SoundZ

Wow it's been a week or two since I wrote anything on here; I've been busy making a film – that one above. Now don't get too excited out there as it's only a short one – although it gets longer by the day like Pinocchio's nose each time I work on it – but the idea is to get the movie in to the Edinburgh Film Festival in June which means it has to be ready for February 28.

I am getting on well with it especially as the object of the exercise is to do everything myself and make it for less than – well, what can I say? Less than £100 which is about $150; okay let's say less than $100 – although I might be pushing it at that as I'll have to buy blank DVDs.

I'm writing, editing and shooting as I go along. I've done a lot of the sound editing and music and the only thing I am having a bit of trouble with is rendering on to HD!!! In English that is saving the film in High Definition. My computer keeps telling me that it's running out of memory even though I did bigger projects with my music videos before Christmas.

So if anybody out there has any ideas?

You know where to find me.

Here is a still from the film, by the way:

 

which looks more like the reaction I had to the first listening of my love song for Valentine's Day, I Love You. (still on YouTube).

The other thing I have to do is to not make it look like a vanity project but I suppose that is what it is; the same with the one man shows I have done in the past. One was the Irish show and the other my one man play.

The Irish show I did from the year 2000 to 2010 in Los Angeles; not all the time, you understand, just on St Patrick's Day, a few colleges and the Irish Fair at Santa Anita Racetrack; I would say it was very successful as it played to full houses but it didn't really work in London – there we are.

When the time came to do any of these shows I would get on with it but in the hiatus, if I thought of them at all, I would wonder at the gall I had to actually get up and do them; I'm not thinking of that now I am working at getting the film completed – tomorrow I have to learn more lines.

Now you may wonder how I can do a one man film – or a one person film to be boringly politically correct – without making it look barmy or even talking to the camera but there are loads of devices and techniques that have been used in movies over the years and I'm using some of those.

There is a trailer which was on You Tube for a couple of days but I've taken it down as the film itself has not to be on the Internet before the festival – if you missed it sorry!!

So wish me luck and if you have a solution to my little problem of rendering let me know.

Oh and here is another still from the film where I am looking a bit more intelligent.

The Golden Globes.

2 of the funniest people on earth.

 

Do I ever miss Los Angeles? All the glitz and glamour of Hollywood, the weather, palm trees, Schwarzenegger cycling along the beach – me cycling along the beach? Me waving at Schwarzenegger – Schwarzenegger giving me the finger!!! No he would always wave back and sometimes he would wave first but do I miss all that? Well I would be a liar if I said I didn't. I know some people don't like sunshine for 12 months a year but we did have seasons of a sort; very hot, hot and not so hot! And I loved it, never missed Britain at all – just the family.

When you visit LA, you might cycle along the beach and think it great but we did it nearly every week. Now all that has gone and I am back in cultured London with the cultured theatre – the last show I saw was Barry Humphries as Dame Edna Everage; now what could be more cultured than that – he/she is a phenomenon – a legend – but what I really miss about Hollywood are the award ceremonies.

Yesterday it was The Golden Globes; now The Golden Globes are nothing really, they are nominated and chosen by such a small group of journalists that they can't mean much. These journalists are the Hollywood Foreign Press; journalists from newspapers and other journals from the rest of the world. The reason it is well attended by movies stars and the like is that it is a huge fantastic party; what they would call over here a big piss up. And even though they don't mean that much I miss them and when the academy awards are announced this week I will miss those too.

I will miss the arguments and discussions with people who don't agree with me and I will know that they don't mean anything either; just fun.

There is no way you can say what the best film is or the best actor or actress (actrice); the difference between the two ceremonies is that the Academy nominations will be more realistic.

So I miss all that; the crowds of people in Rock 'n' Roll Ralphs (the supermarket) buying pizza and beer for their parties on award days, the endless TV shows – the pre award show, the post award show, the after party, the Mayor's party, the Governor's Ball, the Elton John party and all the glamour – watching all the glitz and the jewellery from the comfort of our modest apartment and throwing cushions at the TV screen when Day-Lewis gets it again!!!!

But we are back here and things are swinging along with me and my sandwich.

