Xmas – Like Your Turkey You Can Stuff It

I’ve had some dialogue on Twitter about how much I dislike Xmas and have been accused of being a Grinch. Well, Grinch is a moniker I am happy to aspire to as I see most of “Whoville” – being the majority of the population and not, sadly, a town populated exclusively by Matt Smith
and me – clamouring to be seen to be “Christmassy”.
So why do I reject “the season of goodwill” and remain staunchly anti-Christmas? Settle down with a glass of warm cider and a mince pie and I’ll tell you.
First of all, and most importantly, I am not a Christian. I don’t celebrate Eid or Hannukah or Diwali or Yule so why should celebrating the supposed birth of the figurehead of a Middle-Eastern death cult be any more significant to me? I was baptised into a branch of Christianity (being the Church of Scotland, a nippy wee no-fun sect if ever there was one) but rejected that long ago. I am an Atheist – I have no gods or religion. I don’t accept that I live in a Christian country either – I live in a country which if the present government and peppered with attitudes like those held by that bloody woman on the Tramlink or by our printed media are anything to go by most decidedly is not Christian. I don’t believe that a person called Jesus lived in what is now Palestine and Israel over 2000 years ago and even if he did, he would be utterly appalled that people who claim to follow him not only war in his name but have rejected what are the fundamentals of his alleged teachings which as I see are to be good to each other and to love people, to help others and to live a simple life without trying to be monetarily rich especially at the expense and exploitation of others.
On the subject of money, this is the second reason I reject Xmas. In this recession, where many of us are feeling the pinch to some degree and some, including myself are unemployed and trying to live week by week on less and less money, should we feel we have to make a big splurge at a time when we should be saving for or spending on more important things? Will people think less of us if we aren’t seen to be rushing around buying gifts? Should we get further into debt just to save face? Will our families love us any less if they wake up on the morning of December 25th to nothing? Admittedly, having a daughter, when we have had the money I have enjoyed treating her and seeing her wee face when she was younger when she discovered presents beneath the lights of our Xmas tree. But she is now an older teenager and she understands that I am not well enough to work and that her dad’s handyman business is floundering. So we have decided that as a family, we won’t buy any gifts for each other and instead will have a nice wee break with some yummy food, some fine ales and some entertaining movies. I have told my out-laws that they will be getting maybe a tin of chocolates from us for about £5 worth instead of the £40 we used to spend on both of them. My niece may get a voucher but that’s it. I have never really held with the idea of spending what to me seem crazy amounts of money – upwards of £200 per child in some families! – on things that we neither need, want and that will be soon forgotten. I remember a particularly joyless Xmas when, for some reason best known to her, my mother persuaded my father that it was time for us kids to learn a lesson. So she and he deliberately forgot to buy a present with us kids for each other from us and, on Xmas morning, after we three had all opened our presents, she asked “So where’s mine?” My brothers and I were aghast and on realising that we hadn’t been reminded, in floods of tears we tried to press gifts we had been given onto her. My dad was embarrassed and tried to console us but my mother was adamant that this was a lesson we needed to learn and it marred the rest of the day. I’d like to point out that we weren’t teenagers or older kids – I was 9 and my brothers 6 and 2!
Also, ask yourself, what did your significant other, your parents or your kids get for you last Xmas? What we remember is not what we received but what we did. I recall as a child going to the Kelvin Hall in Glasgow before it was an indoor sports arena, going on the carnival rides (not those huge rollercoasters they have now but simple carousels and dodgems), the one time we went to the circus and saw the elephants who on previous visits I had only smelled (anyone who went when I did must now be smelling hay, straw and elephant dung!) and seen through glass and going home with a really dodgy looking black African mask-looking balloon filled with helium, a rarity in our day. I remember going to Ingliston Market and the smell of burger and onions, going to see my first and only pantomime that had Stanley Baxter and Angus Leckie as the Ugly Sisters and watching “Morecambe and Wise”
and Xmas “Top Of The Pops” and lots of films. Apart from a few things, like a huge toy dog, tiny Pippa dolls and a creepy doll in jodhpurs with a horse the year I wanted a Bionic Woman, I can’t remember much of what anyone bought for me. Plus it’s my daughter’s birthday exactly 2 weeks after, which I have always thought was a shame for her but is way more significant and worthy of celebration in my mind. I hate being in town from November on as well, with shops blaring out fucking John Lennon and Mariah bloody Carey as people dash about in a frenzy looking for that perfect present for a loved one and settling instead for Homer Simpson underpants. Again.
Now, don’t get me wrong – I’ll be putting up lights and a plastic Xmas tree this Sunday (always the first Sunday in December or the last in November if it’s late on) – as an ex-Druid I still like the significance of the bright lights in the darkest days of winter leading up to the shortest day and the Solstice. I just won’t be buying any cards though and I hate tinsel.
We won’t be having Xmas dinner either – for one I have never seen the point of eating a huge meal at 3pm (after the Queen – as if an ardent anti-royalist like me would have that auld parasitical bitch on – plus we as I’ve said before we don’t have TV now) and secondly we’re all vegetarian in our house and my 2 are no fans of nut roast so there’s no point in substituting that for chicken and stuffing (when I was wee, turkey for Christmas was unheard of). I was in Wholefoods Market, who have opened their first branch outside of London in Giffnock, a rather posh part of Glasgow and I nearly fainted when I saw the price of a Tofurkey - £29.99
! More like Tofuckoffurkey - even to me that looks disgusting! We don’t have friends or family over because I don’t see the point of getting up early and running about like a nutter trying to be the hostess with the mostess when I’d rather be sat on my arse, drink in one hand and chocolate in the other. This year we’ll be having a Broccoli and Stilton pie. At dinner time. If I can be bothered making one. One year I was so fucked off with it all, we had macaroni cheese and chips – and we bloody enjoyed it! I have never understood why we can’t have mince pies and Dan Cake rum truffles all year round – why keep it til now?
Don’t even mention office Xmas lunches or parties and “Secret Santas” – the best thing about not working is not having to have another buffet lunch where there is fuck all for vegetarians as usual and yet another scarf and gloves set. The best ever Secret Santa present I ever saw was when I worked in a veggie café co-op and one woman grabbed the biggest present from our “Lucky Dip” only to find it was a string of big onions and a copy of the Beano!
I will be watching “The Muppets Christmas Carol” – I have “One More Sleep Til Christmas” on my iPod – and “Elf” because they are good films and we like them. I’ll be listening to “Fairytale Of New York” by Kirsty MacColl (bless her – she died too young and around this time too, as did the wonderful Joe Strummer)
and the Pogues because it’s Gee and mine’s song (for the line “This years’ for me and you” and not “you’re an old slut on junk” as you might think). But there are so many absolutely shitey movies and songs associated with Xmas – I shouldn’t need to give examples – suffice to say “Do They Know It’s Christmas”, “Mistletoe and Wine” and “Driving Home For Christmas” along with bloody Macauley Culkin’s face have been known to trigger apoplexy in me. And as for Shakin’ fecking Stevens…in that jumper….haud me back!

