Ireland.

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).

It certainly is a hell of a place to write beautiful lyrics and poetry about and sure 'tis no wonder as the place is a mythical mixture of fact, fiction and fantasy.

But Ireland is two places; the north and the south, just as I am three men: the dreamer, the fantasizer and the pragmatist.

The dreamer in me would like to see one Ireland with the north and the south joined together as it used to be, like conjoined twins separated not long after their birth; in my fantasies I see that but the pragmatist in me knows this will never be.

It's true that the Republicans will one day out number the Loyalists and why wouldn't they? The Republicans are mainly Roman Catholic who are not supposed to practice birth control - so go figure!
But how many Republicans, living near the border in the 'so called' Northern Ireland, even though they would die for Ireland, would want to live there? That's a question I heard recently.
The Republic of Ireland, the South, have no National Health Service like the north so how would the Northern Republican fancy paying fifty Euros (€50) per visit to go to the doctor? How much is a Euro (€ )? About 80% of a pound (£) which is about 50% more than the dollar ($).
If they take two children to the doctor they will pay €100 whereas in Britain, which currently rules the 'so called' Northern Ireland, no money changes hands. Health care is not dependent on your job and if you have no job, or you are a child or a senior you still don't have to pay. In fact when tourists go to hospitals here in emergencies I have heard that there is no paraphernalia or logistics to even charge the tourists.
You will never know how much a visit to the doctor costs, how much you have to pay for surgery, blood tests or even hospital stays or outpatient visits living in Britain; and the 'so called' Northern Ireland, as I have mentioned, is ruled by Britain.

They know all these things in America but not in any part of Britain. In some parts of Britain like Wales, and I think Scotland, prescriptions are free too, as they are for the over 60s in the rest of the kingdom.

If there ever would be a vote in Ireland for ridding the place of the partition there would also have to be a vote in the South and how many people in the South would welcome a further million people with a certain percentage of them being on welfare. You couldn't just take their welfare away so they would need to be compensated; so would the tax payer in the south welcome this further burden? The Celtic Tiger is resting so who knows?

I have heard people in America say 'Get Britain out of Ireland' without knowing the facts. A lot of people have died for Ireland and all that has been won didn't come without bloodshed. I think over two thousand people died in the province during the troubles from about 1969 to 1994; these were from both sides with additional deaths in England – or the mainland as some people call it.

Louis Mountbatten

I think The Queen said, when she visited Ireland, that no one hasn't been affected in one way or another; she lost her uncle who was assassinated off the coast of Ireland when he was holidaying there. There was talk at the time (conspiracy theorists) that he was assassinated by the British Government as he was a CND supporter but the people who believe that are the same ones who think Princess Diana was murdered.

By the way she was never Princess Diana; her official title was Her Royal Highness The Princess Charles Philip Arthur George, Princess of Wales and Countess of Chester, Duchess of Cornwall, Duchess of Rothesay, Countess of Carrick, Baroness of Renfrew, Lady of the Isles, Princess of Scotland. Bit of a mouthful aye?
So back to Ireland: certain surveys taken in Ireland say that the majority of the island of Ireland would not welcome a 32 county country so maybe all those people from the hunger strikers to rest of them died in vain.
However before the troubles, in 1969, civil rights were terrible in the 'so called' (you know where I mean) and if you were a Roman Catholic you would find it hard to get a government job or even a job in the police - so some good came from it, I suppose.

Acting in Hollywood

All that stuff about the British Royal Family being lizards, and 9/11 being an inside job and all the rest of it including the so called murder of Princess Diana was not a joke; I was pointing out that people actually believe that rubbish. And why do they believe it? Because they are paranoiac – not paranoid but paranoiac; I am paranoiac about the use of the word paranoid; I don't know why it's replaced paranoiac in the vernacular.

They are paranoiac because they believe that the reason they being left behind is because of the world wide conspiracy – but I don't want to write any more about it as I know as soon as I put a certain word in here a red flag will go up in CIA Headquarters, the game will be up and I'll disappear.

I have written the above in response to about 10 e-mails which, if I haven't replied to them already, I will soon.

By the way I have had a few complaints about not being able to leave comments on here and sometimes I have the same problem in replying to a comment. I think if you have a G-mail account you can sign in using that or maybe if you are a 'follower.'

Even though I get loads and loads of hits and page-loads I don't have that many followers. It doesn’t matter I can see – well I used to be able to see – who's reading it. I say used to because that was when the hits were low. For example I have had over 400 hits on the Julian Assange story, over the past two weeks, and over 300 on the one I wrote about The Golden Globes and Javier Barden.

Maybe I would make some money out of it if they'd have clicked on to the advertisements.

I wanted to follow up about the pilot season; I was asked what the pilot season is like in the UK; well there isn't one. Acting and entertainment is a totally different ball game over there but I have been here for 16 years and what I'm about to say will probably be out of date.

When I first came over here I noticed how professional it was; on the corners of most streets, instead of a pub or a bookies like in London, there were offers for head shots – actor photos.

Head shots were used as a calling card and I could buy 200 or 300 for less than $100. In London the actors would pay a lot more than that because their agent wanted quality shots and they would usually want their head shot back after they sent it to some casting director, which is why they would enclose a stamped address envelope.