I love the joke the director told at the ceremony yesterday – the director of Gravity said he thanks Sandra Bullock who didn't walk (float?) off the set when he offered to give her herpes; the poor fella is from Mexico and his accent made it sound like that when he was really offering her an ear piece.

Here are some photos – I wonder what the poor people are doing?

Michael Holmes

The killer wields a knife near the canal in Venice in Nic Roeg's Don't Look Now.

A lot of the great capital cities in the world have a river running through them; I hasten to add that one of my favourite cities, Los Angeles – yes I know it's fashionable to hate it and it's not a capital – has The Los Angeles River which is usually dry. Well you know that from the scenes in Grease where Travolta and a few of his mates raced their hot rods.

In real life, of course, kids play down there in the dry but when a storm comes, and when it rains it really rains in LA, some of those kids end up under six feet of water and are swept away. I've lost count of the number of live rescues I've seen on TV.

Of the capital cities, I think firstly, of course, of Dublin where The River Liffey runs between the north and the south side; it's the same in London with the River Thames separating the north from the south but because they named New York twice (as in the words of the song) they have two rivers: The East River and The Hudson River – Paris has the River Seine, Rome The Tiber and so on.

A lot of those cities are proud of their rivers especially the Dubs who swear that the Guinness is made from Liffey Water.

A friend of mine recently sent a link to a video about Birmingham; it's on You Tube and it's called More Canals than Venice. First of all when I lived in Birmingham I never went near the canal; I'll explain later but it has always amazed me that a lot of Brummies carry this information; that Birmingham has more canals than Venice and the other thing they usually follow up with is that Venice smells.

There is nothing wrong with Birmingham, it's a fine place with a good football team (Aston Villa) but why the perpetual comparison to Venice. Venice is one of the most beautiful cities in the world.

It is one of the most visited cities because of its architecture and large collection of renaissance art and to cap it all one of my favourite films was shot there – Don't Look Now (above) by Nicholas Roeg.

So I am going to stop there, hoping I haven't offended the good people of Birmingham, with the comparisons because the people of Venice don't care how much canal water is in Birmingham and, even though the beautiful city only has a wooden base, I bet the people of Venice wished there were no canals there at all.

When I was a boy, I had a friend called Michael Holmes; we went to Clifton Road School in Balsall Heath, which is a neighbourhood in Birmingham. We were in the same class when we both went up a year and into Mr Hennessey's class. I know his first name it was Fred; he was 5'3” tall, a Yorkshire man and a Communist; so there we have straight away three things against him!!! Sorry Yorkshire folk, my little joke.

How would I know him to be a communist? Well I didn't; it only comes clear to me now. I think I have written about him before on here so forgive me if you remember.

The first thing he showed us eight year old kids on the first day was his cane; it was a short cane with a knob on one end; he said “don't worry I won't be hitting you with the knob end; that's for me to hold.”

Then he swished it.

You could feel the sting of it as the little fella swung it through the air; he was in his element; he was in charge of some people smaller than he was – although there was one girl, Lavinia Smith who was taller and she pushed him one day and he nearly fell over.

“If I give you the stick” he said “there's no good complaining to your moms and dads and trying to take me to court – it won't work; it's been tried before. The courts always come down on the side of the school master.”

He did give the cane on occasions to my fellow eight year olds and it was not pleasant to watch. Some of the kids, even at 8, just sneered at him after the smack. A shock would come over the whole class room followed by silence; the little man had won again!!

One day in the art class he told us to draw a picture; I did and it was of a house – two windows downstairs and two windows up; you know the one – with a door in the middle.

Walking up the path I drew the postman. He had just delivered letters to the house and he had a broad smile on his face.

Hennessey hovered close by then picked up my picture and took it out front; I thought it was because it was good - but no!

“Put your brushes down” he said “look at this!”

He held up my painting for all to see.

“Look at this” he said pointing at the mail bag of my postman “ US Mail!”

I had no idea what he was talking about.

“US Mail!!! This is not America, young man – it should say Royal Mail – or the GPO – but not US Mail. We're not Americans, you know, and we never will be – you'll see!! You'll see when the Russians come, you'll see then; then we'll see about the US Mail.” And he really articulated the US Mail and because of his Yorkshire accent it sound like a US Meal!!

Then he tore up my painting, took it over to the waste paper basket, which was right by his stick, screwed it up and dumped it.