Suffice to say, the meaning of Xmas, if there ever was one, for me has been lost among adverts, garish decorations and some cunt off the X-factor being rigged as Number 1 in a chart nobody cares about. Folks get stressed out and up to their tits in more debt for what – one day? No thanks.
I will end this rant by wishing you all peace and joy, which, when you get down to it, is all any of us really want and need, now and at anytime of the year xxx

My Writer's Voice...And Ken

Last night at my penultimate evening class in How To Write For Stage And Screen, out tutor gave us an exercise where, off of the top of our heads, we were to write a short internal dialogue about something personal to us. As a bit of a control-freak, I hate these kind of "spur-of-the-moment" pieces and wrachked my brains for a topic to write on. I had been reading about the death of film-maker Ken Russell so as a bit of a filmbuff myself, I thought a wee piece on Ken and his films would be me to a tee. However, when we passed round our writings and each read out someone else's anonymously, my tutor managed to identify everyone's correctly, excpet for mine. He had guessed that I had written the pieces on someone's dog or the death of a father but didn't think this was my style. What do you think?

Ken Russell died yesterday and I noticed it particularly because of my doing this course in screenwriting.
I’m no expert on his movies – I was too young to have been aware of the outcry surrounding “Women In Love” with Olly Reed and Alan Bates wrestling nude or “The Devils”.
The Ken Russell film that had the biggest impact on me I think was “Tommy”. Again, I was never a big fan of “The Who” but it was something new and amazing – a film that’s basis was “rock opera” - songs telling a story.
From the first scenes of Robert Powell as Tommy’s airman father and then the appearance Keith Moon as the paedophile Uncle Ernie – “down with the bedclothes, up with the nightshirt” – I had no idea of what paedophilia was but I knew from this that it was creepy and awful.
I remember Roger Daltrey’s face in its innocence and his wide eyes apparently lost in his own word until he discovered that this “deaf, dumb and blind kid sure” could play “a mean Pinball”.
The scene I think that I found most affecting was not the Pinball Wizard one with Elton falling literally from grace but Tommy’s encounter with The Acid Queen. Again in my youth and naivety I had no idea what “acid” was or what it could do to a person. I just remember the vision of Tina Turner and her terrible but terrific screeching and, most horrendous of all, the needles, like some horrific iron maiden.
In my later years I enjoyed Ken’s production of “Lady Chatterley’s Lover”, possibly Sean bean’s first big role and also the movie “The Lair Of The White Worm” with Peter Capaldi in his kilt fighting off Amanda Donohoe and her scarily huge dildo!
He may not have always been popular, he may have set out to shock and he succeeded but he couldn’t be ignored.
So I say don’t R.I.P. Ken but ROCK ON!

Four Films And A Book

Howdy! My apologies for not blogging for 2 weeks (jings)– shit happens when you’re making other plans, as bloody Lennon never said. I’ve been busy with participating in research into the effects of exercise on ME patients and trying to coalesce my script ideas into a first draft for the last 2 weeks of my screenwriting course plus all the other things life throws at me. The good news on the writing front is that I have a place on the next course, “How To Write For Film”, starting in late January. My current tutor says this is more theoretical in the form of lectures and handouts but I’m looking forward to it. Anyway, you’re not here for my ramblings so let’s press on with the movies.

First, 3 clunkers that you should avoid like the plague – “Killing Bono”, “Tamara Drew” and “Bad Teacher”. Trust me – rotten stories and characters you’ll hate. Don’t waste your time or money. ‘Nuff said.

