A CHANGE OF CLIMATE.

The title of this piece is the title of the novel by Hilary Mantel; a very clever novelist who writes historical fiction; I write hysterical fiction but not on purpose.

Hilary Mantel gave The Reith Lectures this year which are currently being broadcast. The Reith Lectures are commissioned by the BBC and are broadcast on Radio 4 – the serious radio station which the BBC broadcast, as they are a broadcasting company even though the 'C' doesn't stand for company in this case but corporation. Originally it did stand for the former, when it was formed or created in the early twentieth century, but not so early in that century as you might imagine. In other words 'I ain't looking it up today.'

When I first became an actor, which happened to me one day as I was walking along a back street in Birmingham I saw a television star, aha I said to myself; an actor! I am an actor too. In those days I probably said acter; the 'or' came later when I'd been introduced to John Gielgud – not personally, you understand, as I'd never heard of him before that point. In fact I might have been one of those smart arsed herberts who would, on being told that man was an actor, go up to him just to tell him I'd never heard of him. A lot of people think that's very clever as people have said it to me and at the time I wished them no malice but would wonder why I was getting such a comment; but I jest: I would never have gone up to anybody and showed them my ignorance and neither would I now. When I was told that there was a great actOr called John Geilgud, I would pretend I knew who he was and then . . . . I would have to scurry off and find things about the great man – with no google in those days.

Anyway the point of all that was that when I joined Equity they gave me the rule book (they did in those days – doze daze) and when it came to the BBC they referred to it as the mighty corporation as even though they paid and obeyed all the union rules they would never recognise us.

Back to Hilary Mantel who wrote other books: apart from the title of this piece, namely Wolf Hall and Bring up the Bodies; I have to add too that she also wrote The Assassination of Margaret Thatcher.

I haven't listened to every lecture, which are usually given each year by prominent people who know what they're talking about; Kwame Anthony Appiah gave them in 2016 and the year before it was Professor Stephen Hawking. 

So you see they are no slouches.

When asked a question from the audience about Brexit, Hilary Mantel said “There has been a gigantic failure on the part of the voting public in Britain to know their history, to examine the evidence that was put before them, and a giant failure of imagination. I think the whole thing is shameful, regrettable and I think time will prove how destructive it may be. All nations have a fantasy of a golden age, but I would say ours was to come. I'm not so sure, now.”

Now that says something about the subject doesn't it; precise and to the point.

People have different opinions about Brexit apart from discussing how it's pronounced – this is Britain what else would they talk about? Bregsit or Brexit – the fact is most people use the former but because it is Britain someone will get in touch and say it's the latter.

I don't fall out with people because they have a different opinion from me it is up to them what they think and the truth of the matter is we will not really know for a long time whether Brexit is a good or a bad thing for Britain.

Someone said to me on the bus today 'the whole country is going down the drain.'

I said 'going?'

The fact is most towns or villages had a post office. They were more or less the same kind of buildings; you could see the post office when you went to a strange town – a strange town to you, that is, not some strange place – so you could at least find it. In the last few years those post offices have been closed and moved to some other store like the rear of W.H. Smiths and . .. well W.H. Smiths. A newspaper shop/stand come stationers – now post office. 

There they are at the back of their stores with the post office staff agreeing with every customer who says it was better back in the day when the post office had proper post offices. If they ever tried to close the post office in Dublin – the GPO – there would be trouble!

But it doesn't matter where you look there is always some kind of change going on. At the moment there is a movement to close down pharmacies – they're called chemists here. Now why would they want to do that and how could they?

This country has a welfare state; all medical facilities are free at source and managed by the NHS; The National Health Service. All the people rescued from the fire two weeks ago will be cared for nursed and operated on free of charge in the hospitals. Any cost will be met by the government. Medicine including prescriptions are "nominally" charged for and lots of the times they are free. The pharmacies process the prescriptions and even deliver to the patients if needs be; there is a move to limit the number of pharmacies in each neighbourhood.

What does this mean?

The NHS rely on these pharmacies; without them the NHS wouldn't work. Without the NHS the pharmacies would go out of business. There are a few pharmacies in Pinner, were I live, and if they close all except one which one would it be which will remain open and make a lot of money? 

One chemist means there will be lines going around the block to pick up prescriptions; half the time the medication will not be in stock it will be at another branch so will be delivered the next day. The chemist will be Boots Chemist - doncha wish you have bought stocks in Boots and W.H. Smiths when you had the chance; still not too late.

There is no way the government will actually close the pharmacies, they will just cross them off the list of pharmacies licensed to fill NHS prescriptions – easy.

Just reminds me, somehow, of the Taliban bombing all those ancient statues of the Buddha about 25 years ago in Afghanistan.

Going down the drain – I should cocoa.

