The Legend of the Terror On the Train.

This is a strange little tail which I am assured is true; I have to ask myself why I want to spread the word about it and have to settle for the same reason that I write anything at all and I am still struggling with that.

A few weeks ago a man called El-Khazzani , went in to the lavatory of an express train in France and loaded some guns.

Now I have fired guns at The Battle of Kingsbury Range, The Battle of Pershore Range and other ranges - Bisley? - throughout this green and pleasant land and I have not spilled a drop of anybody's blood - human or otherwise.

But it seems that this character called El-Khazzani had other ideas it seems he was intent on getting his name in to the papers and go down in history together with the shoe bomber and the other total nut jobs by massacring a load of people on a train.

He had obviously heard that it had been done on a plane and with planes, on the Tube and buses in London and various places of worship all over the world.

He had heard of the Arab Spring which disappeared as quickly as it sprang up so when he went in to the lavatory on that train he played some kind of video on his app or his tablet or whatever device of the devil he had chosen to carry with him that day.

It is said that someone heard him loading his weapons and when El-Khazzani came out of the bathroom with something other than his dick in his hand* he was thwarted by the sound of an American voice shouting 'Let's Roll' – as in the movie of the one downed airliner that didn't hit a building that day on 9/11 (of 11/9 depending on where you come from) and was overcome by three marines and a Brit; the marines rolled and the Brit tied him up – maybe with his tie or cravat – or as they say in America his Ascot!!

Well after that none other than Barack(yes we can)Obama called his American heroes and congratulated them. Two whites and one black. If they'd have been cast in a movie it would have looked like creative casting. The news was that he only spoke to the Americans as he had expected David (call me Dave)Cameron to call the Brit but . . . 
Dave was on holiday.

Doesn't sound right does it; the three Americans were given the Legion of Honour – Légion d'honneur - from the French President and the Brit stood in at the ceremony as one of the Americans was in hospital with a neck and finger injury.

So that's the story – the Brit gave the speeches to the press after the affray (not Clarkson again) in a slow and measured manner and the Americans just said, we beat the crap out of him.

The only part I saw of this whole incident was some footage of El-Khazzani lying on the floor hog tied. Yes you read it right hog tied – that is lying face down with his legs tied up behind him; with a cravat??

Now if I was clever, as clever as the journalist I got this formation from – Geoff Dyer – I could make up a kind of pastiche or parody of the Second World War where it was said that at the Omaha Beach battle the Americans supplied the soldiers and the French provided the sand, or something even cleverer like the war which was fought for a few years before the Americans even joined in – way past The Battle of Britain, Dunkirk and all that – you see, when El-Khazzani came out of the loo he was attacked by a French man and as the French man grappled with El-Khazzani another man joined in, this time a French/American who was actually shot.

A third man smashed the alarm cutting his finger to the bone – a French movie actor, it turns out, and when all the shouting and grappling was going a shout went up 'Let's Go!! (wasn't let's roll after all) and that's when the Americans, who were on vacation, joined in and pummeled El-Khazzani till he was still.

Someone stuck a finger in to the French/American's wound till the paramedics arrived but when the press came the French preferred to remain anonymous.
So who were they left with - Anchors Aweigh my boys!!

And after all that El-Khazzani wanted his gun back.

So they printed the legend.


*See The Godfather. Sonny: I don't wanna see my brother coming out with just his dick in his hand.

http://tinyurl.com/ptywbs3

The 2 Sides of Eddie Ramone

A long time ago, before The Beatles were invented and skiffle was all the rage, with Lonnie Donegan leading the skiffling pack, I bought a tea chest. I know you won't know or don't know what a tea chest is but in case you do want to know and would enjoy partaking of the knowledge - here is one:

It was used for keeping loose tea leaves in, and could be obtained from tea distributors. People actually did 'obtain' them and use them when they moved house, to pack with books and other things, which weighed heavier than bricks and broke many a furniture remover's back.

