Marylebone to Harrow - 12 minutes,

I was sitting on the train the other day – Monday, in fact – it was six pm in London and the clocks were striking thirteen!!!!

Sorry about that I lapsed into the novel 1984.

I was at Marylebone Station (London) at six-o-clock waiting for the six twelve to move as soon as that time arrived and I was in the Quiet Coach. The Quiet Coach being the place where you are not allowed to use your cell phone or any other electronic device unless switched to 'silent.'

On that train it is fairly small and limited to about twenty seats and, as there was still twelve minutes to go to departure time, I was the only passenger.

Bit by bit the coach filled mostly with men – in fact mainly with men with one exception. All of them, when they arrived, pulled out an electronic device, made sure it was in silent mode and started to play with it– for what else is it but play?

Most were phones but there was a tablet, opposite me, and maybe a pad; actually there could have been more pads but I didn't see them mainly because I don't know what a pad looks like; unless we are going back in time when seeing a pad would have been looking at some female private apparel.

It seemed that I was looking at the others as they were turned to face me. I did not envy any of them and as they looked at me, dressed in jackets and ties and wearing mostly white shirts, I could see that none of the inhabitants envied me either.

Just before the train was due to go a man with a folding bike came in to the compartment and plonked the thing in to the middle of the aisle. Then he took out a cell phone and started playing with it. With a puzzled look on his face he gingerly and very daintily poked his forefinger on to the keys to type out some sort of tom tom of a message. He wasn't typing digits as there must have been half a second or so between each pick of the finger as if it was taking him to other places.

The man was quite tall and wore, over his jacket and tie, a mackintosh, which was open, and I remember wondering if the tail of the mac would drape over his saddle and catch his rear wheel.

As he picked his way through cyberspace his little finger was poised in the air pointing at the roof of the train and yes, you are right: as he dabbed away on his tiny keyboard the pinky went up his nose for a quick pick. A quick pick and back to the business of showing me his belly from the open mac with his striped shirt tucked into his trousers which were held up by a cardboard belt.

I'm sorry I couldn't help that description – a regular belt.

As I looked around I tried to imagine that I was making this journey as a regular commuter as they were; doing this journey every day.

It wouldn't be so bad for me as I was only going one stop, as far as Harrow-on-the-hill, which is about twelve minutes.

I was only on it at this time – the rush hour - as I'd been to the dentist.

Then I sat back and had a think.

Have you ever done that?

Just sat back and thought? 

As I looked at the commuters, with their electronic devices, I wondered why did it ever come to this? This was the overground national rail service as opposed to the regular London Transport and every piece of electronic devices they were holding would have driven my mother to distraction if she suddenly rose from the grave – and she's only been dead for about twenty years.

And then I thought even more – what was it about the last twenty odd years that gave us all this means of massive communication that we could use from the seat of a commuter train? Or, as in the case of 'Bike Man' standing in the aisle doing his act for us all to see, from a standing position, whilst trying to stop a mobile bike from falling over as he picked and plucked.

Elsewhere in this capital of Great Britain four million people were on the tube – four million: that's more than the population of any other town or city in Britain. And this train wasn't even the tube.

One day, last month a record 4.7 million people used the tube and, even though most would have no reception down there, most of them had electronic devices which would be communicating with the rest of the world.

As I thought this I asked myself why, or how come, it had taken the world, since its inception to discover such things. Electricity has always been with us; electronic storms have always been described by writers of the past, gas has always been there and nobody really invented radio waves, photography or even cyberspace. So why did it take so long?

Was it because the way to do things in the old days was to fight? The biggest is best and the fastest is there first?
I remember going to youth clubs as a teenager and the little fella would turn up with his record player and records. Then he would play them for the big kids who would laugh at him and bully him in to playing what records they liked. No thanks, to Cliff Richard, play Jerry Lee – play Chuck.

But the little fella played his own collection as he didn't have Jerry Lee or Chuck, and the big fellas had to make do with that as they had no records of their own. They spent all their money on pink socks but later on the little fella with his record collection became the deejay and the star – not the big kids or the clever kids.

I mean look at the British Chris Evans. - in any other age????

The clever kids invented the bomb. 

Before cyberspace, the cell phone and the pad and tablet they discovered how to blow us all to smithereens.

