Bugger Bogner - the Oscar goes to . . .

There is a small town on the south coast of England called Bognor Regis; it was, originally, plain old baldy Bognor but King George V went there to convalesce with his wife, Queen Mary, in 1929, and as a result, the King was asked to bestow the Regis (of the King) suffix onto Bognor so since then that is what it has been called.

In the new film, The King's Speech, King George V is admirably played by Michael Gambon and there is a death bed scene in the film when the family gather around his bed to await his death.

There is an apocryphal story about this moment in history and I'm glad to say that the film makers avoided it. It goes like this: someone says to the King something to do with Bognor, something like 'when you're better you can go to Bognor' or 'we'll always have Bognor' and the King is supposed to have replied 'Bugger Bognor' and died making those his last words. I saw the film last night and when the moment came I couldn't help but whisper to my wife 'Bugger Bognor.'

The film itself, The King's Speech, is absolutely wonderful; I won't be surprised if it wins Best Picture Oscar at the Academy Awards in February.

The performances are first class with one exception; Timothy Spall is totally miscast as Winston Churchill. He is never what you might call bad but he is on a hiding to nothing being miscast as he is not Winston Churchill by any stretch of the imagination.

There are other well known people of the day with Helena Bonham-Carter playing Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother, and Claire Bloom playing George V's wife Queen Mary but two performances stand out and they are Colin Firth as George VI and Geoffrey Rush as his speech therapist Lionel Logue; they both deserve to win for best actor and that might be a problem.

If they are both nominated for best actor they could cancel each other out. However, if Colin Firth is nominated for best and Geoffrey Rush for best supporting they could get both – plus the film getting best picture.

King George VI had a very bad stammer and the King's speech in the title refers to two things: his speech in general and the speech he had to give to the nation on the advent of World War II in 1939.

The King's stammer seemed to be on nearly every letter; he had problems with his p, m, k and d sounds and others too and he is helped by an actor (Rush) who discovered, without any qualifications and letters after his name, that he had a gift for helping people with their speech defects.

As an actor he would because when you go to drama school half of the time you are studying speech.

In Hollywood at the moment people have on their CV that they trained with so and so in cold reading classes, commercial audition classes and all the other part time stuff but at drama school, when I went, we studied for three years full time speech and drama from 10:00am to 4:00pm every day.

We messed around, of course, like any other students and laughed through the lessons when we were trying to strengthen our diaphragms; we laughed at the fact that we took breathing lessons when we had been breathing all our lives and we had more fun when we had to try and touch the ceiling with a very big stretch and then let go letting our arms fall almost touching the floor – but we did it.

We would all chant par pay pee paw poo, par pay pee paw poo, par pay pee paw poo, par pay pee paw poo, par pay pee paw poo; I italicized the ones you have to stress – try it.

The other thing we would do is; 'one by one they went away' – in one breath going on to 'one by one and two by two and three by three' all the way to ten in one breath. It was great fun but it gave us breath control.

We would do tongue twisters like Tiptoe Tommy Turned a Turk for Tuppence and lots of others to help our diction.

At the end of it the fun we could do long Shakespeare speeches and the like with a lot of confidence; it didn't mean that none of us were physically sick before going on stage and didn't give any of us talent, where it didn't exist, but it helped our instrument; the instrument we had to play was our bodies – not just our voices but our bodies.

In our year at drama school there were about 30 students and only a few of us stuck it out as actors; a lot of the others were very sensible and went into speech therapy and successful careers.

I'm not saying speech therapy comes easy to actors but it is a kind of second nature; some of the techniques that the Geoffrey Rush character used in the film I had already worked out. For instance I have never heard anybody singing with a stammer or when they are really angry or losing their tempers.

When the King would swear he didn't stammer; he could say the 'f' word and the 's' word and all the others and this was part of his therapy.

I have never tried to help anybody with a stammer but I have helped someone eliminate a lisp; that was all down to the placement of the tongue. It was the same technique as in the film – repetition and tongue exercises.

I had a very slight stammer when I first went to drama school; I was suddenly thrust into an environment of people with great self confidence; sometimes I couldn't get a word in edgewise and nobody seemed to listen; I got to realise that there was some kind of panic in my throat and my chest as if I needed to cough but couldn't - then for some reason I started to tell jokes.