THIS SHOULD BE WRITTEN IN STONE

There has been a gigantic failure on the part of the voting public in Britain to know their history, to examine the evidence that was put before them, and a giant failure of imagination. I think the whole thing is shameful, regrettable and I think time will prove how destructive it may be. All nations have a fantasy of a golden age, but I would say ours was to come. I'm not so sure, now. (Hilary Mantel 2017).

A London Tragedy.

Today is June 16^th which is Bloomsday; the day James Joyce set his novel Ulysses in 1904 as that is the first day he set out with the love of his life; Nora Barnacle. I usually write something about it but this post will only be set on June 14^th and 15^th of this year.

London is one of the greatest cities in the world; you may have another opinion but I love it; I always have. I have grown to like Los Angeles better, with New York and Dublin in my top few too. But London has been hurting these last few months.

The other place that was hurting, in Britain, is Manchester. I am sure one of my relations might have been in that theatre of young kids when a piece of snot, that had been wiped on a wall of a human being, blew himself up and killed many people which included lots of kids. The pity about life is the relations I have in Manchester have gone their separate ways with most of them extending the Irish diaspora and strayed to other parts of the world. I know some are in New York but many still live in Manchester.

In London here were two terrorists murderers on the loose in March and a couple of months ago then this week a fire burnt down a Tower Block in west London.

There it is above Grenfell Tower; that photo was taken sometime during the first few hours of June 14^th – there have been many speculations by all the experts under the sun, telling all and sundry how it happened but you don't need to be an expert to know that if you wrap a building in a cladding that is not fire proof it will catch fire and spread to the rest of the building as opposed to remaining local on concrete.

Last night I buttered some toast, ready to put on some lemon curd and send it down the hatch with a hot drink and as I felt into the drawer for the fish knife, which I use as a butter knife, I thought of some individual who, 2 nights before, would be preparing a little snack for themselves, putting their utensil away and settling down to watch TV. 

That TV and everything else around them is no more. Gone up in an inferno and the person would be lucky to survive. They would be left with nothing – not even a change of underwear or maybe not even any footwear.

People look at them on their television sets and feel sympathy for them and their plight. See them desperately trying to tell the TV reporters what happened, trying to make a case and asking questions; questions questions questions and if they got any answers they would step back and realise there is nowhere to go. All their keepsakes and memorabilia gone; their books, magazines and treasures; all gone.

The big thing that was realised after 9/11 is that paper survived: pieces of paper blew over the streets of Manhattan for many months after the planes hit the World Trades Centre Building and sure enough, the other morning, pieces of paper with a child's page of homework was drifting around the streets of North Kensington. Of course it was on the news all day as the fire was not put out; even now the building is not considered safe.

I thought what it must be like so I threw some clothes in to my case and went down there – nothing much: a few pairs of jeans, shorts and some shirts.

The first thing I saw when I got off the tube train at Latimer Road is what you see at the foot of the page. One of the people being interviewed on TV said “people should not have to live like pigeons.”

Just look at it – at least pigeons can fly.

When I came out of Latimer Road tube station I was directed by a policewoman to the end of a street to donate what I had brought. On the way up the street I saw hundreds and hundreds of people, all volunteers; loading vans directing people with donations to various places.

Food was brought; really good food I heard. Not only the survivors but the volunteers needed to eat.

There were lots of toys, buggies and push chairs; cosmetics and sanitary stuffs, all were needed. Just think what you are doing now – whatever you are using, the survivors have lost. If they have a pen in their hand it will be something that was donated.

I went in to a club, which normally would be serving alcohol, and the floor was covered with donations. Then in to a yard at the back and loads of boxes were marked with shirts, men's hoodies, shirts etc. I found some boxes for what I had brought.

Going back outside I was reminded of 9/11; there was a plain wall where people had written messages in desperation in case someone had seen their loved ones. There were bunches of flowers at the bottom of the wall. 

I saw all this on TV when 9/11 happened and there it was in front of my eyes.

Grenfell Tower is in a very eclectic neighbourhood of London; maybe even Bohemiam rather like some areas of New York, San Francisco and LA, and consequently breeds a lot of great characters and is possibly a writer's delight and the people of the neighbourhood all came together that day; yesterday.

My visit there was emotional; people were crying and looking for lost relatives, others carried photographs and would ask if their sister or brother had been seen; maybe their parents and some were looking for their children; and all the time a buzz of activity could be heard.

It was also inspirational – but these people will want answers; will want to know why they were buttering toast one minute and the next not only homeless but helpless. Throwing their arms around their children who survived and not being able to say much without a tearful break in their voice.

You see it's okay to have sympathy but empathy is what was needed beforehand.