I was thinking all this as the train careered its way to Harrow-on-the-hill and when I made a slight move to get off and planned how I should scale the folding bike in the aisle, Bike Man spotted my slight movement and in one fowl swoop, pushed his folding bike along the aisle, alongside my seat and my arse had hardly left the comfort of the cushion when his fat one was feeling the warmth I'd left behind.

Twelve minutes, aye, from Marylebone to Harrow.

 a phone - how exciting

France

I love France; I always have. Well not so much the earth and the buildings but everything else. The people, the movies, their style, customs, food, women, the language I mean – what is there not to like?

One of my hobbies or interests is linguistics and sometimes I wish that it would have been languages because if there's one language I would like to be able to speak it's that one – French.

Just laziness; I have spent quite a bit of time there, and usually manage to communicate, but I do regret that part of my education.

People, like me, with English as their first language, are the laziest on earth when it comes to learning foreign tongues and that's my excuse.

But it's not only the language it's their style – even the ugly girls there have a certain sexiness about them.

If you go in to a bank in Britain or a post office you'll see the clerks in their M&S smart suits; in America the post office people will be wearing post office uniforms and in the Bank of America they all wear the same kind of mufti suits; rather like the England football team when they travel abroad.

In France when I went into a bank they were wearing Christian Dior, Yves Saint Laurent and the like; they looked fantastic.

So when I went to America I was surprised at some of the anti French comments I would hear like ' . . .they wouldn't let us fly over when we bombed . . .' and the total utter rubbish when they wanted to call French Fries, Freedom Fries for a while.

So no I didn't appreciate the derogatory remarks on his Twitter Account by Rob Lowe – an actor who thinks that the meaning of less is more is to look embarrassed.

I have driven through Paris a couple of times but didn't get out of the car. It was the middle of the night in any case and do you know up to that point, and we had travelled about 150 miles from Caen in northern France, it was the first time we saw street lighting.

All the way through the long and winding roads, through small towns and villages the inhabitants were in bed – and this was around nine in the evening and we thought to ourselves – God! How those French know how to live!

And they do – I'm sorry the English will not pronounce the French words with their accents as the Americans do but I have noticed that some of the Tees are not being uttered but people still say the 'S' in Cannes when they shouldn't.

Also the 'T' should be pronounced in the Champagne produced by Moët & Chandon as Moet (with the 2 dots over his 'e') wasn't French.

After all these years I'm always proud when I manage that – here I go again – ë.

So let us all be French today; let us remember the greatest National Anthem in the world – don't forget the best scene in the movie Casablanca with the singing of the La Marseillaise – it is the greatest not because of any chauvinistic choice but because it is the best tune and not necessarily the lyric – that's right, whilst we're at it, lyric; singular.

Vive la France

Privilege.

In Britain there is a thing that few other countries have or can understand and, even though most of us think it unfair and unjust, is probably one of the things that stop this place being subject to a revolution, an Arab Spring (Christian?) or even some kind of insurrection – successful or otherwise. That thing is privilege.

Someone I know was working in a play with a well known posh actor; this actor has been going for years and was in Harry Potter – well the first episode as I didn't any more after that. This 'someone' – the person I knew – said 'he just doesn't understand privilege.'

Well what is privilege?

It is a curse to some and a blessing to others but it's something you really have to think about before condemning it and ask yourself the question would you enjoy privilege much like the queen or some duke? – even the duke, The Duke of Edinburgh – Phil the Greek. You see I have put capitals to describe him as if I was talking of God or Jesus when you refer to God as He, even half way through a sentence. It's as if they (the royals) are Godly, as they were considered up to the seventeenth century.

To me it would be a curse if I suddenly won, shall we say, 17 million on the Lottery and used some of that money to make a movie and put myself in it. 

Would people say (would I say and even think) that I wouldn't have made that movie without the lottery win?

They might and you might think that I should care.

I remember the movie The Truman Show (above) with Jim Carrey – he plays a guy called, well, Truman.

He is an ordinary small town American guy and lives a bland kind of life. Very little need for intelligent stimulation, a predictable wife, predictable relationships in fact the life of a very simple soap opera. Something you might see on TV.

Unfortunately that is what it is – he is a creation and from birth has lived in a kind of bubble. There are hidden cameras on every street, everybody he meets are actors with a specific script and scenario to follow.

