advertising revenues. It was surprising how many people refused a free copy, though, and preferred to side-step the vendors, instead choosing to walk in the direction of a man in a clown suit playing a keyboard programmed to make drum noises. Maybe that's the future.

Wet...

Rather lax security at BBC Manchester. We managed to drive straight into a car park reserved for broadcast staff, walked past security in our ragamuffin clothing, without so much as a question, headed, via several other car parks, into reception where we explained where the car was. "Oh. That'll be fine." "Do you need my registration details?" "No, it doesn't matter." Eight hours later we walked under a barrier as a car was coming out, straight past security in our very wet ragamuffin clothing, without so much as a question, walked through a car park full of nice vehicles, walked through a car park full of vintage buses, ambulances and police cars (props, no doubt), found the car and sped off. Always thought big media organisations were wary of the terrorist threat and being infiltrated, or maybe they want someone to storm in and take over Anthony Wilson's radio slot.

So, while M was involved in meetings and such, I was left to wander aimlessly through the streets of Manchester, with the rain pissing down on me. I took cover in the city art gallery for a while and was quite taken with Liam Spencer's From Manchester To Shanghai exhibition. He does good stuff with oil on canvas, that Liam, and his view of the city was much drier than mine. I was followed, probably because I looked like a drowned rat ridden by a ne'er do well, by a member of the curatorial staff for much of my visit. After much walking through the puddle-ridden streets I had a break in the Royal Exchange, where I had a drink while browsing through the season brochure as a giant image of Robert Lindsay looked down on me. I decided to take a picture on my phone of this, to show to someone we know who despises everything about RL, but the woman sat next to me started to shift uncomfortably, feeling, I guess, that she was in the company of a stalker-to-be.
Sinclair's Oyster Bar is a nice pub with a history dating back to the 17th century and, like all the nicest pubs, serves dreadful (but cheap) Sam Smith's ale. I read with disgust a piece of info on the wall that explained that a son of the original owners, the Byroms, invented Pitman's shorthand while staring out of the very window that I was staring out of.
I like Manchester but this was a bit of a poor day. We got caught up in miles of tailbacks on the M62 on the way that took two hours to wade through and I could have done without getting so wet, and my visit to another pub called the Seven Oaks, which was a bit of a hovel in which all the customers were watching a wildlife programme about elephants on the big screen.

So, around six hours, several failed recovery efforts and sans a fair bit of data later, the laptop appears to be back to life. In the end, after thinking that I should just hurl the thing at the floor and have done with it, I did a clean reinstall. Have no faith in the thing, of course, so am working on the old laptop, with its slippery pointing device, unlockable lid and inability to read from my old faithful USB stick which contains backups of all my recent work. The only thing I've really lost to reformatting is a few digital images - which is probably karma for asking someone yesterday if 35mm film and prints were worth all the mucking about. Hmmf.

Crash...

Such is the stability of operating systems these days (!) that it's been a few years since I've seen a blue screen of death. But, heck, the laptop's just died in front of my very eyes. Tried all kinds of re-boot techniques and strange Vulcan grips to bring it back to life but couldn't even get the thing to start in safe mode. So, over in the other room, it's being well and truly recovered. Naturally, I've backed all of my data up, he lied, so there's nothing to panic about there. Thankfully, I got that grants for arts application printed off prior to the hardware collapse, which is the important thing. Fingers crossed for that one.

Journeyed into town. Keep having trouble in the post office ever since the changes were made to postage charges. Last time I was interrogated re whether the two first class stamps I had bought were intended for an A4 envelope I'd purchased at the same time. Of course not, I'd seen the literature that the Post Office had sent through my door, and I couldn't avoid the posters all over the walls of the branch I'd walked into, nor the reminder at the counter. But still they didn't think I had the common sense not to put standard first class stamps on an A4 envelope, which now falls into the 'large letter' category. Anyways, today I wanted to post an A4 envelope, that would be filled with a few sheets of A4 paper and nothing heavy. I was quizzed about the weight of the paper and told that they "must weigh the package". "No you mustn't," I replied, demanding a 'large letter' first class stamp. Why is this bullshit such hard work?

Call from the credit card company informing me that I have exceeded the card limit. "It's not the end of the world, is it?" I laughed down the phone to the nice man in HFC Bank's call centre. "I don't know," he replied, as deadpan as Tony Hancock. "No, I can assure you, it's not the end of the world." I complimented him on having such a silky smooth voice. He wasn't interested, just wanted to know whether I would be paying the appropriate amount this month. I lied and came up with some ridiculously large amount and promised to make a counter payment immediately. But still it didn't cheer him up. I remember a time when I didn't owe any of these cunts money. They should never have convinced me that I needed it in the first place.