Here is a place where you can send some money; it will convert to your currency automatically so many thanks: https://secure.thebiggive.org.uk/donation/to/5144/27122/

Bobby Smith

I am totally and utterly fascinated by something: you may have noticed that we had an election here in Britain last week; a general election. Well actually you might not have noticed. I know that there are people here who don't know that there is an election in France today and that is only 22 miles across the English channel. I always thought about that when I would go 22 miles out in the Pacific to Catalina, a little island, where we would eat sea food and go down deep in to the bowels of a boat with a glass bottom where we would see loads and loads of fish and plants and all the Jacques Coustaeu type of scenery.

But back to the election: each candidate, including the Prime Minister, have to get elected in their own constituency. They don't have to live in that constituency, like in America, but a lot of the MPs (members of Parliament) do own or rent property where they are standing and where they can hold regular surgeries – mainly on Saturday mornings.

The Prime Minister, Theresa May, stood in Maidenhead, which seems a very apt name under circumstances, which is a very rich place.

All MPs have to win in order to take their seats in The House of Commons where there are 650 seats. The winning party has to secure half of that, 625, plus 1 to have an overall majority. An overall majority is when all the parties, added together, cannot vote the government out of office if ever it came to a vote of 'No Confidence.'

You will wonder, if you looked, why this post is called Bobby Smith. I have to say that it is a famous name in sport in that he was a great centre forward and played for Tottenham Hotspur (the spurs) amongst other clubs.

But that is not the Bobby Smith in this piece; Theresa May had many people standing against her in Maidenhead, in fact there were 12, which brought the total up to 13 and Bobby Smith, a 35 year old heavy goods driver came last. He was an independent candidate standing for family court reform whatever that is and Give me back Elmo.

There he is at the top of the page – now what had astounded me is that he only received 3 votes. Out of an electorate of about 55,000 he got just 3 votes. Theresa May received 37,718 and had about 64% of the vote.

But what happened to Bobby Smith; how many friends and family did not vote for him? Let's look, he must have voted for himself – hang on he lives in Stevenage so he won't be able to vote in Maidenhead. Didn't he have any friends there?

When I have appeared in Edinburgh at various festivals I have often wondered, when I have asked at the box office, why there was nobody booked for a certain night – well I wonder no more; Bobby Smith, even though he was standing against the highest profile candidate in the land could not attract more than 3 votes.

Jacques Coustaeu type of scenery

Catalina underwater

I enjoy doing this.

Hey: I enjoy doing this. I don't get paid much, only the income from the ads, but that doesn't amount to a hill of beans (to quote from one of my favourite movies) so I do it because, as I say, I enjoy it. I would write more often but have other things to do.

There are lots of things going on and experts coming out of the wall, meeting you in a pub or talking to you at bus stops – for those that use the bus. 

In London that's not many as at least 60% use the tube with another 20% or so using the overground which doesn't leave that many for the bus especially when about 10% drive, cycle and walk – BTW all from Time Out!

Listen to the 'so called' expert to your peril.

I have repeatedly said on this blog that I am an expert on nothing and that has never worried me but . . I know this: most bad things go away. All those bad things that you thought would never go, have gone. If you haven't forgotten them I'm sorry but living in America I thought George W Bush would never go – some people liked him – but he is all but forgotten now. He wasn't an expert at anything and, like Trump, he discovered that, even though he was the so called leader of the free world, he didn't have that much power.

A religious born again Christian going to war? Gimme a break!

There is trouble in London at the moment – last night mass stabbings and another vehicle mowing people down on London Bridge, last week people being murdered by a bomb at a Manchester pop concert – but it will all go away.

People asked me how I managed with all the guns living in Los Angeles. Like road accidents, I didn't see any – well I saw one road accident - but mostly by the time you get there they're all over and as long as we believe that we should go about our lives as normal - but be observant.

I really feel for the people who have suffered but their friends and relatives will never forget.

You have as much chance of being involved in a terrorist act as winning the lottery – but I might win the lottery.

An American Tragedy.

Here we have, above, the greatest ever (American) footballer; OJ Simpson – commonly known as the Juice – OJ = Orange Juice; geddit??

He is the real live Great American Tragedy – there was a novel called An American Tragedy by Theodore Dreiser but OJ was a real life one.

Look at him up there – a smiling handsome man with the world at his feet. If ever you watch snippets of American football and it keeps stopping then starting again and then look at OJ – he never stopped. He seemed to glide through the field as if he was slicing melted butter with a hot knife; he dodged and swayed, stopped and seemed to stumble and carried the ball for many a yard which is all written down somewhere and documented.

When I first went to live in Los Angeles in August 1994, OJ was up on a murder charge; he was charged with killing his wife, Nicole Brown-Simpson and her friend Ron Goldman – he was a waiter in a nearby restaurant and may not have been her friend at all but a waiter who had discovered that Nicole had left something at the restaurant and was merely returning it at the wrong time.