One of the things the actors have to do in their semi improvisational scenario is to mention the name of a commercial product for whoever was sponsoring the show; something like 'how did you like that Bird's Instant Whip, Truman?' and he normally would like things because he was that type of guy. Nothing controversial or too critical of anything as he was predictable – it's well worth seeing. Obviously something happens to disturb his happy state but if you are really interested I'm sure you'll look for it.

There is his little world (above) - that's all he sees and there is no way out and the show is a huge hit on national TV. From birth he has been trained: how to respond to certain things and how to behave.

Now who does that remind you of?

Lately I got to thinking – especially when I saw the future King Billy saluting the parade of veteran soldiers remembering their fallen comrades – that the royal family here are a kind of Truman Show.

If we had a choice – any of us – would we really want to swap places with any one of them.

'I wouldn't mind their money' I can hear you saying.

What money and what could they possibly do with money? They don't need money; any money in bank accounts they have with Coutts Bank just stays there. 

They may leave it to their relations but I doubt it. We never see or even hear of wills; the so called Queen Mother died with a massive overdraft but what does it matter? 

I called her the 'so called . . ' as that was not her title she was Queen Elizabeth the Queen's Mother and known within royal circles as Queen Elizabeth as opposed to The Queen who is the queen. In fact they are all called 'the' something or other aren't they – The Prince Charles and so on. “Hi there THE – how ya doing?'

If we got rid of the royal family with fair or foul means or even fowl means (but what would we do with the chickens) where would the money go? £1 each to the residents of Britain might just go around . .

. . and if they disappeared overnight – just packed their bags and ran away – where would they get their money from?

Harry and Billy.

But there he was, the future King Billy, standing on a little rostrum, for many an hour, smiling and saluting the comrades as they passed. Our very own Truman Burbank our very own Truman Show.

And me? I'm free; I can still buy my coffee in Soho once a week or so, enjoy my Guinness and my favourite Irish whiskey, Jameson's and walk about without being molested. The only privilege I have is not being molested (well not often) and once in a while I have a look at King Billy as he has to smile at everybody – I know he has another job rescuing people in his helicopter whilst his brother Harry Boy can meet his army buddies, go to Vegas for an orgy – but he's a good egg too.

If we invented such an institution we would be had up for cruelty.

They're not aristocrats, they are the royal family, our captives, our pets to gawk at and make fun of; their family tree can be traced back to the year dot; there are infiltrations of course from Germany and Russia and some would say from outer space and others say they are lizards but the family line goes all the way back to all those wars and beheadings and gunpowder plots.

The aristocracy are those bumbling scary people like they late Duchess of Devonshire, another italic who, to quote a Guardian article about her,'was a friendly sort, who rarely put on side; one of those toffs who are so grand that the fact of their grandeur never occurs to them, and are able, consequently, to go through life without assuming airs and graces simply because the fact of their social position is taken for granted.'

The only ordinary people they ever encounter are the odd taxi driver who they think are marvelous and they always call them little – 'silly little man' 'awful little man' infuriating little man.'

They are fast disappearing but not the royal family.

I hope these don't disappear:

Cyber Space Relationships.

When I first went to live in America, in January 1995, it was like landing in Shangri la; the palm trees festooned the boulevards, avenues and strange street names, beginning with numbers, and the sun beamed down as if it was coming from enormous arc lights on a huge movie set.

There was Hollywood and Vine, there was Sunset Blvd and there was the Hollywood Sign; it was the realisation of some kind of fantasy.

Back in Blighty my family stayed and suffered the cold winds and icy showers whilst I sat on a swing in a garden reading and shading myself from the sun. It was as if I'd died and gone to heaven but the wife and children could speak to me by phone.

It was six months before I saw my wife who came out on a visit for a week which we spent in San Francisco – well actually Berkley; Beserkly they got to call it, but I didn't really like San Francisco even though my first impression was favourable when I visited the place before moving to live in Los Angeles.

After one year I returned to London for Christmas and found it quite hard to move more than a few feet from the radiator. I had anticipated the cold as I'd seen the news the odd time I got a chance to look at a television set, with news of Britain and footage of people in the cold wearing pom pom hats and anoraks.

In fact what I noticed when I came back that time was that everybody seemed to be dressed in dark colours and had very short hair. I think I had let mine grow a bit then even though I got to know a hair dresser down town who was from London. For some reason I let her persuade me in to having blond high lights put in which promptly turned yellow in the sun.