I looked at that stick and so did he,

I was eight years old and he was 5'3”.

Sorry about my little couplet; I couldn't resist.

He didn't hit me. I played in the playground with Michael but can you imagine why I might think now that he was a communist?

He was wrong though wasn't he; the Americans did take over with their butchery of the English language, their Starbucks, Amazon, Google and McDonalds but we love them don't we?

Hennessy died young – maybe of bitterness – who knows; but that was later.

Michael came to my house to play on occasions; we lived on the Moseley Road in a little lane or alley called South View Terrance – you remember me telling you this – and on the first day he came, my mother asked him in. It was only a tiny place but I remember him pausing as he crossed over the threshold - “come in son” my mother said.

He saw that in the minuscule kitchen, my mother had fitted a Hoover Washing Machine and on the floor in the sitting room we had carpets; he looked very closely at these and there was something about Michael's reaction which told me he didn't have these things where he lived. I never got to find out exactly where that was so I never pushed it.

He had come straight from school in the days before I became a latch key kid; my mother gave us refreshments, we played for a bit and off he went.

One day we had a new girl come to our class called Ann; Hennessey looked at the class and said “we have a new girl who has just started” - as if we hadn't noticed. He said “Ann – if you want to go to the lavatory just go.”

With that Michael jumped up out of his seat and disappeared through the door; Hennessey shouted after him “where do you think you're going?”

He thought Hennessey had said 'and if you want to go to the lavatory . . .” and ran out; it made me laugh as I thought he said 'and' too.

A week or two later Michael didn't come to school; nobody missed him, I don't suppose they'd have missed me if I hadn't come in - “gone back to Ireland” they would say.

We were always going to Ireland at that age.

Then one day, one of the kids in the playground said “Do you know why Michael Holmes hasn't been to school? He fell in the canal and drowned.”

And it was true – he died a week after his mother and that's all I ever knew.

So when I hear about the canal in Birmingham, I think about Michael and I sometimes wonder what he would have been like; how he would have grown. He was the very first friend I had who died. I told my parents and they remembered him - “poor little fella” my mother said.

I was in Birmingham two years ago at a reunion; I couldn't find the way to the venue so parked at a place called The Mail Box and caught a cab. On the way back, a doorman called a cab for me and asked me where I was going; when I told him he said “That's ten minutes walk along the canal”

I looked in the direction of where I would go and it was pitch black; not for me, I thought and caught the cab.

Maybe I would have seen the spirit of Michael rising from the evening darkness; the little boy in scruffy short trousers who jumped at the chance of going to the lavatory just to get an extra five minutes out of class.

Great Movies - what happened??

Robert de Niro in Taxi Driver

I remember in 1978, I was in Scotland filming a Shakespeare for the BBC; we were in Glamis Castle which is mentioned in the play Macbeth, and, to use a phrase, I was the only person in the cast that I'd never heard of.

The cast was peppered with famous actors from the RSC (Royal Shakespeare Company), who were mostly very nice to me apart from one or two who thought they were God's gift to the theatre and to acting – in fact if you look up the play on YouTube - As You Like It (1978) Helen Mirren - you should see me sword fighting in the first few shots which is followed by a piece of very bad acting and sweating.

By the way 'As You Like It' is known to some people in the profession, namely casting directors, as 'as you' – it saves them saying the 'like it' part!! I kid you not!!

One of the members in the cast was David Prowse who had, fairly recently, played Darth Vader in the movie Star Wars; this didn't mean much to us as most of us hadn't seen the film but one day, a load of kids found out we were filming and came up for autographs.

The RSC actors sharpened their pencils, so to speak, but the kids wanted David. They knew what he looked like beneath the mask as he was well known in Britain as the Green Cross Code man which he had played in a series of road safety films on TV; he was surrounded and the rest of us kicked our heels.

We got on quite well – me and David, well Dave, you know how it is - in fact I gave him a lift in my car one day and, whilst I can't remember where we went or came from, I recall the car leaning over sideways when he got in, as he was, and is, a huge man.

What we were witnessing, and we didn't realise it at the time, was a new world order in movie making, pop music and general technology.

