Peaky Blinders.

A Television series called Peaky Blinders has just finished in Britain; just six episodes so I suppose in American terms – or indeed international ones – it would be deemed a 'mini series.'

When we were children in Birmingham, my dad would tell me about the Peaky Blinders; they were part of the mythical past of the city and I was reminded about them when I worked with older people. I don't know how my dad had heard of them, as he was a newcomer to Birmingham and nobody in our immediate or historical past had ever even 'been' there – as far as I know.

So it was no small wonder that a series about the gang would eventually be made for television; what was surprising, to me, was that it took so long. The Peaky Blinders were so called because they would wear caps with razor blades sewn in to the peak, and if you got in to a fight with them, or they had a violent dispute with you, they would doff their caps and slash you with the armed peaks, consequently blinding you if they caught you in the eyes. Yes, I hear you say, nice people.

I was never sure when they ruled the streets; I had heard before the series started that they were from the late 19th Century but the series was set just after the ending of the first world war and the Peaky Blinders were made up of men returning from the front; some of them shell shocked and others not too pleased at the way things were going in a country they had fought hard to preserve. In one of their escapades they stole guns from the BSA (yes folks, the same people who make the bikes; Birmingham Small Arms) and Winston Churchill was worried that the Irish revolutionaries had stolen them and sent a Belfast cop to investigate.

So what did I think of it?

Well I liked it; there was the usual complaining about some of the accents not being authentic but as I have said before 'put two British actors together and soon they'll be talking about accents.' A good friend of mine said this to me in America which got me to thinking that it's true.

But I did like it with certain reservations; look at the photo above; looks great, doesn't it? There is Cillian Murphy – him of the high cheek bones and blue eyes – and his character was the Mister Big of the family that dominated the gang. He played it with a great deal of authority and there was no mistaking that he was head and shoulders above the rest of the cast with a few exceptions.

Now I know Birmingham very well; some parts I know like the back of my hand, as I delivered telegrams there for two and a half years and for nearly a year after that I delivered mail to some of the locations mentioned; namely Deritend, which is old English for Dirty end, by the way.

I had no problem with either of the two accents used in the series – Irish and Birmingham – but I have to say that there is a similarity in some of the vowel sounds of both of them – oh dear, I've lost you, but stick with it for a while – for example the 'U' sound in words like 'Dublin' – there is also in a Dublin accent the sound to rhyme with cow as in round and about which are similar and the Dubliners say the letter 'R' – as in RTE – as awe; just like in Birmingham. Both accents are very contagious and you will be slipping in to them if you spend any time in either place.

To finish off my point about the accents it will not mean diddly squat to the world wide audience, outside the immediate area, and Brummies have been portrayed, for a change, as strong, romantic and interesting in this series so they should not be moaning about it on the Internet Movie Data Base, as they have been doing. I would like to have seen more humour in it as stories need it -  in fact I would liked to have seen some humour.

If you compare this series with some of the American series, for example Mad Men – which is also a period peace – or Homeland, it looks as if the British one is not so slick. I know there are many here who think that British acting and production facilities are superior to the Americans – and indeed they are, at least, equal in movies technically. Look at one of the top movies in America at the moment, Gravity with George Clooney and Sandra Bullock, and others of the past such as Superman, Star Wars and so on; all made in Britain.

I know the budgets in America are bigger as they seem to have lots of money to throw around but why do the British make things like Law and Order UK, and Hustle, look good and not things with better scripts and acting? Also they take things like Peaky Blinders and other things quite seriously and the aforementioned two series like a light hearted walk in the park as if it is beneath them.

Maybe the BBC could put more money in to drama instead of the many millions they spend on cookery programmes, antique programmes and programmes about buying and selling houses?

I'm only asking, I don't know.

In Peaky Blinders it didn't seem as if anybody else existed in Birmingham apart from the people involved in the story. No people in the background. I heard neighbourhoods like Sparkbrook, Small Heath and the aforementioned Deritend being mentioned but it could have been anywhere outside the pub – could have been Istanbul outside for all we knew.