So, yes, boring, tedious bullshit. It's me own fault for listening to Morrissey's The World Is Full of Crushing Bores just before we set off. The day's minor trials, probably nothing that would dent most people, just added to my current downward spiralling frame of mind. I don't really know where I'm going, just that I'd like to get to wherever it is pretty fucking quickly. Before it's too late. But I've started to feel that the only people that ever get anywhere are the bullshitters.

The day's highlight? We bought Pocky and Hello Kitty sweets from the Chong Wah Chinese Supermarket and drank and ate in the sun across the road from Humberside Fire Service officers who, back from a shout, were relaxing by sitting on their appliance.

9/11

Out for a stroll and everything seems safe and sound, which isn't always the case in east Hull. A circus is putting up its big top in the park around the corner, the clattering of hammers on metal to form the stands wrecking the peace and quiet. Just around the corner there's a house with the stars and stripes in the window. Weird, I think, and take a closer look. It's a Flag of Honor, containing all the names of...well, all the names. It doesn't really sit too well, here, I'm thinking, and not many people will see it, or get the chance to think that it doesn't really go with those conifers. I take the pic on my way back from Morrisons, copy of The Guardian, a loaf of bread and a packet of cotton buds banging against my leg in the carrier bag. I walk back through the park for a closer look at the circus, ponder whether it really is worth running away to, or if swinging on a trapeze night after night is just as soul destroying as the other jobs I've done. I amend a grants for arts application that might stave off the bailiffs. It will be in the post tomorrow, on a less ominous date. I make a crisp sandwich. I'm sure there used to be enough crisps in a bag to fill four slices of bread - but I barely fill two. CNN is streaming its footage from September 11, 2001 in real time. I can't decide if this is in bad taste or is a much more fitting tribute than the stuff that is happening in Shanksville, or the Pentagon, or at the WTC site today (too orchestrated, too many military uniforms, too many cameras pointing at people who wanted to do their thing in private). But in east Hull everything seems safe and sound. For now.

To meet...

Sun. Live music. And a bag full of food and drink. The usual faces. My mum sat on a small camping chair. Hull Daily Mail offshoot Hull Vibe trying to prove it's down with the kids/interested in cultural diversity. Kev Ladden forcing people to pose for pics. Michelle Dee gyrating to jolly japesters Fonda 500. Paddingtons and Yo-Yos out with their offspring. Just sitting in the sun, really, with hundreds of others, thinking that this Mela business really is a fine way for the curtain to fall on summer.

Listening: Space - Neighbourhood / Rolling Stones - Between The Buttons.

Green, green grass of home...

Gardening. Which isn't easy if your grass is as long and your roses as overgrown as ours. I made the task more exciting by changing the strimmer blade with the strimmer still plugged in and shifting rose branches in short sleeves and without gloves. Usual comments from the neighbours: "Do ours next?" "Still at it?" and, "ooh, look at that small cat sat in the window". It all seemed like a good idea when I got up but now I ache and my arms make me look like a self-harmer. Which, in a way, I am. If I were like a lot of other playwrights in the country right now I'd be far, far away from secateurs and, instead, be penning a play about slavery/William Wilberforce in readiness for the bicentenary of the Abolition Bill. But I'm the only one that hasn't been asked to write such a piece. Which is maybe just as well today, as there'd be a scene about pruning and making a compost heap. Apparently when Alan Plater was writing a play about football a couple of years ago he was watching Wimbledon out of the corner of his eye and ended up with several pages of tennis in there.

Looking towards a weekend that should include sitting in a park listening to music, cutting up paper and eating curry. If you see me at Hull Mela say hello. I'll be the one with grass stains on my jeans and arms like Richey Edwards.

Listening: Josh Rouse - Home.

Whole Lotta Banhart...

With Lozman to see Devendra Banhart at Leeds Met, a nice little black box of a venue. Stunned by the madcap-ness of it all - he's an utter loon (Dev, not Loz, although he has his moments too). Yet there's an honesty to what the bearded one does, even when he's singing about spiders, or feeling like a child. And it's hard not to fall for that flakiness, the looseness of the set and the effete way he prances around the stage. At one point, Banhart starts asking for requests. Some japester shouts Whole Lotta Rosie, while someone else wanted a song that had been performed just ten minutes before. Nice gig and lots of fun.

Help...

I'd like your help. Below are the proposed front and back covers for a print version of Sully. I'd really welcome feedback before the plunge is well and truly taken. These are scaled down versions, so don't panic re the resolution if you're in the print game. Also, on the back cover, there's a gap for an ISBN number and other bits and pieces, just in case you think it looks a bit weird. But, yeah, what do you think? If you click on them you'll be able to read the text!