If you get the chance to look at the original Star Wars you will see that a lot of the technology in that movie was old hat by the time the second movie came out and because of the technology Star Wars and the like were discovering and using, the great movies of the early seventies – The Godfather (I & II), Taxi Driver and dozens of others - were on the way out only to be replaced by children's films.

Now you might not think they are children's films but what else would you call super hero movies? Films adapted from comic strips? Graphic novels?

There are those that have asked what happened to the movie business, what happened to the business after those great movies of the 70s – there's only Woody Allen still going in the same way, I mean look at these films:

  1. The Godfather - (1972, Francis Ford Coppola) (Marlon Brando, Al Pacino)
  2. The Godfather part II - (1974, Francis Ford Coppola) (Al Pacino, Robert DeNiro)
  3. One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest - (1975, Milos Forman) (Jack Nicholson, Louise Fletcher)
  4. Apocalypse Now - (1979, Francis Ford Coppola) (Martin Sheen, Robert Duvall)
  5. Chinatown - (1974, Roman Polanski) (Jack Nicholson, John Huston)
  6. A Clockwork Orange - (1971, Stanley Kubrick) (Malcolm McDowell, Patrick MaGee)
  7. Star Wars - (1977, George Lucas) (Mark Hamill, Harrison Ford)
  8. Jaws - (1975, Steven Spielberg) (Roy Scheider, Richard Dreyfuss)
  9. Taxi Driver - (1976, Martin Scorsese) (Robert DeNiro, Jodie Foster)
10. The Deer Hunter - (1978, Michael Cimino) (Robert DeNiro, Christopher Walken)
11. Annie Hall - (1977, Woody Allen) (Woody Allen, Diane Keaton)
12. Network - (1976, Sydney Lumet) (Peter Finch, William Holden)
13. Rocky - (1976, John G. Avildsen) (Sylvester Stallone, Carl Weathers)
14. Patton - (1970, Franklin J. Schaffner) (George C. Scott, Karl Malden)
15. Close Encounters of the Third Kind - (1977, Steven Spielberg) (Richard Dreyfuss, Teri Garr)
16. M*A*S*H - (1970, Robert Altman) (Elliot Gould, Donald Sutherland)
17. The Exorcist - (1973, William Friedkin) (Ellen Burstyn, Linda Blair)
18. American Graffiti - (1973, George Lucas) (Ron Howard, Richard Dreyfuss)
19. The French Connection - (1971, William Friedkin) (Gene Hackman, Roy Scheider)
20. Mean Streets - (1973, Martin Scorsese) (Harvey Keitel, Robert DeNiro)

There will be some people – and I have no idea who they might be – who will not like any of the above  but I'll bet your favourite is amongst them – I think I love them all apart from you know what.

But the 70s wasn't the only decade of great movies; look at the 60s:

 1. Lawrence of Arabia - (1962, David Lean) (Peter O'Toole, Alec Guinness)
  2. Psycho - (1960, Alfred Hitchcock) (Anthony Perkins, Janet Leigh)
  3. Dr. Strangelove... - (1964, Stanley Kubrick) (Peter Sellers, George C. Scott)
  4. 8 1/2 - (1963, Federico Fellini) (Marcello Mastroianni, Claudia Cardinale)
  5. 2001: A Space Odyssey - (1968, Stanley Kubrick) (Keir Dullea, Gary Lockwood)
  6. Once Upon a Time in the West - (1968, Sergio Leone) (Henry Fonda, Charles Bronson)
  7. To Kill a Mockingbird - (1962, Robert Mulligan) (Gregory Peck, Mary Badham)
  8. Midnight Cowboy - (1969, John Schlesinger) (Dustin Hoffman, Jon Voight)
  9. Bonnie and Clyde - (1967, Arthur Penn) (Warren Beatty, Faye Dunaway)
10. La Dolce Vita - (1960, Federico Fellini) (Marcello Mastroianni, Anouk Aimee)

Only ten there but that's because I didn't want to fill the page with charts – I love all those movies and nearly in that order so what happened?

I have nothing against Star Wars but it's a kids' film – the same as Dr Who; it's for children; I have yet to see an episode but again, I have nothing against it.

But look at them – look at those movies; the film business will never be the same again it out technologised itself (I know – no such word).

I know they tried to make Batman weird or more grown up but watching it you have to buy in to the fact that the hero walks around in a bat suit – come on!!!!!