The first film I want to talk about is “X-Men: First Class”. I’m never a fan of prequels *cough* Star Wars Episodes 1-3 *cough* and I do like the X-Men films that have already been made so I did approach this with some trepidation. I also have trouble seeing James McAvoy as an action hero and is it me or does Michael Fassbender
seem to be in EVERYTHING these days? Anyway, I sat down to this expecting to be disappointed – boy was I wrong. Okay, it wasn’t thought-provoking or life-changing but as a geeky fangirl I firmly believe that there is room in everyone’s filmic life for some well-presented fantasy nonsense. Messrs. McAvoy and Fassbender acquitted themselves extremely well as the younger Charles Xavier and Magneto, ably supported by a strong supporting class including Jennifer Lawrence (in the upcoming “Hunger Games” which looks like fun) and Nicholas Hoult, who is maturing into a very good actor. There are lots of nice touches – the young Mystique morphing into her older self from the other movies and Charles and Eric encountering Wolverine – excellent cameos from Rebecca Romijn and Hugh Jackman (who tells them in his own particular way to scram); the origin of the Beast and an almost svelte and young-looking Oliver Platt as their CIA handler. The effects are superb and the action sequences keep it all ticking along. My only quibbles would be with the casting of Kevin Bacon as Sebastian Shaw – I felt he needed to be played by a more handsome/ dashing actor ( I do like his acting but he has a funny wee piggy face- sorry); Emma Frost’s underwear – I know, one for the Dads but it seemed out of place; and the underplaying of the rest of their team – although we did get a hint at the origins of Nightcrawler (and yes, true X-Men fans, I do know!). Maybe the purists will find lots of holes – Charles in a wheelchair when we saw him walking to Jean Grey’s house in the 2nd film and things being out of the canon timeline – but all in all it was a fun watch and was good enough for me.

Second is “Monsters”, a wee film that I had seen trailed elsewhere so thought I’d give a look to.
Was I glad that I did. This is a low-budget film, made by Gareth Edwards (director, writer, chief cook and bottle washer) with a small cast made up of local people and much improvisation, it tells the story of photographer Andy Kaulder, in the area to capture images of aliens who crash landed in a probe, who finds himself having to escort his boss’s daughter back to her fiancé in the US. Well played by real couple Scoot McNairy and Whitney Able, we see Kaulder and Sam’s journey through the alien inhabited zone on the US/ Mexican border. Although not a deliberate political comment, we do see how poor people who have nowhere else to go live cheek-by-jowl with a threat sends the rich scuttling. A minimum of special effects means that the film has to rely on dramatic tension and for my money it’s certainly worth a look.

The third film surprisingly is “Friends With Benefits” (or “Friends On Benefits”, as it is now known round these parts). My daughter’s choice from a selection of movies lent to us by friends, it’s not a film I would have picked myself. I avoid rom-coms and chick-lit based movies like the plague – I’m proud to have never seen either of the Bridget Jones films, “Notting Hill”, “Love Actually” or despite this post’s title “Four Weddings And A Funeral” and I famously shouted “Leave him, leave him” at the end of “When Harry Met Sally” – so again, I wasn’t keen. However I was pleasantly surprised to find this to be actually quite an honest and touching movie. I liked the scenes where fuckbuddies Dylan (Jason Trousersnake) and Jamie (Mila Kunis)
are able to be direct about what they want in terms of sex and pleasure in ways a conventional couple wouldn’t for fear of being seen as demanding. I also liked the wee side stories about Dylan’s dad who is struggling with Alzheimer’s and Jamie’s flibbertigibbet mum, which help explain why they have issues with relationships. Smart and funny, it won’t convert me to the genre but was a nice watch.

I’ve saved the best for last in terms of “The Way”. I have wanted to see this film ever since I first heard of it earlier this year and wasn’t disappointed. Written, directed and starring Emilio Estevez (still a wee favourite of mine from the days of “The Breakfast Club” and “St. Elmo’s Fire”) along with his dad Martin Sheen, it tells the story of Tom (Sheen) who, when he goes to the French Pyrenees to collect the remains of his wandering and estranged son Daniel (Estevez) who has died in a freak storm on the first leg of walking El Camino de Santiago, decides to take Daniel’s ashes with him and complete the trek.
A very moving and yet uplifting film with a fantastic supporting cast of fellow travellers James Nesbitt as writing-blocked Jack, Deborah Kara Unger as hard-bitten Sarah and the wonderful Yorick van Wageningen as Joost who is walking to fit into his best man’s suit, it really is a pleasure to watch and you do walk every step of The Way to Santiago de Compastela with them. I really don’t want to say too much because I want you to discover this fabulous movie for yourself but trust me that it will be a pleasure to watch. It has given me a new motto “You don’t choose a life – you live one” and has my family talking about getting back into trail walking again in the New Year.

I haven’t recommended a book before but I must share with you “My Epileptic Lurcher” by Scottish writer Des Dillon. Based loosely on his own dogs, it tells the story of troubled writer Manny and his wife Connie who, when discovering they can’t have kids, adopt puppy Bailey who was left to drown along with his litter mates. They discover Bailey has epilepsy with no root cause so probably results from his early trauma. After leaving poor Bailey in what must be the bleakest kennels in Scotland, they also adopt his abandoned and soon to be destroyed kennel mate Connor.
Written partly in doggy-speak, which made me laugh as I speak to our Roxie Ribbons like that and with wee chapters where the dogs comment too, this book resonated with me as a someone who has a rescue dog. Definitely not “Marley And Me” and that slew of sentimental canine-lit, if you don’t laugh and then sob you have a heart of stone.