Here the idea of a head shot is to get it so it looks like you, it has to be 8”x10” and your resume gets stapled on to the back.

If you are up for a job you just stick your head shot in the mail and nothing else; no 'dear sir would it be possible' you just stick it in the mail and make sure your agent's number is on there somewhere. You might just stick the character's name you or your agent is suggesting you for but nothing else; there is no need.

Digital photos and the internet have put a lot of the head shot shops out of business now, by the way.

The other place I was told about, on the first night I was here, was Frenches Book Shop on Sunset Boulevard. That place has everything for the actor.

In London there is a publication called 'Contacts' which gives you the address of every agent, film and TV company, prop house and lots more – a good digs guide too.

I always thought that would be a good idea over here but in Frenches you have a book, published every month or so, that is exclusively for agents. It gives you the names of the particular agents, what type of actors they are looking for and other useful information.

Of course it will have CAA and ICM in there but I'm sure nobody applies to them; when you are ready they will seek you out. But not all stars are with those big agents. Jack Nicholson and Harrison Ford, I believe, are still with their original agent.

Also in Frenches it gives you tips about how you should do most things – audition being one of them.

Casting directors were asked what annoys them more than anything about actors and the answer most of them gave was actors borrowing their stapler to stick their resume on the back of their head shot.

In London you have The Spotlight and in Hollywood there is The Academy Players – one big difference: the last time I advertised in The Spotlight it cost me a few hundred dollars for a half page. Again over here they don't care about the prestige of having a half page; there are 10 photos per page and for the year that costs $36 – that's about £24.

Don't you feel you are being ripped off over there?

The casting director wants to see what you look like not the fact that you can afford a half page!

The other places casting directors find actors, these days, is on the Internet Movie Date Base – the imdB – and you can usually tell who the British actors are on there as they rarely put a photo up.

Casting directors cast from the imdB so why don't they use it?

There are 300 million people here and when things get big they get big. I know somebody who was paid £250,000 for a commercial; it was a buy out for two years and when the two years ran out they renewed his contract.

That's why actors in Hollywood always carry their head shots and the guys who go for many commercials have heads shots and a change of clothes in their cars all the time.

I was out one day – British trained which means I don't go to the rip off acting coaches here and I was in my shorts – and my agent called me and told me to go over to West LA for a commercial audition; by the way they are all called auditions here not meetings etc – they tell it like it is.

There I was in my shorts at The Farmer's Market with my wife eating doughnuts and drinking coffee and the agent told me to get over there and to be wearing a suit. I came home, grabbed my suit, shoes, shirt and tie and got back into the car and went to West LA.

When I got there I got out of the car and got changed in the parking lot; no problem. On with the shirt, the tie, my trousers and socks and then I noticed; I had brought two odd shoes; they were both black but they were both the right foot and one was a tap shoe; so I had to wear my trainers/sneakers in with the suit.

But getting back to the pilot season in the UK which doesn't exist:

Because there are 300 million people here they have to get it right. When John Cleese wrote, with his then wife, Faulty Towers he wrote it to be broadcast on BBC2; the minority channel; he had plenty of time to write it and record it which is why it was so good.

That's John Cleese above with a reverse moustache - and me below stuffing cake into my mouth in a play - many many years ago; neither of them good headshots.

Anyway that's over 1300 words today so I'd better sign off.

Are the Royal Family Lizards?

Did you know the royal family in Great Britain are lizards?
Did you know that the sudden deaths of all those birds being found and all those fish suddenly dying is actually a sign that 'something' is going on?
What about those 'chem trails' we see in the sky all the time? Did you know that some trails left by aircraft are chemical or biological agents deliberately sprayed at high altitudes for a purpose undisclosed to the general public in clandestine programs directed by government officials?
There are people that think all of the above statements are true; I hope you don't.
They think the 9/11 bombings were fixed, that Princess Diana was killed by the Lizards (the royal family); that the Federal Reserve System is designed to transfer wealth from the poor and middle classes of the United States to the international bankers of the New World Order; that Barack Obama wasn't born in America (so is not qualified to be President) and radio talk show host David Emory claimed that the Nazi leader Martin Bormann never died and built a global empire involving, among many others, the Bush family.
And on and on they go – did the Royal Family find out that Princess Diana wasn't a lizard and so did away with her?
Look at this picture of the Royal Family. This is supposed to prove that The Duke of Edinburgh is a lizard because reptiles suffer from uncontrollable flatulence and there he is blowing off???

The picture at the top of the page is part of a portrait of Elizabeth I; on David Icke's web site they report that a mysterious snake has appeared in one of her portraits.

The serpent was depicted being clasped in the Tudor monarch's fingers in the original version of the work - but it was painted over at the last minute and replaced with a more decorative bunch of roses.

Deterioration over time has meant the snake has revealed itself once more, with its outline now visible on the surface.''
So why do people believe in all this stuff? Isn't it some kind of paranoia? Or even schizophrenia?
People who suffer from schizophrenia hear voices – well what voices is David Icke and all the other conspiracy theorists hearing before passing the news on to their acolytes?
I remember a few things about David Icke; I think he was a goalkeeper and was injured and then went on to be a football commentator and general football pundit; then he disappeared.
So believe what you want to believe folks and in the meantime you won't have to bother with the real problems of the world.