I know it's technology gone mad but when other innovations were invented they died down a bit after they'd got use to it.

When talkies started every movie seemed to be a musical; coloured movies gave a kaleidoscope of colour as happened on TV later and the zoom lens left a lot to be desired in some of those great 70s films above but they got used to it and this time it doesn't appear to be ironing itself out.

Will we ever see the likes of Lawrence of Arabia again? I doubt it.

One of the biggest flops in 2013 was The Lone Ranger starring Johnny Depp; it was a huge budget but back in the 40s and 50s directors like Raoul Walsh used to knock out cowboy movies like that in a matter of weeks.

The Lone Ranger series on TV was made for the price of the parking fees on the new one so what is going wrong? Why would The Lone Ranger cost so much money – maybe because they like to use a Lone Arranger these days?

The same happened to pop music with the invention of the boring over technologised stadium super groups . . . but that's another story!

Happy New Year!!

Good Night.

For a little while – well quite some time to be honest – when I first went to America I had never actually been in to anybody's house. Never crossed the portal which separated their public and private lives. I had seen inside their houses many times through the magical world of the movies but that was fiction.

Sometimes I would sit and look at a family sitting at an airport or restaurant and try to listen in to their conversations to see if they would somehow drop the American accents and call each other mate. When the great Australian writer (and broadcaster) Clive James first came to Britain he would think the same about the English accents but he was listening to received pronunciation (RP) like Stephen Fry or John Cleese and I was expecting the more common type like Liverpool, London or even oo ah rural. But that wasn't the only thing I listened for; I couldn't believe that they actually said 'have a nice day' or 'have a good one' or even called each other honey or hun!

I would look at their clothes at the airports and wonder if the men were dressed for golf or travel as their clothing seemed strange; all the naff things from Britain seemed to be acceptable in America: baseball hats and white socks, for example.

I used to love the 1950s movies where white socks were worn – Martin and Lewis films; Superman, White Christmas etc. I longed for those fashions when I went to America and in Los Angeles I found them. I loved the 1950s look of LA, the Superman buildings downtown, the 1950s architecture and the fantastic winged motor cars on their never ending freeways but do you know what I never heard? The phrase 'good night.'

Straight away I'm going to be called a romancer or someone having problems with the truth as I did hear it from time to time, but when I stayed at various people's houses I didn't hear it at all.

I was listening to David Sedaris on the radio last night, who was talking about his family and it reminded me of this phenomenon; he said 'my family never said good night; they just disappeared.'

That's what I mean; David Sedaris lives this side of the Atlantic now and has probably noticed that over here people have the manners to excuse themselves when leaving a room and if they're not coming back it would be 'good night' or 'goodbye.'

When I stayed with people over there, or even lived with them when I first got there, I would notice that when it was bed time, they would just disappear; never a good night, kiss my arse or nothing.

One time I was watching TV with the landlady, when I first arrived and I went to the loo. I was out of the room less than three minutes and not only did she not say good night, she turned the TV off and left the room in darkness; not thinking that I might want to finish watching the programme or even moving my stuff from the chair I had been sitting on.

Sometimes she would disappear for weeks – never saying where she was going or even when she would be back; not that it was my business but you know what I mean.

That was when I first went to America; for the first eighteen months I was by myself; living in a shared house at first and then in an apartment by myself. I had gone from evenings of my children kissing me good night to me having to kiss my own arse for company and in this season of good cheer let me be one of the many people to wish you good night and if I'm the only one, you'll have to do what I did – kiss your own arse goodnight.

Which reminds me of a few lyrical lines from the days when everybody expected to be blown up by a nuclear bomb:

So when the nukes come raining down
It's great to be alive, well
World War Three can be such fun
If you protect and survive
Protect and survive

For they give us a four-minute warning
When the rockets are on their way
To give us time to panic and Christians time to pray
So when you hear the siren's going
Place your head between your thighs
Whilst maintaining this posture
You can make a final gesture
And with a little muscular pressure
You can kiss your arse goodbye

Happy Christmas.

Peter O'Toole.

 Peter O'Toole.