I promise, more blogging soon, including my thoughts on Xmas no doubt. Til then, adios and Buen Camino xxx

Dreams and Dads

As part of my screenwriting studies, I have been reading an excellent book called “Break Into Screenwriting” by Ray Frensham. One of the things it suggest you do is re-watch some movies and look at them with a screenwriter’s eye, looking at characters, plot, story, turning points, climaxes etc. One of the movies it referenced was “Field Of Dreams”, which I had never seen. As I’ve said before I’m a pushover for a Kevin Costner film – I don’t fancy him but see him as a kind of goofy big brother that you like – but I remember avoiding this film like the plague. It wasn’t just because it was another one of what seemed at the time to be a slew of baseball-themed movies – c’mon US folks, it’s just glorified rounders *runs and hides* – but also the image of our Kevin on the front cover in his whiter-than-white tee-shirt and those awful high waisted stone-washed jeans that were just a wee bit too tight looking. So it passed me by until I started reading the book. I have to say I’m sorry it took me so long to watch it – it was fantastic and by the end I was in tears, which isn’t easy for a woman who was told my an eye doctor this very week that she hasn’t any! Yes, it was about baseball but most of all it was about dads.
I love films about dads – “Big Fish” is another that makes me sob at the end and don’t get me started on “The Railway Children”. So I thought I’d tell you a wee bit about mine.
Hugh Graham Andrew was born in Dumbarton in 1932. Except he didn’t know that was his name – his father, also called Hugh (a man I sadly never met as he died long before I was born – pretty much all I know about him was that he was shot in the leg in WW1 and because of his shortened leg, he was much in demand by new mothers as he was an ace at walking and rocking crying babies off to sleep) had been sent by my Nana to register the birth with strict instructions NOT to name his new son after himself but with the name she liked. A trip via the pub, or maybe just pure devilment meant that as far as my Dad knew he was called “Graham” until he went to get his birth certificate for National Service in 1950 and thereafter signed himself as “H.Graham” in recognition of his father’s rebellion, intentional or not.
I don’t know much about my Dad’s childhood except that he once fell in the midden (compost and manure heap) on his father’s allotment and was stripped and put into the washhouse boiler before being allowed into the house and that allegedly during a game of identifying makes of cars, he beat the family friend’s wee boy, who despite this lack of knowledge possibly due to his dyslexia would go onto become racing driver Jackie Stewart. I do know that he was very intelligent and academic and had been preparing to go on to university. However, the sudden death of his own father only a couple of years after WW2 meant that Graham had to leave school and become the breadwinner in the household as his much older sister Betty was now married. He became a telegram delivery boy and following his years of National Service (where on R&R he visited Hiroshima and Tokyo in Japan – he always talked of taking me there – and a spell in a real M*A*S*H* hospital when his appendix burst in Korea) moved into office work where he trained in time and motion in terms of efficiency and productivity. It was while doing this at the Singer sewing machine factory in Clydebank he caught the eye of one of the typing pool girls. Things didn’t get off to a good start – when he asked her the name of the wee toy mouse on her typewriter carriage and was offended when she told him it was “Shooey” – a pet name from Hugh. However, they were soon “stepping out”. A solitary man who was an elder of the Kirk he was smitten by the wild younger lassie from Dalmuir who sadly turned out to be too wild for him or anyone. She thought him solid and dependable, the kind of man she should marry, not for love but for respectability and to settle her down and take her off of the spinster shelf. On one occasion, when a co-worker was bitching about how mum’s boyfriend always gave lifts in his car to secretaries and typists who were waiting at bus-stops in the rain, she retorted “Come back and tell me when it’s always the same one!” which of course they never did. I also remember a big fuss being made of him going off to a huge conference in Sweden and was later told that in my excitement to rush to meet him at the airport, the elastic on my new red velvet trouser suit (come on – it was the late 60s!) broke and I tripped with them wound round my little legs.
As well as his troubled marriage, life did not deal my Dad a good hand with his health. He was 35 when I as born (I am the eldest) and became ill not long after the birth of my younger brother. He had several heart attacks and in 1976 was one of the first people to have a triple by-pass operation – a routine operation now but back then it was performed in London by the now well-known surgeon Sir Magdi Yacoub. I remember in preparation my Dad had to go on a strict diet and after surgery he was in hospital for 2 weeks then in a convalescent home (like the one in “Alfie”) for a few more. Although he re-trained in electronics and worked on aircraft guidance systems for Ferranti in Edinburgh (and had to sign the Official Secrets Act while doing so) he never fully recovered and he retired in 1981 due to his poor health. He endured both additional operations and my mother’s increasing instability and affairs until they separated in 1982. I went to live with him, shortly followed by my brothers and that year or so was the happiest of my young life, until my parents reconciled although it was only for show – my mother and father never shared a bed again.
It was my Dad who turned me into a geek – I remember him taking my brother and I to see “Star Wars” (he told the youngest we were going to the dentist as he was still too wee then to come with us) and “Jaws” and introducing me to his favourite film “A Matter Of Life And Death”. My birthday treat was always a trip to the cinema. We shared sci-fi books and he always encouraged me to have what he described as a catholic taste in music, although he was keen to point out “not Ave Maria and that shite”(you can take the elder out of the Church of Scotland…). He loved to laugh - doing impressions, phoning up his friends pretending to be Noel Edmonds, singing “Wandrin’ Star” and telling corny and off-colour jokes. When the song “The Oldest Swinger In Town” was out, he once got ready for a night out with my mum in a tight red polo-neck top, mirrored sunglasses and a large gold-ingot chain. He used to say things to us like “boots and saddles” to get us to get ready and always had us clean our shoes properly with spit and polish. Although until the last few years of his life he had jet black if receding hair and a bit of a dodgy comb-over, he only ever once grew a moustache and when it grew in ginger, he kept it just long enough to annoy my mum.
We only ever fell out twice – once when during one of our family walks teenage me had got fed up and sneaked back to a pal’s house to watch “Grease” and on my mum’s insistence he had come up to my room to tell me off and I thought he was going to hit me so I kicked him in the balls (he came in later and apologised and never tried to hit me again); and once when during another brawl instigated by my mother he actually lost it and I had to pull him off her, drag him downstairs and throw him out of the house – his wild eyes and hair and bleeding mouth so much like Jack Nicholson in “The Shining” haunts me still. My dad was no saint and once during a conversation when he told me never to bring a black boyfriend home I replied by telling him that if I did ever fall in love with a man with darker skin than mine, I’d choose love over my Dad any day. He later told me that whatever I wanted to do with my life, he would support me and back me up.
Unlike my mum, he welcomed and liked all of my strange goth/ bohemian friends. He would make lunch for my best pal and I when we skipped home for “study periods” and ribbed her mercilessly about her very tall boyfriend – “I thought you were carrying a Xmas tree” he once told her. He would slip me the odd £5 for a night out plus a £10 “so you can always get home” and the first time I came home really drunk on cider and blackcurrant I was appalled to discover that he had waited up for me and when I tried to sneak in he just laughed at my rolling eyes and poked fun at my hangover the next day.
In 1985, his health deteriorated rapidly and he was back in hospital. My mum, with her usual flair for the dramatic, told us all very solemnly that yes, Dad was coming home from the hospital soon but that he was going to die and we had to be prepared to maybe wake up one morning or come home from school and find him dead. On the Tuesday before he was due to come home, I went up to see him and after chatting for a while it was time to go. I kissed and hugged him and promised to come back on Thursday. “No hen, “ he said to me, “I’ll be home on Friday and I’ll see you then. You away out with your pals and enjoy yourself”.
On the Thursday night I returned home after drowning my sorrows with my best mate after my then-boyfriend had “chucked” me to find the house full of relatives. My dad had died of heart failure that evening, when I would have been visiting, had he not told me not to.
I refused to go and visit the body at the undertakers – it wasn’t my Dad anymore – and on the morning of the funeral had come down in jeans, t-shirt and trainers intending to go off on my own into the hills to remember him in my own way. I was browbeaten and bullied into going and sat watching my mother play the grieving widow while a minister we didn’t know (my mother claimed my Dad, who had been an atheist for years had apparently returned to religion) spoke about a man I didn’t recognise. It took all my willpower not to turn around to the crematorium packed with people I had never met and who had as far as I knew never visited my dad and shout, “Who are you bastards? Where were you when he needed you?”
It’s been 26 years and 6 months since my Dad died. I kind of wish that if I built a field, he too would come x