I would go around like a comedian looking for a stage taking my hat off, putting my hand out and cracking a gag. Then I would walk away; people must have thought I was crazy; but my stammer went!

So when I watched the King's Speech last night I could feel empathy for him because Colin Firth was so good.

Look for King George VI on You Tube and you will hear him give the speech and when you see the film you will know that Colin Firth was spot on – play it and you'll see what I mean.

One of the most important things about the film is the F-bomb; in the therapy it is used as the King didn't stammer when saying it; then as he is trying to get through the famous speech in rehearsal he goes through the emotions he feels by singing some of the speech to the tune of Swanee River or the Camptown Races and then in another part of the speech he has to say 'fuck fuck fuck' and there is a wonderful moment in the actual speech at the BBC when he pauses slightly, and he can't use the same help but has to think it; he looks for help to Geoffrey Rush on the other side of the microphone who mouths ' fuck fuck fuck' and the King carries on.

Some of the most extraordinary shots in the film are the long close ups on Colin Firth and how he is able to hold your attention through them; it was a technique the director in Colin Firth's previous film, A Single Man, used last year which worked very well. I wonder of the director of The King's Speech was inspired by the previous film?

Apparently The King's Speech got an 'R' rating because it used one fuck too many.

The only people who would be offended by this would be the archetypal 'disgusted' from Tunbridge Wells – or Royal Tunbridge Wells as it has become just like Bognor; well bugger Tunbridge Wells and bugger Bognor!

audio Books, James Joyce and Mark Zuckerberg.

There they are above and left - James Joyce and Mark Zuckerberg - which one would you rather be?

I have always liked to write and this little outlet allows me to vent my avocation without getting into too much trouble; I am admonished now and again, mainly by my brother, for using Americanisms and American spellings but I plead not guilty; The Guitar Center is spelled like that because it is a company who spell it that way. I know he didn't pull me up on that one but he has on others in the past.

So what am I on about here? Well nothing to do with the above; I was thinking that apart from writing I like reading; my last novel is on all the various media available to it: audio book, electronic book and paperback. I suppose it could have been in hard back but I didn't get that kind of a deal.

My latest is up on Amazon's Kindle and this week I am starting to record the audio version and I hope that Audible take it.

The first one sold better as an electronic book than anything else with a few selling on Smashwords but the majority to Kindle. Personally I haven't tried any of the electronic books as a reader but I have tried audio books.

Audio books are an acquired taste; if you like the book at bedtime on Radio 4 in the UK the audio book is for you. Personally, when I read, I like to see the punctuation and it's hard to see that when someone is reading it to you. The great thing about reading James Joyce is that you can see where genius Jim puts his semi-colons, his full colons and when he uses commas for parenthesis. In Ulysses, for example, he doesn't use inverted commas for speech; he uses a dash and then a comma before 'he said' for example and it's interesting to see where he puts an exclamation mark.

So it's hard, sometimes, to know whether the book has been written well or not when you are listening to a reader. So I tend to listen to biographies and read the novels.

Sometimes you only want information from books and I have been reading the hard back version of The People's History of the United States by Howard Zinn and to be honest I don't care how well it was written. It was well written, by the way, but it is a heavy book and I don't mean the subject; it must weigh a good few pounds from its 800 pages so I am having a break from it and reading Dubliners again by James Joyce.

In Dubliners he used inverted commas for speech (quotation marks in American) and it's very hard to believe why it wasn't published in Ireland; it was turned down by George Roberts of the publishers Maunsel – Joyce certainly had a go at him in Gas From a Burner his famous poem. He wasn't a great poet, even though some of his poetry is beautiful, but he certainly gets to the point in the aforementioned poem.

George Roberts was a red headed Scot from Ulster; Joyce mentions a Belfast man in one of the stories in a derogatory manner so you never know; that might have been the reason.

Another line in the poem:

I printed the great John Milicent Synge
Who soars above on an angel's wing
In the playboy shift that he pinched as swag
From Maunsel's manager's travelling-bag.

Well I don't know what he knew about John Millington Synge but he is saying something about him there; suggesting he is effeminate?