Too late now to complain, really. Especially as I wore one of those caps in a small film earlier this year – here I am:

(actually it was from Bates of Jermyn Street, as you connoisseurs will have noticed) ) so maybe they should have thought of me – but it's too late now, unless there's another series.

The Cops, the plebs and the Bike Riding Toffs.

10 Downing Street is where the Prime Minister lives; it is a little street off Whitehall and I have been there many times – when it was a street. It's still a street but since Margaret Thatcher, the street has been blocked off with heavy gates and now you can't even drive a tank down there – can't get down Downing Street; sorry.

They put the gates there for security reasons which didn't stop the IRA bombing the back garden a few years ago when John Major was the Prime Minister.

Because the street is now blocked off, and full of police, the big gates have to open to let vehicles in – like a cabinet minister, or the Prime Minister, or maybe some visiting head of state or the head of state of Britain; the Queen.

A lot of people actually walk the fifty yards or so to number 10 but others don't.

One of the things you are not supposed to do is ride a bike down Downing Street – or even up Downing Street - as there is a tiny gateway for pedestrians to get in and out of the street which makes it a bit difficult, and in any case they just don't want people riding bikes down that street; it's their street!!

A few months ago, an MP (Member of Parliament) in fact the Chief Whip, rode his bike along Downing Street.

The whole place is stinking with cops so he, Um Big Chief Whip, must have thought he was above the law but one of the cops told him to get off the bike and push it.

Now what he said and what he didn't say at this point has been up for debate ever since. We know he used the F... word many times, and other colourful language, which is against the law if you say it to a police man in anger or as an assault, and we know that he has used the word pleb on many occasions in the past. In fact on TV the other night one of his ex colleagues, Michael Portillo, said so.

Mitchell has admitted using the offensive four letter words, which seems to have been forgiven by the police, but the police said that he also called them plebs – which he has denied.

And this is what all the fuss is about whilst people starve, wars are killing people and there are despots and piss pots to take care of.

Let me ask a question – how did the police know that this man (a pleb himself) had the word pleb in his regular vocabulary?

Here he is and to me it looks like he is actually saying the disputed word:

He was sacked from his job as Chief Whip and there is to be a police enquiry as it is thought that he was fitted up; this man that has used that word on many occasions wanted to ride his bloody bike.

He could have walked down the street like the Chancellor of the Exchequer, George Osborne – there he is walking, doesn't he look dashing:

 and there he is pretending he is a performing seal:

 

Many years ago I was in a play called Spokesong; I think it was the best role I ever played and this was at The Haymarket Theatre, Leicester – here I am all those years ago (with a bike around my neck).

The director asked me to grow a moustache to make me look older – oh for those days eh!!

It was a huge, varied role and the character was a guy called Frank who ran a bicycle shop in Belfast during the 'troubles' – there is a wonderful line in the play (I didn't have to say it) where the para militaries bomb a pet shop and the line is 'For one wonderful moment it was raining cats and dogs.'

Because, at the time, the centre of Belfast was under threat from terrorism from both sides, car bombs were used and Frank had the idea of banning cars from the centre of the city putting bicycles in certain places so people could just take one and leave it at another designated place.

It was his idea to stop the car bombs – people laughed, then thought about it, then went about their way.

Well today, in the city of London, there are bikes all over the place – look:

Just as Frank Stock said in Spokesong.

Here is an idiot riding one:

He is the Mayor of London, one Boris Johnson, an old Etonian and friend of David Cameron and George Osborne – all members of the Bullingdon Club. Remember this picture, Osborne, Cameron and Boris:

Wonderful aren't they. The men who run the country.

But let me get back to the bikes – they were Boris's idea; he did a deal with his banking friends at Barclay's. It seems a good idea, and is, till you get close to them and look at the cost and conditions.

First of all you put your credit card in to the machine near by; this charges you about £4 per hour and on up £50 for the day. If the bike is damaged at all £300 gets taken off your credit card.

This is what you can also rent for £50 per day and it is insured:

Hope you enjoyed the pictures.

SPOKESONG by Stewart Parker. 1941 – 1988.