Bette Davis Eyes – Not!

I was at the Eye Clinic today to have my eyes checked (Have you had your eyes checked/ No they’ve always been blue. Boom boom.) This as prompted by a visit a few weeks ago to Specsavers (other opticians are available), which once I mentioned I had, Grave’s disease ended up lasting over an hour and with a referral to hospital. One of the symptoms of my latest affliction is opthalmopathy, an autoimmune inflammatory disorder affecting the orbit around the eye, characterized by upper eyelid retraction, swelling (oedema), redness (erythema), conjunctivitis and bulging eyes (proptosis). So off I went this morning to have my peepers peeped at. A lovely male doctor called Dr Croft who told me in a very soft and soothing Irish accent that I had a very mild case but there was no cause for alarm. Apparently I can do quite a starey look but that seemed to him normal for me – sometimes when I’m sitting on buses I find that if I look at someone with my “scary stare” I can make them turn and look at me. If that’s my superpower, fuck you Charles Xavier.
Anyway, my eyes are OK apart form a wee bit of muscle weakness in my left eye and virtually no tears in my right – the doc put some drops in my eye, stuck some strips of paper to the corner of my eye and made me watch a sad film (I’m lying about some of that) - so suggests using the Discotears on a slightly more regular basis as opposed to as and when. He also said that there is only really one treatment for this condition, which is steroids and he is reluctant like most doctors to put folks on steroids in case we turn out like Arnie and head off to govern California with a we shrunken willie. He said he was at a conference this summer where it was mooted that in mild cases of thyroiditis taking selenium has been shown to help. Unfortunately I had to get some myself and at £6.15 for 90 tablets it’s not cheap. And to add insult to injury they were playing Mariah Scarey’s “All I Want for Xmas Is Poo” in fucking Boots and I ended up singing along. So the good news is that I won’t end up looking like Marty Feldman
which is a result in my book x

DeeVeeDee, DooBeeDoo

By popular demand on Twitter – well OK, a couple of folks – I’m going to try and do one of the things I set out to do when resurrecting this blog and do some reviews of fillums what I have seen. I love movies, always have, but it frustrates me that the cost of actually going to see a new release in a cinema is just so prohibitive now. I used to go to advance free screenings but these seem to have dried up – the last one I went to was nearly a year ago to see “The King’s Speech” (terrific film by the way – get past all the Royal family pish and watch it for Geoffrey Rush just being his usual fantasticness). Therefore DVDs are my main mode of seeing movies nowadays

Anyway, to the background intro of Nina Simone with “I Wish I Knew How It Would Feel To Be Free” (the theme tune to the Film [add year] programmes with Barry Norman – I used to just call it “Film 84” as that was when I first remember watching and it stuck in my head! I haven’t watched it since Barry left as I loathe “Wossy” and I’m not sure if it’s still even on – I’ve heard the Claudia Winkletoes’ effort was unwatchable), here are my recommendations.