Synge's most famous play was The Playboy of the Western World and when the word shift was used in it, there was a riot at the Abbey Theatre. Shift!!!! What would they say if they used the language they use these days?

Of course they would accept it - eventually.

But I didn't start to write this to write about Jimmy Joyce; I just kind of drifted into it; I wanted to say I like reading and writing and also talking to people and I like to talk as opposed to texting – there we are I knew it; no such word! The same as texted.

I suppose there will be one day but I should have said I like talking as opposed to sending texts!

Yesterday Facebook added something else. A way to keep the history of all your e-mails in the same place – at your facebook page, of course.

In ten years time all the history of every e-mail you have ever sent will be there with the guy who owns facebook; Mark Zuckerberg.

It will be the most comprehensive list of information ever and facebook, in competition with Google, are trying to get it all into another place - your mobile phone; and I am wondering . . . where is it going to end?

The more sophisticated it all gets the less exciting I am about it; I check my e-mails on my computer when I log on; I don't want Instant Messenger, I don't want a text to let me know when I get an e-mail and I don't really want my friends and relations to know when I'm on line – am I the only one?

Here's the poem from a literal time – it has a good rhythm and Billy Walsh, by the way, was the Lord Mayor of Dublin.

Gas From a Burner
by James Joyce (1912)
Ladies and gents, you are here assembled
To hear why earth and heaven trembled
Because of the black and sinister arts
Of an Irish writer in foreign parts.

He sent me a book ten years ago.
I read it a hundred times or so,
Backwards and forwards, down and up,
Through both the ends of a telescope.

I printed it all to the very last word
But by the mercy of the Lord
The darkness of my mind was rent
And I saw the writer's foul intent.

But I owe a duty to Ireland:
I held her honour in my hand,
This lovely land that always sent
Her writers and artists to banishment
And in a spirit of Irish fun
Betrayed her own leaders, one by one.

'Twas Irish humour, wet and dry,
Flung quicklime into Parnell's eye;
'Tis Irish brains that save from doom
The leaky barge of the Bishop of Rome
For everyone knows the Pope can't belch
Without the consent of Billy Walsh.

O Ireland my first and only love
Where Christ and Caesar are hand and glove!
O lovely land where the shamrock grows!
(Allow me, ladies, to blow my nose)
To show you for strictures I don't care a button
I printed the poems of Mountainy Mutton
And a play he wrote (you've read it I'm sure)
Where they talk of 'bastard', 'bugger' and 'whore'
And a play on the Word and Holy Paul
And some woman's legs that I can't recall
Written by Moore, a genuine gent
That lives on his property's ten per cent:
I printed mystical books in dozens:
I printed the table-book of Cousins
Though (asking your pardon) as for the verse
'Twould give you a heartburn on your arse:
I printed folklore from North and South
By Gregory of the Golden Mouth:
I printed poets, sad, silly and solemn:
I printed Patrick What-do-you-Colm:
I printed the great John Milicent Synge
Who soars above on an angel's wing
In the playboy shift that he pinched as swag
From Maunsel's manager's travelling-bag.

But I draw the line at that bloody fellow
That was over here dressed in Austrian yellow,
Spouting Italian by the hour
To O'Leary Curtis and John Wyse Power
And writing of Dublin, dirty and dear,
In a manner no blackamoor printer could bear.

Shite and onions! Do you think I'll print
The name of the Wellington Monument,
Sydney Parade and Sandymount tram,
Downes's cakeshop and Williams's jam?

I'm damned if I do-- I'm damned to blazes!
Talk about Irish Names of Places!
It's a wonder to me, upon my soul,
He forgot to mention Curly's Hole.

No, ladies, my press shall have no share in
So gross a libel on Stepmother Erin.
I pity the poor-- that's why I took
A red-headed Scotchman to keep my book.

Poor sister Scotland! Her doom is fell;
She cannot find any more Stuarts to sell.
My conscience is fine as Chinese silk:
My heart is as soft as buttermilk.
Colm can tell you I made a rebate
Of one hundred pounds on the estimate
I gave him for his Irish Review.
I love my country-- by herrings I do!