Pleb = Plebeian:

belonging or pertaining to the common people.

of, pertaining to, or belonging to the ancient Roman plebs.

common, commonplace, or vulgar: a plebeian joke.

noun

a member of the common people.
a member of the ancient Roman plebs.

Acupuncture and dancing on my balls!

The drama school I attended (the back of).

I was in Los Angeles in April and whilst there I took advantage of an acupuncturist I know; he is one of the doctors/professors who works at an acupuncture college and, as it's a college, you get really good treatment; and it's cheap.

If you've never been you should try it; it doesn't suit everybody but I can honestly say you don't really feel the needles going in, if that's all that's preventing you from going.

The first thing they do when you get there is take your pulse with three fingers; they believe there are 3 pulses in the wrist. Next they ask you to stick your tongue out – right out; then they examine it very closely and usually, because they are students, they ask another student to look at it.

Most of the students and staff are Chinese and Korean; they have a very friendly manner and make you feel very comfortable; when they have asked you about your symptoms they ask the doctor to come in and he takes a look at your tongue too.

The doctor I like cracks jokes in Chinese to the students and they always laugh; I often wondered if he was referring to me when laughing and joking but I'm assured he wasn't – because I once asked. 

He did tell the students in April that he'd been treating me for 8 years.

He is the one who puts the needles into your body and sometimes he recommends 'cupping' but not before laying you on to a bed (with the needles sticking out of you), covering you up with a tiny sheet, putting a tiny light/heater on and going away.

When he comes back he will massage the parts of the body that are in pain and sometimes stick more needles in.

Cupping, by the way, is one of the most ancient and successful techniques to cure many problems.

Cupping.

Chinese medicine principles state that stagnation of blood is the cause of many pains and diseases. Cupping therapy clears up the stagnation and stimulates the blood flow in the affected areas. Due to its very nature, it also clears congestion in the chest caused by colds and ‘flu. It leaves marks on you body rather like love bites – hickeys!

When they go away and leave you with the light/heater you go to sleep and it's the most wonderful sleep in the world and I got to thinking, as I lay there, that there was another time I would just 'go to sleep.'

When I was at drama school we studied (did) dance with a teacher called Henrietta Fairhead; I have just looked her up and she is mentioned on Amazon as the author of some books on dancing. We studied ballet, tap (in our ballet shoes – I kid you not), mediaeval dance and movement and at most of the classes we were taught how you relax.

This involved lying on the wooden floor whilst Hettie's assistant, on the piano would play Air on a G String which was so relaxing I would sleep; I think everybody else did too even though we were supposed to be doing something else meaningful – I don't know – transcendental meditation?

The classes consisted of students all shapes and sizes and we would do the most strange movements and poses you could imagine. 
 
I remember stretching out, pointing my two arms into the air and at the command 'let go!!' would collapse it all with my hands on the floor. Once in a while I would catch the eye of a window cleaner and I could see the funny side of things and I think the rest of the class did too even though they would pretend it was very meaningful and serious.

In ballet we learned the first position, second, third and fourth and we would gracefully jump in to those positions; then we would straighten up and dance on the balls of our feet.

The teacher would say 'come on class; bounce up and down on your balls!'

She knew what she was saying, I'm sure she did; I know she was a very fit old spinster but we couldn't laugh out loud (lol) so we smiled and she saw us smiling and realised we were having the time of our lives; the window cleaner would have amusement from it and I'm sure he took it up one of the days – Unfortunately I'm sure one or two in the class took up window cleaning!!

This is a view from the front - notice the bars!!!!

Debt.

When I was a little boy we lived in England and people with children attracted a universal benefit called Family Allowance; if you had one child you didn't get any but after that you received a certain amount of money for each child.

People with fifteen children, who were few and far between, would be featured on television and tabloid newspapers, as interesting individuals who had all the babies just to attract the Family Allowance. This infuriated some people, mainly those with no children, who thought, in their tiny minds, that they, the people without children, were subsidising the people lucky enough to be blessed with them.

Nothing could be further from the truth, of course, as people with lots of children were, actually, rearing future tax payers so the man with, say, fifteen children would be donating quite a few tax payers to the economy. We'll say 10 as the other five might be housewives (what's that word, home-maker?) or people who can't work for whatever cause. So they are giving, shall we say, a few million to the future of this country.