I had to put this up today; this is not becoming an obituary blog, I didn't mention Nelson Mandella, even though he was probably the greatest man that ever lived, but I am repeating this little piece I wrote about 4 years ago:

I hadn’t played cricket for years when I suddenly got a call from a friend; he was coming up to Northamptonshire to play and there might be a game for me if I turned up: “Oh by the way” he said - Peter O'Toole is playing.

The call came on a Sunday morning and the game was to be that afternoon; I searched around for some kit and found my old cricket boots, a white shirt and my cricket sweater; no white trousers, I’m afraid, but I didn’t want to look too keen in any case; that wouldn’t be cricket.

The things people like about playing cricket are batting and bowling and when you get a game with a new team those are the two things they never let you do; you have to field and go in at about number nine or ten; and as for bowling? Forget it!

Looking back on that now it amazes me the way we stood for it; when people ask if you will help them out and make up a team you should say “yes! If I can bat or bowl.” But again – that wouldn’t be cricket.

I had promised my son that when the famous England international cricketer, Ian Botham, came to Northampton to play the local team I would take him; I asked him if he wanted to come and see Peter O’Toole but it was met with a negative response – who is Peter O’Toole?

The field, where the match was due to be played, was in another village but was easy enough for me to find as I was very familiar with most of the sleepy picturesque villages of Northamptonshire.

A few of the players were already there when I arrived and it was good to see my friend Nick; we first met when we appeared together in a national tour of a Mike Harding play “Fur Coat and No Knickers” but I hadn’t seen him for about a year.

My cricket boots and sweater were in the car when we greeted each other and I asked him how he got involved with Peter O’Toole: - It's his nephew’s team; he said he plays quite often.

About ten minutes or so later Peter O’Toole arrived; he didn’t just turn up in a car with others or sneak in, he arrived in the truest sense of the word; he arrived; he was with his nephew in an open top sports car; even before he got out of the car he dripped with charisma, eccentricity and just basic star quality; there was no mistaking that this was Lawrence of Arabia.

He didn’t look too healthy; a bit thinner than I had imagined and very pale; but it was Peter O’Toole all right; he smiled as he emerged from the car and headed towards the dressing rooms.

As he greeted everybody it became obvious that this was no mere mortal; this was the bon vivant on his day out, smoking a cigarette through a long holder and not sparing anyone in his wake that charming and attractive smile.

I was glad I had left my cricket gear in the car as both teams were in full attendance and all members were fully dressed in their whites; I would have stood out like a sore thumb in my jeans in any case.

I managed to get a bit of a “field” in the warm up though; the part where everybody throws the ball as hard as they can at each other to see how brave or foolish they can be. Peter O’Toole seemed to be catching the ball okay which surprised me as I didn’t even know he played cricket.
While we were having the warm up a few cars arrived and out of the cars came a few strange looking people of all shapes and sizes; yes the press and local radio reporters.

When they spotted Peter O’Toole the cameras and the shutters started buzzing and snapping; this was in the nineteen eighties when the paparazzi didn’t quite have the reputation they have today so nobody was that alarmed.

The time came for the toss: Peter O’Toole’s team would bat first and Peter and his nephew would open the batting. The opposing team took the field and went into the ritual of trying to knock each other’s heads off with the cricket ball; the umpires, who in that class of cricket came from the lower order batsman of the batting side, took to the field and we were ready to go.
When Peter O’Toole and his nephew emerged from the dressing room there were two other batsmen with them each carrying a bat and each walking towards the middle with the nephew and his Uncle Peter; it seemed that both Peter and his nephew had leg injuries and needed runners.

It was a strange sight seeing the four of them heading towards the middle followed by about three or four press photographers; they surrounded him snap snapping and flash flashing as he took his guard and when he was ready he looked at them; he didn’t say anything, he didn’t have to; they got the message and sloped off to the sidelines.

The opposing bowler had marked out his run and was making adjustments to the field as everybody waited for the first ball; Peter O’Toole looked valiant as he waited for it, his runner was standing out at square leg and his nephew’s runner was standing next to the umpire at the far end with the nephew, himself, standing as far out as his uncle’s runner. At one point it looked like more batsmen were out there than fielders; everything was ready to go.