I wish you could see what tears I weep
When I think of the emigrant train and ship.
That's why I publish far and wide
My quite illegible railway guide,
In the porch of my printing institute
The poor and deserving prostitute
Plays every night at catch-as-catch-can
With her tight-breeched British artilleryman
And the foreigner learns the gift of the gab
From the drunken draggletail Dublin drab.

Who was it said: Resist not evil?
I'll burn that book, so help me devil.
I'll sing a psalm as I watch it burn
And the ashes I'll keep in a one-handled urn.

I'll penance do with farts and groans
Kneeling upon my marrowbones.
This very next lent I will unbare
My penitent buttocks to the air
And sobbing beside my printing press
My awful sin I will confess.
My Irish foreman from Bannockburn
Shall dip his right hand in the urn
And sign crisscross with reverent thumb
Memento homo upon my bum.

In Flanders Field

This is for today; November 11th; it would be great if it was published at eleven minutes passed eleven but that comes at different times in different countries; it was the time and date of the armistice in 1918; the end of the first world war which started in 1914; so I will get this as close to 11:00 am as I can.

The poem, which titles this post, was written by a Canadian John McCrae – so it's not only the English who wrote great World War One poetry; some of the great poems of the first world war were pro-war for example Rupert Brooke as opposed to the anti-war poems by others including Wilfred Owen.

There are two photos above as you can see – one clearly has the first line as 'In Flanders Field the poppies grow' which was hand written by the author and in the other one, taken from the publication In Flanders Field and Other Poems clearly says as poppies blow. I believe the hand written one was written from memory and is a mistake; but I always thought it was grow.

At this time of year in Britain most people wear red poppies in their lapels; this is to remember Armistice Day lest anybody forget and the people buy the poppies from poppy sellers in the streets; they're also usually available at your school and place of work and the money collected goes to a charity.

The newly washed and appointed Prime Minister of Britain David Cameron(I hasten to say elected) has recently worn his poppy as a red rag; there he is, above, with his pals drinking a toast in China to celebrate the signing of a contract.

Sometimes I wish for the talent of DH Lawrence or Philip Larkin to describe such a picture; they look like robins on a clothes line waiting for the bang.

Before they went to China they were asked not to wear the poppy; it might be a great symbol in Britain but in China it is a different kind of symbol; it symbolizes the history between China and Britain: China's humiliation to Europe during the Opium Wars – also known as the Anglo/Chinese Wars.

I got the following from Wikipedia - Opium was smuggled by merchants from British India into China in defiance of Chinese prohibition laws. Open warfare between Britain and China broke out in 1839. Further disputes over the treatment of British merchants in Chinese ports resulted in the Second Opium War.

China became a minor power for the following one hundred and fifty years till the Communists took over.

So Cameron and his mates go to China with their poppies proudly worn on their breasts just as someone walked into a field one day with a red rag.

This from The Guardian and shows Cameron's arrogance: Chinese officials apparently asked them not to do it because the poppy is a vivid symbol of China's humiliation at the hands of the European powers. "We informed them that they mean a great deal to us and we would be wearing them all the same," a British official explained.

We know it's a wonderful thing in Britain but Britain is just like America; they go to other parts of the world putting their point of view and wanting the rest of the world to behave just like they do.

Who said in the first place that Democracy is the best form of government; a Democracy produced Hitler! I don't know. I only know that I have always lived under democracies and they have always been in a mess.

I can't remember any time in my life when we haven't been 'in trouble' when there hasn't had to be cuts in public spending, arts subsidies; I hear that they are going to abolish Child Allowance in Britain – is that true?

I leave you with a great poem and ask – is it pro or anti-war? Throwing the torch?? Discuss????

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie,
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

In the richest country in the world you meet the poorest of people starving on the streets

We went for lunch yesterday to the Sunset Grill on Sunset Boulevard; on the wall there is a copy of the record by Joe Walsh of the song which this establishment influenced.

As you can see by the picture above it's next to The Guitar Center in Hollywood where I bought my guitar a few weeks ago. The neighbourhood attracts pop stars and musicians from all over the world and there are plenty of recording studios about the place and plenty of other guitar shops.