Let me get it straight – people with 15 children were so rare that they were actually noticed and written about!

When I studied sociology, 30 years ago, it was estimated that with loss of earnings and the general bread and buttering of children the average parent would spend £80,000 per child, up to the age of 18, bringing them up – school uniforms, holidays, food and whatever – and that's without the expense of college - so let's hear it for the parents.

Family Allowance changed its name over the years to Child Benefit; changed its name like everything else; this gave some people the idea that the money was for the children – WRONG again!! It was to be shared by the family and administered by the parents.

This year it has been decided by the mighty and the powerful to means test this benefit. Will the Labour Government reverse this – I doubt it!!

The weekend just gone was the last day to register for self assessment for Child Benefit. This is for the people who have one wage earner earning £50,000 per year – if both parents are working and earning £45,000 each they don't have to register – stupider and stupider aye??

If they are late registering they are fined – all the child benefit they have received this year; what a friendly old government aye??

How much do they get? For the first child you get about £20 per week and the second £13 and so on; that means if someone doesn't register they will be paying £820 in fines, if they have just one child.

Why are they doing this? Why are they means testing a universal benefit in any case? Oh yes!! Austerity! Cuts!

We are in debt! There is a deficit.

I was talking to a doctor in the hospital recently and I asked him about the threatened closure of Lewisham Hospital and their big debt and I asked him who they owed the money to; I said - to whom do they owe the money?

He lifted his eyebrows at my use of the word 'whom' and said – I don't know!

I remember I worked in the car industry for a year before going to drama school and they would talk about one department owing another department money; it never really existed and no money ever changed hands and instead of caring about the quality of their vehicles they were ruled by the money men and eventually went out of business with the rest of the British Car Industry.

I also remember the BBC when they made great programmes: ground breaking drama, documentaries and series like Man Alive, Horizon and the rest of them Then they sent in a trouble shooter to sort things out and we now have a record amount of cookery shows, antique shows, property development shows and loads of reality shows like The Apprentice. I'm sure there are others besides The Apprentice but I can't think of any off hand.

So I wondered about our debt, our national debt and the so call deficit – here's what I came up with: I know that the Chancellor of the Exchequer lent money to the IMF last year but I don't know how much. I know he made one loan of £10 billion. Now that got me thinking that we (Britain: hey!! I'm back!!!!) have a share in the IMF; possibly the world bank too. So don't we owe some of this national debt to . . . . . ourselves?

Last year the accumulated external world debt was $72.8 trillion – now that is the accumulated debt which means it's not that much at all. If I owed my son £1, my son owed his sister £1, she owed my wife £1 and my wife owed me £1 we would have an accumulated debt of £4 when there is only £1 involved; so Gawd knows how many trillions it really is.

The other thing is, if you added all the countries together, all of them on earth, add all their GDP together, it comes to, or should I say, came to (last year don't forget) $71.8 trillion; bit short of the old $72.8 aye?

The difference between the two figures is the debt to GDP ratio.

Now I got these figures from an article I read, and I have to trust that as I can't remember who wrote it.

In that article, I took down the following note: since all this money is owed to entities within this global community, it could just as credibly be said that "the world owes this money to itself", and so owes nothing.

So there!!

Of course it's more complicated than this as some countries have huge huge debts – Japan for instance. Here's another note I took from the article: Japan has the largest national debt-to-GDP ratio in the world – over 230%. It is heavily in debt, compared to its product, and yet in a position to lend to the world's largest economy. In fact, Japan's position is much more stable than countries with lower ratios. One of the key factors contributing to this stability is the fact that the vast majority of this debt is owed internally – it is Japanese citizens and companies who have been funding Japanese debt. Of what it owes externally, its largest creditor is – can you guess? – the USA.

Why then, if we owe this money to ourselves, do we even bother the enormous amount of money it will cost to administer the two tier system of child allowance? Why do we bother to fear the so called influx of Romanians and all the other new members of the EU next year as put about by UKIP – by the way, for my friends in America, for UKIP read Tea Party!!