I didn't get where I am today...

Got the script finished. 9pm last night. At 60 pages it's a short play. I'll put it away for a few weeks then get it out, make the necessary changes and additions and think about what I can do with a violent three hander with no obvious commercial appeal. One reason for writing this stuff, other than just to write, is to clear the mind of irritating nonsense. If I didn't get it down and out then it would just be buzzing around in there anyway. I'm sure you know the feeling. So, at 9pm last night, I felt some peace. It will be short lived. There are a couple of big projects looming that I'm just tentatively feeling my way towards so I needed to clear out all the interference. But no doubt something else will creep in there.

Finished the script in time to watch Comedy Connections. It was The Fall & Rise of Reginald Perrin. I'd forgotten how much I loved this when it was on. I'll have been 10 when it first aired. Some of the stuff that I write has obvious nods towards David Nobbs, as M pointed out (there was a clip of Jimmy and Reggie reciting ridiculously big lists, which is something I find myself unable to stop writing). Again, on this programme, history was painted over. Leonard Rossiter's last sit-com was the quite dreadful supermarket gibberish Tripper's Day. It's not in any way an important part of his acting career - in fact, something of an embarassment - but to skirt over it completely, thus leaving a chronological gap that just sent Rossiter flying into a production of Joe Orton's Loot to return to his dressing room mid-performance to die just seemed, well, wrong, especially as Tripper's Day was being broadcast at that time. But, playing Inspector Truscott in a play about a corpse and leaving this mortal coil with Truscott's pipe in your hand, what a way to go, eh?

"Things that make me laugh are black jokes, which some people find distasteful. I like the story about Arthur Lucan, who was of course 'Old Mother Riley'. He'd been doing pantomime for about ten weeks, with the audience full of kids screaming his name. He goes off to his dressing room. Then there's a call for him, and he doesn't answer. The theatre manager has to go onstage and break the news. And he says 'Please could I have your attention? Kiddies, shush please. I have some very sad news. Old Mother Riley is dead.' And someone from the back shouts 'Oh no, she isn't!' "- Leonard Rossiter, 1980. More at Leonard Rosssiter.com

Strollin'...

Strolled around Hull's old riverside industrial zone. Not that there is much sense that anything remotely industrial is going on - just a load of mucky old decaying buildings and the odd waft of cocoa. The old warehouse of the British Extracting Co Ltd would make fantastic apartments if someone could get round to converting the place, although I don't fancy the fire escape. Dunno if you can see it in this scaled down version but I didn't have to Photoshop that big-winged bird into the top left of the frame, it just happened to be there.
After an hour of wandering aimlessly I went into The Bay Horse. Mainly because I'd never been in it. There are some houses close to the pub but there were just three customers, including me, and a barmaid who was thrilling one particular chap with tales of being so ill last weekend that she "wasn't fit for knackers", which I thought was a great expression. In the time it took me to drink my thirst-quenching lager the other two had hardly touched their drinks. Back when drinking was positively encouraged in this area as some kind of remedy for inhaling chemicals, dust, grain and cocoa powder it will have been brimming with customers pouring pint after pint down their necks but it surely can't even be worth opening on a lunch these days. Which is a shame as last week the barmaid apparently cancelled a doctor's appointment to do an extra daytime shift. The landlord wants her to work tomorrow. "But I'll be fucked if I'll cancel my hospital appointment," she added, making me fear for her health.
The pics are for this Life After Cod photoblog and word experience that I never get round to writing the words for. But when I got back home and looked at them on the laptop I wasn't too enamoured with the results. I'm craving a digital SLR so I can really go photo bonkers out in the wild. But I don't have the money for that. So, depressed at what I'd got in the outside world I decided to take some pics of my guitars. Again, the end results disappointed. Couldn't get the lighting right at all. Back to the drawing board. Or finishing this script I'm on with. Final scene, then I've got a first draft. Then I can print it out and put it away forever.

Listening: TV On The Radio - Young Liars.

Croc'd

Steve Irwin dead? Who'll hunt the crocodiles now? Who'll say "crikey!"? Who'll promote Australia? Who'll carry babies into croc pens? Yes, it's a sad day indeed. Steve Crocodile Hunter Irwin, the host of The Crocodile Hunter, a man who was a crocodile hunter, is dead. Walloped in the chest, say the reports, by a stingray, and suffering a cardiac arrest as a result. Not a common way to leave planet earth for the crocodile compound in the sky, by all accounts. Stingrays only attack when they've been severely provoked. You don't think...Steve was annoying the stingray? No! The fool. It's hardly a surprise that a man that hunted crocodiles for his living as a crocodile hunter, presented to the world on the show The Crocodile Hunter, is dead, really. But one suspects that he'd have preferred to have been consumed whole by a croc rather than being assaulted by a big flat thing with a venomous spine and whipping tale. It was all being filmed as part of a documentary, so I will await at youtube with bated breath. RIP Irwin, you crazy bastard.