The press kept quiet and we all looked to the field as the bowler came bounding in; when he reached his maximum speed, which coincided with his arrival at the wicket, he let the ball go at the top of his arch and the ball seemed to bounce at lightening speed half way down the pitch; Peter saw it coming and played it defensively on the back foot and it travelled towards a close fielder: “stay” “no” “stay” “wait” could be heard and then everybody laughed.

If they kept that up through the game it would be like the Reginald Perrin yuppies “super” “great.”
The batsmen and runners got together; they had to make up their minds as to who was going to do the calling when a run was possible; they huddled conspiratorially together then they laughed again and went back towards their places; suddenly they stopped and got together again with a kind of “don”t forget the…..’ then they were in a huddle again till they laughed and parted to take their positions.

Peter O’Toole played a straight bat throughout; he was exceedingly accomplished and hit a few cracking shots against bowlers who were trying really hard to get him out; I particularly remember a few off drives and a couple of boundaries.

Each time he did this the bowlers tried even harder to get him out and the few onlookers cheered and jeered.

Eventually it had to happen; he was out. I’m not sure how many runs he scored but it was a good knock and he got a tremendous round of applause as he walked off with his runner trailing behind.

The press pathetically took his photograph as he reached the edge of the field and he very obligingly smiled and acknowledged the applause by raising his bat as he headed for the dressing room.

A girl radio reporter, with tape recorder on her shoulder followed him in.

I was sitting just outside and I’m not sure what Peter O’Toole said to her – it sounded like geee yaa ferr yah here! Whatever it was the girl radio reporter came out of the dressing room like a greyhound from the trap.

After a while the great man emerged; carrying the cigarette and holder, and wearing a small towel around his neck; he came and sat next to me and as his limbs hit the bench I could feel the heat from his body permeating the air.

The girl radio reporter came and stood in front of us blocking our view of the game “Darling! Do you mind?” he said.

He was very nice and she moved away. I was very envious that I wasn’t playing and sorry that I hadn’t played for years as the smell of the willow and surgical spirit mixed with the cool Northamptonshire air, the general camaraderie of the players around me and the general atmosphere of the day, made me want to seek out a team that was looking for a has been.

The conversation for the next hour consisted of “well played” “that was never out” “how many do we have now” to “oh well; it”s our turn now.’

And there they were; going on to the field to try and bowl the other team out.

Peter O’Toole was the wicket keeper and played a good game in the field too. There didn’t seem to be any sign of a leg injury; but why would there be? This was the man that took Aqaba by land and the opposing cricket team would be easy meat for such a legend and the team did indeed collapse giving the Peter O’Toole XI the game.

He came back to the dressing room and when it was time to go, he warmly shook my hand; as he did this he seemed to look me up and down as if he was the major and I was the trooper under inspection.

Then off he went to China to work in The Last Emperor; he didn’t see his photographs on the front page of the Northampton Chronicle and Echo the next day; the photos made him look about twenty years younger and twenty pounds heavier.

The day coincided with Ian Botham’s visit to play Northamptonshire County Cricket team in their annual game at Wellingborough School; in this game Botham hit a record number of sixes which was on the television news that night but there wasn’t one photograph in the Northampton newspapers to record this great feat; the photographers were all taking shots of Peter O’Toole.

Horace.

Here's a little tale – it came to me; some of it's true but it's laced with a bit of imagination: it's a character I have been playing with – see if you like it; I must have written it about ten years ago and never progressed.

Horace Melia had one fifth of his sight in his right eye and his left eye had no sight at all; he needed a hearing aid as his hearing was bad too. If he watched television he would have to sit next fo the set and watch from a distance of two or three inches, just to the side so as not to block his wife’s view; the sound on the television had to be on maximum volume and his neighbours learned to know his favourite programmes. They didn’t like to complain as they knew he had no choice. He also listened to the radio at full blast and had been an avid fan of ‘The Archers’ since they started in the nineteen fifties.

His neighbours bought a walkman radio for him so that he could listen on head phones but his wife complained that she wanted to listen to it with 'her Lol,' as she called him; in any case he couldn’t hear properly on the head phones as he said when he put them on he couldn’t get them close enough to his ears; one of the neighbours tried to get a walkman radio with an attachment that would plug straight into his hearing aid but Horace couldn’t work it out.

The hearing aid Horace used was the old fashioned kind which had a device with wires which went to his ears.