This was before the tea bag – the scourge of tea drinkers – became popular and as you can see from the above there was no top; they were only used once. The reason I got the tea chest was to turn it into a bass for my little skiffle group.

I always wanted to play the guitar but at that early age I couldn't afford one but my dad had a mandolin; so I got hold of the that, took all the strings off and put four guitar strings on to it and tried to tune it as a guitar.

Not that it made any difference to me how it was tuned I tried to get a tune out of it the best way I could. I would belt out the songs and strum along to the skiffle and rock'n'roll records we didn't have – yes I would shout and scream “I'm a gambling man, man, man. I'm a gambling man, man, man. I'm a gambling man, man, man. I'm a gambling man.”

The neighbours didn't call the noise abatement society once or the police. I think my parents would have called for help if we'd had a phone but back in those dark days only the really posh people had phones.

In fact as a child I only knew one family who had one.

Because I didn't have a plectrum (what the Americans call a pick) I would suffer from blisters on my thumb; it became so bad I had to use a coin which sounded terrible.

Well terrible out of tune as opposed to the sound of the thumb which made it as a few strings being played out of tune but “I'm a gambling man, man, man. I'm a gambling man, man, man” was belted out whenever my parents were out.

The tea chest was supposed to be played by my brudder as a bass.

Here:

That's not him but you get the idea.

One day I was going nowhere in particular, and a woman came and asked me how I was and what I was doing and things like that.

That woman, I believe, was a teacher; at least I was told that she was, and I was also told that she was the aunt of Donald Maclean, whom we made our first holy communion with, before he became famous as a comedian. He is a papal count now so he must be very holy but when my mother told him later on when he was famous, who she was and that she knew his aunt, he denied it; denied he knew my mother and denied the woman was his aunt.

Anyway the woman asked me what I was doing and I told her I had formed a skiffle group.

“How wonderful” she said “here.”
And she gave me some money.
“That's toward the group and I wish you every success.”
I was taken aback so I said “oh no, I couldn't.”
I said this as a matter of manners, thinking she would say something like “no; you take it” and I would have.
But she put it back in to her purse.
The money she offered was quite a lot by the standards of those days but it would have been put into a box or bank or something waiting for the day when someone else would offer me some money towards the venture.
Needless to say the group didn't get any further and the tea chest was used in the move to our next house - breaking the back of the poor removal man.
But these days there is a way of raising money for ventures; films, plays, groups or whatever and that is crowd funding which I will be doing with my play The 2 Sides of Eddie Ramone.

Here's how it works: I will make a budget for the play which will give me a target that I have to reach. I have to give a set date – shall we say one million dollars – (it won't be but . . . . ) and we will have to raise that amount by that date.

If $999,999 is raised the whole deal is off – sounds ridiculous, I know; we can't just take what has been pledged or drop out when it reaches a figure we fancy, in point of fact if that was a real target I'd get someone I know to put the $1 in.

How do people get involved?

They state how much they want to give - $20, $40 up to whatever amount is tops. There will be little gifts for each amount like a copy of the script signed by the stars, if it's a movie and things like that.

I have donated to a few crowd funding ventures and they weren't all successful.

When you donate you give your credit/debit card number and that is only accessed if the full amount is realised.

When I did it last year nothing happened to the one which wasn't successful as the producer cancelled the campaign. I don't know if he was ever told who donayted; the others just took the amount I had pledged from my card and sent me the gift – well one didn't send the gift even after I asked for it – it was only a post card and wouldn't have killed them to send it - and I know what I'll say if they ask for more this year.

So wish me luck with my play – it won't be till next year and I dare say some of you who know me will receive news and will be asked to pledge but I will be doing most of it through social network sites like Facebook and Twitter.

Here is a little teaser trailer - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K32XDFrs6i4

A word about my movie by the way; I asked Amazon why it isn't available over here and they said it was to do with licensing so . .. what can I say?

http://tinyurl.com/ptywbs3