Frizzle fry...

The voice of Stephen Fry is cropping up on lots of these nostalgia programmes with depressing regularity. It's a shame that such a talent deems it necessary to stoop so low. He can't be short of a bob or two, can he? Or if he is couldn't he just borrow some coin off Hugh Huge US Television Star Laurie? Last night Fry's was the smug voice nattering away on The Story of Light Entertainment on BBC2 and, simultaneously, could be heard over on E4's The 50 Greatest Comedy Films (a repeat, I think I'm right in saying). Strange to see on the former show that Robert Kilroy Silk has been totally obliterated from the history of 'chat' shows (last night's subject), save for a brief rostrum shot of a newspaper clip that pointed out that Vanessa and Kilroy came under fire for hiring actors as guests.
On all of these nostalgia programmes there seems to be a serious element of hoodwinkery going on - people that are far too young to remember what they're talking about possess a staggering array of anecdotes about the subject matter and a raft of what can only be false memories (or, as is the case on the quite dreadful Law Of The Playground, they just make stuff up). Do the programme makers think we don't realise that these people are all shown the clips beforehand? Also, on The Story of Light Entertainment, there are always 14-year-old big shot television producers explaining how great it was to have 'invented' some particular strand of television, or claiming all the glory for the work of maverick interviewers. Although much older than 14, and a half decent host in his day, last night Clive James claimed to have invented the use of news footage alongside a comedic voice over. Someone also claimed that Graham Norton is the finest interviewer working in British television today. That'll be why he's hosting Andrew Lloyd Webber's PR machine How Do You Solve A Problem Like Maria? and shows involving ballroom dancing, then, eh?
Anyway, it's a shame that Stephen Fry - fast becoming, if not already, the Jimmy Carr of 2006 - is associated with any of these programmes. They are utter nonsense. I should stop watching them.

Listening: Crass - Penis Envy.

False flag...

Sat down with a fresh brew and watched the online documentary Terror Storm in its entirety. It's like hardcore, badly made Michael Moore but very, very interesting. Aside from the sensationalist comparisons with a certain A Hitler, Alex Jones seems to be a decent purveyor of the truth. Check it out at Terror Storm

Met some Angora Goats yesterday. My, they're fluffy creatures with a good look going on. But for some reason they were behind not one but two fences. Are Angora Goats violent bastards who'll have your genitals off within seconds? They didn't seem to be (although you'd never know if that's what they were after as you can't see their eyes through the wool). But we kept our distance, just in case they fancied their chances. They lived next door to a family of wallabies. The freedom of living in a field, being watered and fed and cared for, without having to worry about paying the credit card bill, must be something. Do you think we've got it wrong?

Listening: Kasabian - Empire. TV On The Radio - Return To Cookie Mountain.

Duck and cover...

We returned from a morning checking out garden centres close to the market town of Beverley with half a dozen duck eggs in the boot. It might seem a strange admission for one of advanced years to make, but I've never had a duck egg in my life. I was after some eggs freshly laid by the chickens at the place we'd been swanning around but they must be on a go-slow as there were none available. So, duck eggs it was. They're a lovely shade of blue and will be turned into an omelette tomorrow. My mother, who came with us to buy pansies (as if her pansy son isn't enough for her!) and some over-priced muck with which to re-pot her collection of cacti, balked at a suggestion that she take some of the duck eggs off us. "I can't eat them. I've never had them," she protested. As if you can only eat things that you've eaten before. I mean, where would we be with that attitude? Very thin, I can tell you. The lack of duck eggs in my life up to this point can, of course, be traced back to my mother and her strange attitude to food, which is mostly limited to huge portions of chilli con carne, bacon sandwiches and toasted tea cakes. Although when I lived there she also rustled up minced beef and onions on a Sunday for a 'special treat'. The bloody working class, eh?

Also re food, there was a mad woman serving at a cafe in one of the garden centres. Apropos of us making our way to the counter, she started announcing, "that's ham that you can smell. The ham's on. Lovely piece of ham. The smell of ham. Mmm". Which didn't go down too well with the vegetarian members of the party (or make any sense - there wasn't any smell), nor my mother, who's equally as mad and lacking in social etiquette. "Is that woman talking to us?" she said, loud enough to be mistaken for being rude and aggressive. I ordered a cheese toastie, which came with a peculiar side order consisting of six quite small ready salted crisps. That must be a market town thing, is it?

Listening: Nada Surf - High & Low