The record on the wall says either Joe Walsh (I think it does as I haven't looked closely at it for a long time) or The Eagles and if you look at the picture above we sat on those two chairs out front and, as the song says below, we can watch the working girls go by (the prostitutes).

There are not that many you can recognise these days as that little part of the area has cleaned itself up a bit although there are a couple of strip clubs opposite on the other side of Sunset and when he goes on to say in the song that the “basket people” walk around and mumble it's not the so called basket people who are doing the mumbling these days as a lot of people pass and appear to be talking to themselves because they have a mobile phone hidden somewhere and a discreet ear piece secluded away like the secret service. But instead of speaking into their shoulder like the secret service they talk out loud even gesturing with their arms as they walk.

If my grandmother were to suddenly rise from the grave and see how many people walk the streets and appear to be talking to themselves she would dive back into the grave.

I had a hot dog and my wife had beef quesadillas and we sat in the sunshine watching the world go by for a while. The Sunset Grill is one of the places in that immediate area where you can get a relatively cheap lunch but recently there have been a few of our favourite places closing down.

I wrote a post, I think, about The Last American Hamburger which closed down about six months ago and last week or so The Curry Palace further west on Sunset closed its doors; that and the Coach and Horses English Pub are no more.

It was nothing like an English pub by the way but it wasn't bad. Locals thought that Quentin Tarantino might buy it as he used to go there on Friday evenings but it wasn't to be so when you go there now there is a notice from some official body on the door to say the premises are available for someone to apply for a liqueur licence; so if that's what you are after you know where to go.

The places are closing down because the landlords are asking for more rent at the expiration of the leases; The last American Hamburger is to be replaced soon by Chipotle which will be more expensive so we are left with El Compadre, the Mexican Restaurant opposite and The Sunset Grill.

Food trucks are very fashionable in Los Angeles at the moment but they should know where to come; I know they are around there earlier in the mornings.

The one snag about The Last American Hamburger was that if you sat outside, hungry homeless people would come up and eat out of the trash bins; it was stomach turning and I couldn't help feeling guilty with a plate of food in front of me and people doing things like that; in the richest country in the world you meet the poorest of people starving on the streets.

Let's go down to the Sunset Grill
We can watch the working girls go by
Watch the "basket people" walk around and mumble
And stare out at the auburn sky
There's an old man there from the Old World
To him, it's all the same
Calls all his customers by name
Down at the Sunset Grill
Down at the Sunset Grill
Down at the Sunset Grill
Down at the Sunset Grill
You see a lot more meanness in the city
It's the kind that tears you up inside
Hard to come away with anything that feels
like dignity
Hard to get home with any pride
These days a man makes you somethin'
And you never see his face
But there is no hiding place
Down at the Sunset Grill
Down at the Sunset Grill
Down at the Sunset Grill
Down at the Sunset Grill
Respectable little murders pay
They get more respectable every day
Don't worry girl, I'm gonna stick by you
And someday soon we're gonna get in that
car and get outta here
Let's go down to the Sunset Grill
Watch the working girls go by
Watch the "basket people" walk around and
mumble
And gaze out at the auburn sky
Maybe we'll leave come springtime
Meanwhile, have another beer
What would we do without these jerks
anyway?
Besides, all our friends are here
Down at the Sunset Grill
Down at the Sunset Grill
Down at the Sunset Grill
Down at the Sunset Grill

Writers: Don Henley, Danny Kortchmar, Benmont M. Tench,

The Farmers' Market at 3rd and Fairfax.

The Farmers' Market at 3rd and Fairfax Los Angeles.

Well my fellow non-Americans; we have just been through a grueling few months of wall to wall political television commercials; one person, who wanted to be governor of California spent $121 million and she failed so she is obviously the Governot – think what you could do with that kind of money; all the good you could do instead of giving it television companies to drive us all mad.

Political television commercials are not allowed in the UK and a good thing too; you have no idea how annoying they can be with their mudslinging and lies. Think yourself lucky over there the election campaigns last for a year over here and they are every two years – aaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrrgggggghhhhh!!!!