First up is “Thor” (directed by Kenneth Branagh, starring Chris Hemsworth, Anthony Hopkins, Natalie Portman, Tom Hiddleston et al).
I picked this one out as I had enjoyed the “Iron Man” films with Robert Downey Jr. in and was interested in the upcoming “Avengers” series. I do remember reading some Thor comics as a child but they never really grabbed me – I think it was the silly winged helmet. I have some knowledge of Norse mythology having hung about in my dark past with Odinists and I do think there is the assumption that the viewer will have some too as there was no real introduction to Odin, Loki and especially Thor’s friends Fandall, Sif and Vostagg and how they fit in. Anthony Hopkins (Odin) seems to have cornered the market in playing mythical elders after the dreadful “Beowulf” but doesn’t seem to do a lot (he’s asleep for most of the story). I was disappointed that when he appears on his famous six-legged horse Sleipnir you only see said beast for a few seconds – a CGI opportunity missed in my opinion. Everyone seems to have fun and it is a great romp with lots of snazzy effects and action but I couldn’t warm to it (particularly the Frost Giants – groan) despite the charms of the mightily built Mr. Hemsworth (one for the mums, if you like ‘em beefy, which I don’t) and my favourite from “The Wire” and “Luther”, Idris Elba (as the gatekeeper Hemdall). I felt it was just a precursor to “Captain America” (which is on my list of films to see) and to the Avengers film, which under the directorship of the amazing Joss Whedon I am more looking forward to.

Second on my list is the very different “Made In Dagenham” (directed by Nigel Cole, starring Sally Hawkins, Bob Hoskins, Kenneth Cranham, Geraldine James et al).
I do like a good homegrown film and I am fond of Sally Hawkins who I first noticed in the terrific “Happy Go Lucky” so I was looking forward to this. Based on the events surrounding the strike at the Ford Dagenham car plant by women machinists in 1968, it certainly captures the mood and feel of the time. Sally plays Rita O’Grady who has the leadership of the women thrust upon her when co-worker Connie (played by the always excellent Geraldine James) has to step aside when her husband (a nice turn and great wee performance by Roger Lloyd-Pack) falls ill. Ably supported by trade unionist Albert (a wonderful as ever Bob Hoskins – nice to see him back) and her colleagues (including Jaime Winstone, daughter of Ray and Andrea Riseborough, who I first noticed in “The Devil’s Whore”) Rita takes on not only the might of the Ford Empire fronted by Richard Schiff (forever Toby from “The West Wing” – which strangely I have never seen) and Rupert Graves but also the attitudes of the male-dominated trade union movement represented by bosses’ man Monty (the inimitable craftsman and firm favourite of mine Kenneth Cranham). A very uplifting and life-affirming film with a good cast that maybe could have been great if pushed a bit harder towards the inevitable conclusion and with great turns by Miranda Richardson and John Sessions as Barbara Castle and Harold Wilson and an underused Rosamund Pike as the wife of the UK boss inspired and befriended by Rita in a subplot about how a woman with an education in those days was still expected to be a housewife, I’d recommend it for an enjoyable watch and a nice slice of oft-forgotten history and education.

“Made In Dagenham” would have been my film of the week had I not seen “Hanna”.
Telling the tale of the eponymous mini-assassin (played by the ethereally lovely Saoirse Ronan from “The Lovely Bones”) who is raised in isolation and trained in the deadly arts by Erik (Eric Bana-na, as we call him in our house) until she must reveal her whereabouts to the world at large but specifically nemesis and would-be destroyer-in-designer-kitten-heels Marissa (Cate Blanchett). To say more would give away too much of the story but there are nice turns from Jason Flemyng, Olivia Williams and Kayleigh Morton as the hippie family travelling in their ramshackle bus who Hanna hitches an at first clandestine then rollicking ride with to her final and unavoidable confrontation with Marissa. A fairly predictable and pedestrian story of girl-with-guns-meets-world, what sets it apart from the rest of the week’s fare are the stunning visuals from director Joe Wright (“Atonement”) and cinematographer Alwin Küchler (“Morvern Callar” and “Ratcatcher”) taking us from a deer hunt in the snowy wilderness of Finland to a Grimm’s' fairytale house with mushrooms hanging down from the ceiling via the desert of Morocco, Spanish gypsy music and the Berlin subway, this a feast for the eyes that will stay with you long after the credits roll. With music by The Chemical Brothers, “Hanna” is a must-see.

I hope you have enjoyed my pale wee imitation of Mark Kermode here. If you want to see me review any more films or have your own recommendations or suggestions, leave a comment here or on my Twitter feed. If so, among those coming up hopefully (I have them on order from my local library – a great way to rent them, £1 for a week) are “Field Of Dreams” (which I have never seen despite being a sucker for a cheesy Costner film – “The Postman” which everyone else seems to hate is one of my favourites, along with “Dances With Wolves” and “Robin Hood: Prince Of Thieves” – you have “Everything I Do, I Do It For You” worming in your ear now!), “The Way” which I have been looking forward to for ages directed by Emilio Estevez and starring his old dad Martin Sheen
, “Tamara Drew” (which I thought I wouldn’t fancy but saw the trailer for and it looked funny) and “Killing Bono”.

Til then, happy viewing x

Good Morning!

My wake-up call this morning. Sadly only via Twitter and not in actuality *sigh* x

Disco Nap

I think I'm going to need one of these later.