It's a strange place Los Angeles for things like that as the vast majority of men dye their hair and because of the sun, it would make the dye stand out – in fact I notice that it makes a lot of men look older when they dye their hair as it doesn't quite match their skin. There were also a lot of face lifts which were noticeable too.

Later on with the introduction of Skype, and long after my wife came out to live with me, we could speak to the grandchildren and see them at the same time. So I was still in heaven but the kids could see me there as we looked at the babies getting bigger.

I mention all this as I heard a strange story the other day: a granddad in America lives a few states away from his grand daughter; every evening, as he eats dinner, the grand daughter looks at him via Skype and he sees her too. Then before she goes to bed she hugs the monitor – it may be a lap top, computer or even a smart phone.

I think this disturbs me and makes me wonder where we are going as a human race. 

Is this the way we are going to communicate with one another in the future with everybody suffering from vitamin 'D' deficiency because they never see the sun, never get the chance to speak to people face to face and when they want an experience they simply look at it on a screen? 

If we really want to 'be there' we strap on something looking like a pair of goggles with electronic wires attached and really be there.

There are two really good TV series by Dennis Potter who wrote them not long before he died. One is called Cold Lazarus (above) and the other Karaoke. Each series is just four episodes – what the Americans would call a mini series; here it's called a TV Series. 

All written by Dennis Potter – all by himself, no 'show runner,' team of writers not even a script editor. In fact when he discovered he had but months to live, after being diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, he wrote the two TV series in a matter of months.

If you are interested he was interviewed by Melvyn Bragg not long before his death about these two series, and his life and philosophy, which makes for interesting viewing.

The word Karaoke translates in to empty orchestra, by the way, just as (I think) Karate translates to empty hand; the former I'm sure of the latter not so confident.

I can't remember Karaoke too well, although I'll put a synopsis of the two TV series at the end of this post. 

Cold Lazarus is about a disembodied brain floating in liquid. All the experiences of life, movement and emotion the brain feels as an experience and thinks it is actually doing it.

Kind of reminds me of the granddad existing on a TV monitor in his grandchild's life. Her grandfather is a lap top – 'good night, lap top; see you in the morning.'

'Can I take granddad lap top to bed tonight mummy?'

'No you can't; his batteries are low – in any case Daddy wants to use him.'

I can see people in Starbucks every day; an island unto themselves sitting at four seater tables by themselves with their bags, battery chargers and baggage strewn over the other chairs.

I mean – can you imagine John Wayne with a lap top or a yuppie phone?

Here are the two synopses of the aforementioned titles – don't forget Potter was a genius, the writer of many TV plays and series including The Singing Detective and Pennies from Heaven which were both turned in to awful films. He was THE writer who used television – he forayed into the movies and the theatre but television was his medium.

Albert Finney in Karaoke - he is also in Cold Lazerus.

In fact that's his head in the main photo.

Karaoke.

Obsessive, self-destructive London television scriptwriter Daniel Feeld finds his health failing while involved with the post-production on his new TV drama, "Karaoke." A hard-drinking heavy smoker, Feeld is in much physical pain as he struggles with pancreatic cancer. Going about his daily routines, he has some odd experiences leading him to conclude that his fictional creations are erupting into real life. He overhears people speaking scraps of his own dialogue including young Sandra Sollars, hostess at a karaoke club run by petty thug Arthur "Pig" Maillion. Feeld fears Sandra could be threatened by "Pig" Maillion in a manner similar to scenes he wrote for "Karaoke" as his memory, fantasy, and reality overlap and inter-weave into a complex mental tapestry.

Cold Lazarus

Writer Daniel Feeld, first seen in Dennis Potter's Karaoke, returns three centuries later as a disembodied head. While technology has advanced in the 24th Century, global corporate control has brought about an austere, antiseptic way of life. In the year 2368, the terrorist organization RON (Reality or Nothing), seeks a return to the tranquility of earlier times. At the Masdon Science Center, a team of scientists led by Emma Porlock succeeds in extracting memories from Feeld's cryogenically preserved head - memories which are, in fact, scenes from Karaoke. Aging Martina Masdon, the tyrannical owner of the Science Center, and international media mogul David Siltz see the potential for the commercial exploitation of Feeld's memories. As Siltz puts it, "Who would want made-up stories from a hack when you can mainline into the real thing? At last, privacy has a true market value."

Dennis Potter