When he walked up the path to OJ and Nicole's house in Brentford, Los Angeles, all those years ago, she was in the process of being murdered with a large knife and he walked in to the situation and suffered the same fate.

The thing that I found hard to process was why there was no blood on OJ who was charged with the crime, the massacre, the orgy of a stabbing – but that was a fact. 

To this day no bundle of bloody clothes have been found.

There is a documentary series on BBC4 at the moment – 5 x 80 minute episodes and they are riveting.

OJ went on trial at the beginning of 1995 and right through to September it dominated the airwaves.

People I knew would go to the trial, there were bits on late night comedy on TV; there was a Marcia Clarke (chief prosecutor) lookalike, on The Jay Leno Show, they even had a Judge Ito and the singing Itos – it was fun for everyone, apart from the victims, and people would try to get home to listen to various aspects of the trial which was live on TV – one day a pal said I have get back to watch F. Lee Bailey, who was some kind of real life Perry Mason.

But at the end of the trial The Juice was found Not Guilty.

I was down by Grauman's Chinese Theatre, the day of the verdict, and people, mainly black people, were selling, The Juice is loose! souvenir T-Shirts. 

A year after the trial, the family of Ron Goldman took OJ to court in a Civil Case and he was found guilty of being responsible for his wife's murder – which is different.

The judge awarded the Goldman family $33 million which OJ would have to pay to them for the rest of his life; every time he got a job he would have to pay the fee to them but I don't think they received a penny.

Before the sheriffs arrives OJ had sent his belongings to various parts of the state.

To cut the story short, a few years later, OJ, who had been living the life of Riley, was informed that a lot of his memorabilia was in the room of a dealer in a Las Vegas hotel and he, and a few others, broke in to the room, one of them wielding a gun, told the inhabitant that they couldn't leave the room till they gave, what OJ reckoned, was his property.

They were put on trial and one of them made a deal for immunity and turned stool pigeon or snitch or whatever you want to call it and spilled the beans about the whole escapade.

OJ was sentenced to – now take note of the figure – a 33 year sentence; no coincidence as 33 million was the amount of dollars the Goldmans won.

Jury members, who found OJ not guilty, have since admitted that it was pay back for the way the black African Americans had been treated in America for all the years from slavery to Jim Crow to plain racial prejudice with lynchings and beatings and bullying.

A group of LA cops beat a small time crook, Rodney King, with sticks and kicks; they were filmed doing it and even though the footage is as clear as day, the cops were found not guilty. This verdict, and the death by shooting dead of a 15 year old African American started the LA riots of 1992.

So there he is above – a man who got away with murder – for it is 99% certain that he did it but he wouldn't be satisfied with that; he had to chance his arm again. Good looking, best at everything to do with sport, golf, weight lifting, godfather to the famous Kim Kardashian has ended up being the pathetic figure serving all that time in a Las Vegas gaol – and now look at him: 

Brexit.

There he is! Old Banksie! Chipping away at the flag of The European Union; no longer a union between Britain and the rest of Europe. There is his latest mural - in Dover. How does he get them there?

Oh well back to being a country of servitude.

I have a lot of friends in America, a lot of them who read this, and I am constantly being asked about Brexit so without showing too many of my colours or opinions I will try to explain.

First of all the word: a new word, certainly not a beautiful word; there are beautiful words and one of my favourite beautiful words doesn't exist – it's capiliary. I love it and if you split it up and say capil I ary you should see and feel the rhythm of it as the real word is capillary. Baldy old capillary – if it was Spanish it might stand a chance in the aesthetics of language as they would do something with the double L – or even Welsh as they do things with the double L too but you have to almost speak with a lisp to pronounce a lot of the Welsh words like Llandudno – a sideways lisp as opposed to the tongue on the hard palette one which is the less rarer of the two.

But Brexit: two words really Britain and Exit. Good job it wasn't Ireland leaving as it would sound like an eating disorder. - think about it!

Briefly the EU started off as a pact between a few of the European countries who were at war and victims of war so France, Luxembourg, Italy, Belgium, The Netherlands and West Germany formed a union. 

It had various titles, over the years, and in 1973 Great Britain joined through the then Conservative Government.

The Labour Party (Her Majesty's Opposition) were against it and when they were elected in to office, in 1974, they called for a referendum (a plebiscite) to see if the electorate wanted to stay in or not; the result was in favour of remaining and at that time the Brits called it The Common Market and to lots of people, including me, that is what it is still called.

But there were always moaners, people complaining about silly rules and which was what probably brought Britain's membership to an end.

That and immigration.

One of the things about living in Britain now, which I like, is that there is a variety of people living here from other countries. As well as people from the British Commonwealth there are people from the rest of the EU which numbers 28 countries.