Trials And Tribulations and Tidying

It’s been a hectic couple of days with lots of fun and games in the Andrew-Barr household.
Most worrying and serious was a phone call I received on Wednesday afternoon. My comedy writing mate Ant (who reads this blog so hello and a big shout-out – I hope you don’t mind the blog nickname love) had just popped round and we were chatting about my screenwriting course. It was about the time Vee usually calls to say she’s on her way home and if possible, I normally take Roxie dog out to meet her in the park.
This time however it was a call from the school. Vee had taken a tumble down some stairs on the way out and had hurt her head, side and her right ankle, which was giving the school nurse some concern. I phoned Gee who fortunately was on a job close by (on a job – I make him sound like a burglar or safecracker when in fact he’s a carpenter/ handyman!) so he came round to pick up Vee’s lid and went to get her. I had managed to speak to her and although she sounded OK I wanted to see how she was before deciding what to do next.
She was in a sorry wee state when she came home on the back of the bike. We got her into the house and out of her jacket. I then eased her right boot and sock off and sure enough her wee ankle was swelling up. I checked to make sure it wasn’t broken by moving her foot and ankle around then put her foot atop some cushions on a footstool and used the old standby of a packet of frozen peas on the swelling. I tried to get her to take some ibuprofen tablets but, like me at that age, she finds it hard to swallow them over and the kiddie formula we had compromised on up til now wouldn’t cut it so I made her eat them crushed on a margarine sandwich. During this time the wee soul had an adrenaline dump, where the shock of what happened and being a brave lass suddenly hit her and she burst into a big flood of tears, so it was time for a big mammy hug. We decided against taking her to Casualty so Gee went back to his job.
I got out some elasticated roll bandage and using my first aid skills learnt from my dad and several workplace courses I managed to strap up Vee’s foot (it always amazes people that I can do this – I think it’s an essential skill and not at all extraordinary –another rant for another time!). Poor Ant was still there so I had a wee chat with him and got some really positive feedback from him on my scriptwriting – Ant is probably the most intelligent man I know, possibly to genius level because he can talk about maths and quantum physics like you and I talk about the price of bread. His family are from Glasgow but he was born and raised in ”Landan” and only moved back up here a couple of years ago where I met him on my first comedy course. He headed off home and I made the dinner.
I was joking later after that Vee had fallen downstairs on purpose to avoid an after-school bollicking because she and Gee shouting the odds had rudely awakened me earlier that morning. I was having a wee lie in because a doctor assigned by the tribunal at the Department Of Work and Pensions was coming over to examine me later that morning for my appeal (I had applied for Disability Living Allowance back in May during the worst of my thyroid problems and because I cannot work due to my various ailments and disabilities – but again that’s for another blog!) so was pretty stressed out. It turned out that Vee had lost her school tie which she wears as loosely as possible in her own wee rebellion at having to wear full school uniform in her own version of the uniform protests of the early days of “Grange Hill” (a BBC young adult series about a high school that started way back when I started high school in 1979 and ran til recently) that somehow between leaving school the previous day and getting dressed had gone missing. Gee was turning the house upside down and Vee was getting all worked up fearing admonition at school. The tie couldn’t be found so we sent her off to school with the intention to look for it later and the caveat of her having to replace it out of her own funds were it not found.
During a lull in the afternoon Gee and I were talking and I suggested in my usual diplomatic way (I should really work for the United Nations – not!) that it is his lackadaisical “leave things at your arse” attitude to belongings (there is pile of clothes on his chair in our bedroom that possibly hides the real Turin Shroud) and not my almost OCD (or as I prefer to call it CDO because then the letter are in alphabetical order!) penchant for tidiness which resulted in Vee losing track of her tie. He stormed off to his job and then Vee’s accident happened.
I had hoped to have a civilised discussion that evening once we were all fed and watered but I think with Vee hurting and Gee and I stressed out to fuck it quickly descended into argument (what do you expect with 3 highly creative people under the same roof? – we are all drama queens in our own way) which ended with me gesticulating with a Newcastle Brown Ale bottle and threatening once again that if things don’t change I’m off (although I don’t think Dominic West is quite ready to take me in yet).
Yesterday was a day of seeing to Vee – we kept her off from school as she couldn’t walk – and Gee took her to the local hospital’s accident and emergency where they gave her a Tubigrip bandage (while praising my first aid skills) and elbow crutches with the suggestion that she stay home from school til Monday and rest up. So she settled into the recliner with a pile of Chemistry revision (she has her first “mock” exams or pre-lims as we call them here next month) and I got on with my screenwriting and study plus some sorting out of washing and things that had accumulated for the nearby charity shop while Gee went off to work.
I know I do get a bit up to high-doe about the fact that I live with 2 of the untidiest people in the world. I was raised by my dad to be neat – he had done his National Service with the army in the early 1950s and stipulated things like my brothers and I laying out our clothes the night before in the order you would put them on and having your school shoes polished and shined, hence the missing tie debacle with Vee – and as a teenager unlike Vee my own room was my inner sanctum and had to be “just so” with me having regular clearouts and furniture re-arranging. I have tried to apply this to our house but with 3 people and a crazy dog (don’t let me get started on her and the fact that when I move a couch to hoover I find enough tennis balls to give one to every dog in Battersea) it’s like swimming against the tide but I have this compulsion to keep at it and some fevered dream that one day, one day mind, I will live in a home where there is no mess and everything is in it’s place. No ending up like Miss Haversham in a house full of cats and being found dead (and partially eaten by said cats) crushed by piles of newspapers and hoarded junk. No sirree bob.
Anyway, suffice to say Vee is OK except for hobbling about like Tiny Tim (much to our amusement and cries of “God Bless us everyone”) and that last night I fell asleep at 8pm while watching “Made I Dagenham”, succumbing to the woes of the past 36 hours and the best part of a bottle of Spanish plonk. Hence me writing this at 4 o’clock in the morning as I am wide awake. C’est la vie, mon braves, c'est la vie x