I've been a bit busy of late; I always keep myself busy doing one thing or another; recently I was helping my friend Jim to cast a film we shall be doing soon. Jim writes a blog too and there it is ready for you to click on at the top right of this page. He has written about it on that blog so go and have a look and tell him I sent you.

I finished my second novel, which I told you about before, a few weeks ago and since then I have been doing other things.

I have a new guitar, after the debacle in July, and I still write songs. They are on iTunes if you want to download them but my distributors are always getting on to me to write 'ring tones' for the i-Phone.

At first I just took the intros (and outrows) to some of my songs and used them as ring tones – what's that what's a ring tone? - well you download them from the Internet and use them on your mobile phone – but because I'm only on the i-Phone you have to have an i-Phone to download them too.

Anyway whilst I was at it I recorded a horror laugh and it has sold extremely well. This week I recorded a 'Horror Santa' – let's hope it does as well.

Today I was trying to record a song of mine but had nothing but trouble from my recording equipment so I got on to the makers and they sent me some software which I will try tomorrow.

So I took the Hollywood Reporter, which was delivered today, and went to The Farmer's Market for a cup of Bob's coffee and a doughnut.

Margaret is away in Ventura at the moment till tomorrow so I sat guiltless in the sunshine, away from the political commercials and read.

I'm sure I've written on here about the Farmer's Market before and especially Bob's Doughnuts but it is one of the places in Los Angeles you need to visit; on Saturday we met a very drunk Wolverhampton Wanderers supporter who said he recognised me and he wanted to introduce us to his drinking buddies; he said he had been drinking since 9:00 am – it was 4:30pm when we met him – so he was well oiled.

He showed us the Wolves logo on his jacket and the two tattoos – one on his chest and one on his arm; I have a feeling he would have showed us his tattoos on any part of his body so it was just as well he only had the two.

We met his pals who were a lot sober than he was and left him as he was going around with a jug of beer filling glasses; I don't drink at that time of day any more and I had my Guinness to look forward to at home, so I didn't have one.

The Farmers' Marker is full of characters and we have got to know a lot of them over the years; some of the old ones just disappear and a lot of others just endure; some we speak to and some we don't. I use it as a meeting place – it's my check point Charlie, as my friend Stanley Dyrector once said to me.

If you walk around the market at around 7:00pm on a Friday evening you will see maybe a five hundred people sitting around eating. The best food is at the French Restaurant, where a French Accordionist sits and plays to accompany your bon appetite and the other places we eat are the Gumbo Pot, at the other end of the market from Bob's and the French place, where the bill of fare is from New Orleans, and the Brazilian place half way between the two ends.

But there are loads of places – a French crepe place, Patsies Pizza, were James Dean ate his last meal before heading off to his legendary meeting with Daniel Turnupspeed – I think his first name was Daniel, in any case the guy he had the fatal crash with.

Stars and well known people frequent the place and next door at CBS, even though it's on ABC, the BBC shoot their hit TV show Dancing with the Stars – Celebrity Come Dancing in the UK. It even beat the World Series in the ratings on Monday.

One day a friend of mine stopped me when we were leaving and wanted to introduce me to a friend of his as a British actor; I said 'how are you' to his friend, just as he was putting a piece of fish into his mouth with his right hand; he said 'I won't shake hands with you as I'm full of fish.'

I was grateful for that when he suddenly stood up and said 'Look! A British comedian.'

I looked around and couldn't see where he meant but he walked over to the comedian – by then I could see that it was Eric Idle with his wife.

I didn't quite hear what he was saying to Eric Idle but I saw him put his fishy hand in to his and heard Eric Idle say 'Eric Idle – I'm Eric Idle.'

It reminded me of a scene in Annie Hall where a gangster type goes up to Woody Allen and say's 'You're on television; what's your name?'

Woody Allen says very quietly 'Harvey Singer' (or whatever the name of his character was) and the gangster shouts 'Hey guys – over here; Harvey Singer.'

So Eric Idle stood there as nice as can be and then the guy introduces us to Eric Idle: 'over here' he said 'Eric Idle' and Eric Idle shakes hands with me and then Margaret - so one of us got the fish!!

By the way do you know Diane Keaton's real name – Annie Hall. Well her nick name was Annie even before she made the movie and she was born a Keaton.