So when we go out now, in the cities, we can meet a host of nationalities which, to me, is wonderful. There are beautiful women from all over the world, which I have noticed, and a lot of attractive men - which I haven't noticed that much. These inhabitants have introduced new food to the country. No longer do we have nothing to look forward to but a lamb chop with boiled potatoes and peas in the evenings, or some other kind of meat and two veg. Now we can, sample the delights of some of the most wonderful food in the world: Italian, Indian, Chinese, Spanish, Mexican . .oh you name it.

Today we will be eating Lebanese Food for dinner. Fifty years ago it was egg and chips.

So to Brexit: the right wing, since that first referendum, didn't like the EU. There were Euro Skeptics in the Conservative Party – the right wing – and they broke away and formed an extreme Right Wing Party called UKIP – the United Kingdom Independence Party – which called for Britain to withdraw from Europe.

Whilst they didn't win any seats in Parliament they nearly did; almost did - but they didn't. People usually complain about the British system of government with the first passed the post system but you know: sometimes it's useful if it stops certain people from being elected.

 But even though UKIP didn't win any seats in The House of Commons (apart from one they inherited) they were chipping away at Conservative Membership so after the election in 2015 the Coalition Government (Conservative and Lib-Dem) gave in and promised a referendum to see if the electorate wanted to remain or leave. 

This was to save The Conservative Party so last year we had the referendum and the vote – even though it should never have been for anything less that a 60/40 majority – resulted in a vote to leave.

It might seem strange to Americans that the Liberals would join up with the Conservatives but Liberals here are in between Conservative and Labour (middle of the road - no man's land) unlike in America where Liberals are almost communists and socialists – heaven forbid!!

But we were subjected to some of the nastiest people you can think of; one of them murdered a young woman politician who was singled out for attack as a "passionate defender" of the European Union and immigration. The murderer viewed his victim, a Labour MP, as one of the collaborators; a traitor to white people.

This was very hard to believe in this day and age in Britain.

So that's it – we, the royal we, are leaving. We will no longer have financial passporting, freedom of movement and some of us might not even be able to receive our pensions from abroad – we don't know.

In fact there's a lot we don't know - or didn't know - for instance leaving something that you have committed financially to might mean having to honour that commitment – like one hundred billion pounds (or even Euros) which is one of the things what we/they didn't know about before the referendum.

The number of British citizens registering to be citizens of other countries is at an all time high here – Ireland, Italy and Germany I have heard tale of, so that's the explanation.

I hope the people who voted to leave enjoy their lamb chops, new potatoes and peas.

The Guinness Poster

I was asked about that picture, above, the other day – who did it? When was it? How did it come about?

Well:

I did a Guinness commercial about two blokes who go in to a bar and ask for two bottles of Guinness – here it is: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MzzPtypCrUE – I'm the one with the black hair.

When I did this I was less than two years out of drama school; I'd been in a soap opera, Crossroads, worked on one episode of The Newcomers and at Birmingham Repertory Theatre, so I was a little green, to say the least.

The other guy, Jeremy Bulloch, was a regular in The Newcomers even though I hadn't met him when I did my episode.

Originally the advertising agency, J. Walter Thompson, wanted some name actor with dark hair to be with Jeremy in the commercial – whoever it was they couldn't get him so I got the role after auditioning with a load of other actors. Just once, no call back, or anything else.

I remember thinking that the director was really good; he wanted us to be Laurel and Hardy and on most of the shots you see we did about 20 takes; easy as they had loads of money and it was like a big budget movie.

We shot the outside scene in Windsor, around the corner from the castle, and shot the interior in the afternoon at Goldhawk Film Studios in Shepherd's Bush.

We had a few goes at the exit from the shop before shooting it and the director wanted me to do something funny on the way out so I suggested hitting my head on the bird cage. I tried it and everybody laughed.

They were rather concerned that it was hurting me but I actually headed the cage, like heading a football, catching it on my hairline so there was no bother.

What I hadn't realised, and look what I say above - I was a little green – they wanted loads and loads of takes of me hitting my head.

Maybe about ten or so from each angle – close up, shot from the back, shot from the front, up my nose, the back of the head, you name it.

I kept hearing 'does it hurt?' well it didn't as I got used to it – but where there's no sense there's no feeling!

A month or so after that, I was contacted, through my agent, by the advertising agency who wanted me to do a photo session for the poster (above).

The Production Designer or Art Director, or whatever he was, on the commercial, liked the work I did and wanted me for the poster; I was to be paid, maybe two weeks of the working man's average salary at the time, per hour, so I accepted the job.

At the time we were living in Shropshire – we bought our first house a month before starting drama school with the plan we would sell when I graduated – so I had to go to Richmond in Surrey to do the shoot and unfortunately there was a rail strike on the day. They did suggest cancelling and doing something else with me in the future but I guaranteed I would be there and stayed with friends.