The young children loved Mister Melia, as they called him, because he was a very good conjurer; once in a while, if any one visited him with children, Ada Melia, his wife of fifty three years, would ask her Lol to do a few tricks.

He had one trick which involved a handkerchief and a match: he would take a match, wrap his dirty handkerchief around it, break the match and when he opened the handkerchief again, lo and behold the match was still in one piece. His handkerchief was usually dirty because he would shine the brass door knocker every time he went in and came out of his front door even though he could hardly see it.

Another thing he used to do was throw a coin into the air and find it behind a child’s ear. It was easier when pennies were in circulation but with decimalization in nineteen seventy one Horace had to practice his tricks with smaller coins and eventually the pound piece; Horace would always give the coin to the child at the end of the trick so decimalization made his tricks more expensive.

He would rise very early and clean out the fire place; then he would put the ashes in a special metal bin and go back in to the house and light the fire. He did this the old fashioned way with loads of newspaper, a few fire lighters, bits of wood and coal. Sometimes when the fire was burning in the grate he would throw on a few chopped logs.

Ada had the habit of sitting too close to the fire and, consequently, her legs were permanently red.

As the pipes, which came from the water boiler at the back of the fireplace, spread their heat through the walls to the bathroom upstairs and the kitchen downstairs the house got hotter; so from about eight thirty onwards the fire would blaze in the fireplace and warm the whole home.

This is when Ada would wake up.

Every one in the village knew when Ada woke up: they would hear her call to Horace:

“Lol!”

No answer – don’t forget Horace was deaf.

A little louder:

“Lol!”

That one had two syllables – Lo – ol.

Still no answer – he’s still deaf.

Now again but a little louder:

“Horace!”

Then almost at once:
”Horace.”

Horace would be sitting at the table with a magnifying glass trying to read the newspaper.

“Horace! Horace!”

Then she would lean out of bed, pick up Horace’s spare white stick and bang the floor – bang bang bang bang!

Horace would hear this; it happened every day so he would be expecting it; then he would go to the foot of the stairs and call up:

“Yes, my love.”

“I’ll have a nice cup of tea,” she would say “two slices of toast and marmalade . .”

And then she would roar:

“And don’t burn the bloody toast!”

Everybody in the cul-de-sac heard this; they heard it every day. The cul-de-sac consisted of ten houses and apart from the ends of the blocks they were joined together.

Horace and Ada had lived in the house since it was built in nineteen fifty and they had lived alone for twenty five years since their only son, Ralph, had moved to San Francisco upon his marriage to Jill, an American girl he had met on his first holiday abroad. Not only was the trip to Spain Ralph’s first holiday abroad, it was the first time any one in the cul-de-sac had ever travelled out of the country; but he never came back.

Ronald Hunter; RIP

Ronald Hunter: 1943 - 2013

I took that photograph of my friend, Ronald Hunter, a few years ago; I called it Ronnie Christ and when he came to our apartment to celebrate his birthday one year, with a few friends, after dinner I presented him with the framed photo. I don't know if he ever put it on his wall but it brought a tear to his eye.

He died yesterday, in Los Angeles, after being ill for some time; he fell asleep, as I was told, the way he wanted go. The main thing is he wasn't in pain and didn't suffer.

I met Ronnie Boy, as I called him, in 1997 when we were both in a play at Santa Monica Playhouse, California, and we both won an award – so we were 'award winning actors' – we kind of clicked and swapped stories in a sports bar on Wilshire Boulevard after each show.

Since then he has always been a true friend and if we didn't see him for a few days he would call each day just to see how we were. He would take me out to dinner on my birthday; I had stopped celebrating it years ago and he would take my wife out on hers too; since we moved back to London we would always speak on those days.

Ron was a really good actor; he came to Los Angeles to do a series with Louis Gosset Jr called The Lazarus Syndrome, he liked the weather so he stayed. He also worked with Al Pacino on a few occasions on Broadway, notably in Richard III.

A few years ago he was very ill, and we thought we had lost him then, but he recovered and gave a brilliant nuanced performance in a play called The Unexpected Man in Los Angeles barely six months after being at death's door.

But it was as a human being he will be most missed. He was a friend who wouldn't let you down and I will miss him – may he rest in peace.