The Play's The Thing

Last night my “Writing For Stage And Screen” class went on a field trip (I believe that’s what they call them nowadays) to a monthly gathering of writers, actors and directors. It promised much…
I was happy to cough up three quid to get in out of the driving Halloweeny rain and once inside met up with my fellow writers. We were given a wee sticker denoting our interest or ability so I had “WRITER” stuck haphazardly to my left boob (you try doing it while taking off a soggy Tom Baker scarf while wrestling with a see-through fish umbrella!). It seemed that of our group, I was the only one who was happy to openly display it (the sticker – not my sinister sided tit). We took our seats and we were greeted by a rather large man (I’m being kind – he wasn’t large in a Chris-Hemsworth-as –Thor kind of way but more of a you’re-no-stranger-to-a-Greggs way) who explained that tonight we would see 3 scenes being worked on by their writers, a director and 2 actors. He had picked 3 out of a possible 32 (and you’ll wonder as I did what the other 29 were like!). The writers came down and explained a bit about their scenes and then we squelched off to different locations to see what transpired. We were invited to wander between performance areas but I elected to sit in on one from start to finish (I also thought “the hell with going up and down stairs!”). The one I picked was set in the area where I live and featured 2 older (60/70 year old) women. I’m afraid that it owed more to couthy crowd-pleasers like “The Steamie” (the only play I have ever walked out of – it was so parochial it was either leave or gnaw off my own foot) than to the lives of younger pensioners of today. There was also some attempt at one of the characters coming across as mildly racist but with no challenge. I’ll give the 2 actresses plenty of credit – both much younger than the characters presented to them, they did well with what they had – one was not Scottish, perhaps Scandinavian or Icelandic by her accent and she managed really well with terms such as “weans” and “messages – and the other did portray a bitter old woman very well. But therein lies the problem – 60-70 isn’t old anymore yet this pair was written and spoke like they were ready for Soylent Green! The director was a bit of a lovey, darling (as was the main guy from the start) so you can imagine I warmed to him right away.
What I had expected was for there to be a bit more of a workshop element – where the “audience” would be invited to contribute and chip in ideas or suggestions based on their expertise (or in my case, lack of) but no, it was like watching events in a goldfish bowl and despite me sitting watching this throughout, as did a few other people, we weren’t acknowledged.
After an hour and a break we went back to the main space where all three scenes were acted out. The first one was the one I had watched and although they asked for questions at the end, I held back. The second one was about – you guessed it – Glasgow junkies who had somehow acquired a baby. When I asked why, when they were quite happy to cook their heroin and shoot it up with the baby next to them – and in a Glasgow park, aye right, like THAT would happen – but when they swore they said “chuffing” instead of “fucking” I was told that they didn’t want to swear in front of the baby and then made to feel like a fool for asking and that I was “stereotyping”. Oh, so it’s not stereotyping to have them shoot heroin (which was very graphically described) but it is to use foul language (pretty much every junkie I've come across and believe me it's not hard where I live and have lived - has sworn like a trooper!) and instead some epithet that isn’t even used in Glasgow like “bloody” or “blooming” – I think “chuffing” is from Yorkshire. Much praised was being heaped upon it although the main director (and director of this) stated that he doubted many if any of the audience had any experience of this situation or people – how fucking (I mean chuffing) patronising!
I was ready to walk out at this point but I’m glad I didn’t. The last scene was 2 men, possibly flatmates and one asked the other to pick out a Valentine card for the other’s new girlfriend. What ensued was high comic and physical farce from 2 very skilled actors where the one asked to buy the card questioned the motives of his friend and used the Japanese urban legend of Aka Manto where (from Wikipedia – my memory’s not THAT good) “If you're sitting on the toilet (usually the last stall), a mysterious voice will ask you if you want red paper or blue paper. If you answer red paper, you will be sliced apart till your clothes are stained red. If you choose blue paper, you will be strangled till your face turns blue. Any attempt to trick Aka Manto by asking for a different colour will result in you being dragged to the netherworld. The only correct answer to say is 'No paper'.” Genius. To bring that into what could have been a mundane scene was inspired. And I learned something too.
There as also much discussion that in a play particularly (but also in movies and books) the audience when they see A,B and C happening try to work out what is coming next. Maybe I’m not wired right but I don’t do that. I go into a play, book or film wanting to see what happens next. Am I wrong but if I start thinking about what’s going to happen next, it’s like I’ve fallen off of the rollercoaster and might as well leave, put the book down or switch off. To me a good story should keep you gripped. Does that make sense?
After the event was over, I spoke to a couple of classmates and bemoaned that not only was the “drifting in and out” really distracting – it really irked me in the room I was in and I could see it also disturbed the actors – and 2 out of 3 of the scenes were not what I’d call performance ready but that there was no input or participation and that we had to sit politely and agree! I told one other student that if I ever submitted a scene to this nonsense to shoot me.
I think it’s a real shame, because this could really have been a great thing – and it’s being going for a while – but I felt that to have missed the opportunity for discourse and discussion was a waste of time. I would rather have been in the class, working on more ideas.
I know I am being a girly swot – I’ve really thrown my heart and soul into this course. I have managed to get 3 books that are recommended reading and I now plan out a week of study where I read a few chapters of each, take notes and apply the exercises to my own script idea. I just feel, in the same way that I did when I took part in the comedy courses that you can really see the difference between someone who just starts writing or getting up and telling jokes because their mates find them funny and the ones who have learned a wee bit about microphone technique, the rule of three or in the case of writing building your characters from the ground up.
I have just read in the excellent “ STORY” by Robert McKee that if you write a scene then a change has to happen – something positive or negative has to change polarity so to speak. Your confident go-getter must suddenly be doubtful or your shy wee wallflower must become the life and soul. If nothing happens this is a non-event and just providing history or info. And as the book says, should you have that scene at all then? I just wish I had known that last night. I’m hoping that this is what our teacher wanted us to learn. I just fear that I’m the voice in the wilderness. And that if I want my scripts made, I’m going to have to become Tarantino. With tits xxx