The studio was full of reflectors, for the photographer to use to reflect light at me, and in the corner was a full barrel of draft Guinness. The aforementioned commercial was for bottled Guinness but this was for draft and the only way you could pour draft Guinness in those days was from the barrel; the award winning widget came in the eighties.

All I had to do was drink about one third of the pint in one go, then they would give me another pint and I would drink another third.

The photographer used a Polaroid instant camera initially, to see roughly what the final shot would look like – no digital in those days.

I found these Polaroids the other day and you can see I'm drinking the Guinness even before we started shooting seriously. They'd already sorted out a shirt for me and I've just noticed I am wearing a ring. That was my dad's and it disappeared years ago – so nice to see it.

When they were satisfied with the angle they liked they started to shoot. One third of the glass each time.

This involved someone perfectly pouring a pint for me, which is no mean feat, and they would stop shooting when I had consumed the right amount.

Then we would pause whilst a few more pints were poured and on to the next batch.

At one point, nearing the end of the session, the photographer looked at me and I can remember him nudging the art director and pointing at me; obviously I had been drinking Guinness for four hours and doing little else so I must have been having trouble getting any more down.

'That's enough!' the art director said and we wrapped.

On the tube on the way home I asked him where he had found me and that's when he told me he had worked on the commercial. 'I thought you were flailing towards the end' he said.

What he didn't know was I hadn't drunk much Guinness before that day - but I've drunk plenty since!

That was it till about a year or so later; we were still living in Shropshire, miles away from a city or any kind of conurbation, when my family called and said I was on Guinness Posters all over Birmingham; others called me from London with the same story and my aunt in Manchester reported the same.

I called my agent and she sent J. Walter Thompson an invoice who paid me the poster fee.

When I next went to Birmingham I couldn't go too far without seeing the poster. They were everywhere you can imagine and I remember late one night I was on the number eight bus going to my parents house and the bus stopped on the corner of Stoney Lane and Highgate Road, in Sparkbrook and there, for all to see, was a huge poster near the bus stop.

It was a stop where the driver had to get out and turn a key in a time lock so I had time to go to the loo nearby.

When I came out there was a drunk standing looking up at the poster. 'Look at him' he said to me 'with his bleedin' long hair; sucking that pint.'

The Tottenham Hotspur Mascot.

Big weekend, this, for football. Soccer that is for my American friends – Sarcre, as they pronounce it, trippingly on their tongues.

And what was the highlight for me?

Well the semi final at Wembley was good between Chelsea and Spurs and the latest news is that Aston Villa are beating Birmingham City 1-0 – in fact I've just heard they won.

Today Arsenal are meeting Manchester City in the other semi final – again at Wembley Stadium – but that is not the highlight either.

But . . when the players lined up to go on to the pitch, they each had a child with them, maybe aged about ten or so, possibly younger, of both sexes. They waited in the tunnel and I'm sure there was a lot of banter, some of the players of the opposing team hugged the ones they knew and liked (presumably).

And when the time came they all marched on to the pitch.

In these times when football gets a bad name because of some of the fouling and gentle kicks in the ankles and some drunken behaviour from some of them and sexual crimes against others, it's nice to see the guest mascot policy, where kids write in to get drawn from some hat, or whatever, for the pleasure of walking out with some of their heroes.

The Sunderland manager, David Moyes, was criticised recently when he half told someone off for asking a stupid question on air – you could hear the banter in his voice; the trouble was the stupid question was asked by a woman so suddenly it became a sexist remark. One person saying he wouldn't have said it if it was to a man; maybe not; maybe he would have given him a thick ear.

His team, Sunderland, have a mascot with a terminal illness. A little five year old boy who has cancer and has just recently had a set back by a new growth at the bottom of his back – the manager was obviously involved in getting Bradley Lowery to meet his hero, Jermain Defoe and here we have a picture of them. See how he holds on to Jermain for security:

But back to yesterday's game – the highlight for me was when the players stood in the tunnel, bantering, hugging and then marching on to the field of play. We noticed one of the mascots, a Spurs mascot, was marching rather smartly and proudly and then we noticed; he didn't have any legs. But out he strode with his heroes.

Here he is: Chelsea are in blue and Spurs are in white and the little lad has false legs:

Hardly noticed – but we noticed him and so did his family.

the birds and the bees!

Well I woke up this morning – dat da da da da – actually a few mornings ago; this wasn't any where near dawn, I might say, and a bird was singing a familiar refrain. Singing a song for me at his own expense (to quote Bob Dylan); when I went to the window I could see him at the top of a tree in the garden about 100 feet high. The song he sang was that of a robin and I've only ever known them to be on the ground or near to it in bushes.

I looked through the binoculars and sure enough – there it was, the red breast.

He was singing and calling out for a mate – it's a strange thing when you see them chirp as the sound they make they make without lips. We have to use our lips to whistle but the birdie does it without a bother.

The robin is supposed to be a nasty bird, or so they say, but when I have seen them being aggressive it is to protect themselves or shoo away a cat or an intruder.

I used to wake in California to sun shine and palm trees and the birds we saw there were humming birds which is the only bird, they say, who can fly backwards. I spent a lot of time, when I first moved to LA, on the balcony, or near, trying to get a photograph of one.

These days it would be easy as I would just film them, if I could get close enough, and freeze the film when editing.

That's the way I do my head shots these days.

But getting back to the birds and the trees – the tree I saw the robin in is at the top of this page. On that branch at the very top. Bit of a change from the palm trees but it's a pleasant outlook.

Here is what it is like from the front through the window of my little office:

I don't know the name of those trees. Not the green one but the one with the blossom which disappears after a short time each year. 

We have two at the front which shields us from the bad air of vehicles passing which are about twenty yards from us. If you know the name let me know.

Here is the question: the bird at the top of the tree is only there calling for a mate – any mate.

How do we do that and will we, the male of the species, always be the pursuer?

When I was young I would meet girls at or on the dance floor. It was easy as I would only ask for a dance and then it was always up to me to ask the girl out or make a date or even ask if I could walk her home. That would be a yes or no – nothing more. I might push that if I got a no but that would be the male in me pursuing.

But I could have taken a tip from the bird. I could have walked to the front of the dance floor to the stage and called out – like the robin – or I could have sung – ditto and . . .but we actually do that sometimes. Isn't that why the rock singer gets up and sings?

The other place I would meet girls would be at the cinema; I would (with a pal) sit behind two girls – and I know they would see us coming because they would tell me – and ask them to come and sit next to us; or we would sit next to them.

Then after a while I would sneak my arm around her and sit like that for a while. Then the kiss.

When the film ended I would usually walk out with the girl and maybe go for a walk.

One time, when we got outside, both girls were a good 6 inches taller than we were so we kind of went to the public loo and disappeared out the other exit. That took us to the other side of the street and when we walked back we looked over and could see that the girls had disappeared too.

Another time at the picture house in Ladywood, I sat around with a girl and didn't kiss her. I just sat with my arm around her till the end of the film.

We walked to a disused cricket field and she said 'why didn't you kiss me in the pictures?' and I said 'because I was watching the film.'

It was Horrors of the Black Museum – well??

The SAT NAV and how to use it!

First of all I suppose a sat nav is a satellite navigation tool and I don't know how to work it at all - so I got you here under false pretences.

Neither does my wife – in fact I don't even know if she has ever noticed them on the dashboard of the mini cabs we use. She can, however, do three crosswords a day, reads The Guardian, The Standard and The Metro from cover to cover, watches all the political programmes on television and knows more about antiques than the average Antiques Road Shows' experts both here and in America. - (notice I never say the States as I think it's one of the worst tags I know and only slightly bettered by SAT NAV ) and strangely enough she seems to win all the little games like Trivial Pursuits and the like we get to play every ten years or so – we don't play games.

There is the dreaded sat nav above and here are all bits you need to work it:

I don't know what all those things are for but I would bet that one of them is a battery or something you connect to a battery somewhere.

This is a fact: when you use a sat nav you are not using your brain at all. Also, a well known fact, is that drivers' of black cabs in London have bigger or larger, whichever adjective you want to use and is proper, hippocampuses than the average yogi.

The hippocampus is the organ in the brain that does all the work – how do I know this? Because my favourite programmes on TV are University Challenge and Mastermind – so why wouldn't I know.

You think I know bugger nothing don't you – I tell you I know bugger all!!

Anyway:

It does all the work because it is, in essence, the memory, the organ in charge of spatial matters and emotion. So when the mini cab driver asks you where you are going and then asks for your postcode you know they won't be using their hippocampus. 

He or she will have turned it off and they'll be relying on the sat nav and singing to themselves One Day, Two Day, Soon it will be Pay Day!

And other sensible rhymes and couplets.

When I was sixteen I was in the army cadets – as I've mentioned before the ACF not the CCF as that is for schools – and I rose to the dizzy height of sergeant and I used to teach map reading.

So I never used a sat nav as they hadn't been invented. I used a map, a prismatic compass and a protractor.

Here they are:

All you have to do is open the map; open the compass and place the map facing magnetic north, which you will see on the compass. Then look for two familiar or distinctive things – maybe two hills, if you are in town maybe a church and a bus station (but those would be easy so let's stick to the outback) – yes you wouldn't be able to use the sat nav miles from anywhere as your battery will run out.

So you see a hill – not very big, which means the contour lines on your map will be wide apart. Take a reading on that hill with the compass.

Then to the other way you see a steep hill and you find this on your map with the contour lines close together; take another reading.

So now you put your protractor on to the first reading and draw a line down the map at the reading on the protractor.

Then go to the second reading and do the same thing and where the two lines cross will be where you are standing. If you're in the Sahara Desert wait for the stars.

So when everything runs out, batteries, computers and people who know how to read maps all die, the world will be left with a load of robots.

And where does the word robot come from? How would I know – but it means slave and I think it comes from and yes I'm right:

Origin of robot

< Czech, coined by Karel Čapek in the play R.U.R. (1920) from the base robot-, as in robota compulsory labor, robotník peasant owing such labor.

I knew that as it was on a radio show recently.

I think you will know my point – every labour saving device can do nothing except help you to suffer from some kind of dementia.

killer instinct.

Two Boxers

'Hit him – hit him' said my dad 'hit him again.'

We were boxing – in our living room.

'Not so hard' he said as my brother caught me with a sharp one, under the ribs.

The chairs were around the side, with the tables and other pieces of furniture, etc shoved right in to the wall.

When it was over we both said 'who won?'

'It was a draw.' my dad said.

It was always a draw.

Sometimes I would have to stop when my shorts started to fall down.

“Ah nobody's looking' said my mother 'you haven't got anything I haven't seen before.'

My dad would shout for us to break and pull my pants up. 

It wasn't long since I had grown pubic hair and I didn't want my mother seeing that.

'He can't box with his shorts round his ankles' he said.

'Jasus, it's not been that long since I was cleaning the bits of shite from his nappy.'

Trust my mam; making a holy show of me.

We had boxing in the gym at school in those days, during the PE lesson and also, in those days, I think we still called it PT. But there we go when has there ever been a time when things don't get called something else for the sake of it.

I must have been the shortest kid in the class so who would they put me in the ring with?

Johnny, one of the big kids. He was a pal of mine; we used to go to each other's homes and listen to our parents' records.

Out he lumbered, Big John – just like in the song.

I liked the way he sparred but he must have been posing as he danced around. We threw a few jabs, ducked a few times and then, coming out of a clinch, he stuck his chin out; I didn't hit it. This happened quite a few times and when we finished the teacher patted me on the head; I'd won. Well I reckoned I had.

When we were in the playground, later, I was asked how I got on and I said I'd won. 'no you didn't' said Johnny.

'I did' I said 'the teacher patted me on the head.'

'He patted me too,' said Johnny, but I knew hadn't.

'No he didn't' I said.

'Do you want to make something of it?'

I looked around. My pal – Johnny – looked at me with a certain amount of hate; there were others looking at me too to see what I was going to do.

'What do you mean?' I said. I knew what he meant then the kids started to chant: 'chicken! Chicken! CHICKEN!'

'I don't mind' I said.

'Unless you're chicken' said Johnny, who was fast becoming plain John in my mind.

'Okay' I said 'where shall we go?'

The kids started to form a circle outside the boys' lavatories in the corner of the playground and in no time we were dancing around. We threw a few punches, got in to a clinch and as we came out of the clinch he stuck his chin out and bang! I hit him a wallop and down he went.

I didn't, to this day, think the punch was very hard and that he was acting, the same way as he was posing when we got inside the ropes in class. But there he was on the ground.

Up he got – there was no counting as there was no referee.

We started dancing again and once again he stuck his chin out and down he went.

He wasn't badly hurt but playtime was over and we'd finished playing.

The little boxing lessons from my dad taught me how to throw a punch and defend myself even though my brother would never go down but I was never worried about getting hurt at home, it was when I feared getting hurt that the survival and killer instinct kicked in.

The reason I got in to a few fights at school was that being so short I looked easy for a bully who wanted to beat somebody up and I didn't always win but school was and is still rough.

It's no good telling tales to your parents or the teacher. To do that you have to be beaten up first and I didn't want that.

One kid in class, when we were at the senior school, was picking on me, poking me and being nasty, saying he was going to wait for me outside and beat me up and that all his mates were going to come and see me get a blathering.

I told him a few times that we didn't have to but he mistook that for me being scared and, to be honest, I wasn't that sure if I could handle him.

But the time came for us to go home and I was ready to go; I went down to the playground at the same time as the bully, but ahead of his mates and when we got to the corner of the playground he said 'come on' and started squaring up so I gave him a huge punch to the eye.

'Oh!' he said, grabbing his eye, then I put my arm around his neck and we both fell to the ground with him in a clinch.

'had enough?' I said.

He nodded his head.

'Are you sure?' I was used to kids playing possum.

'Yes I've had enough' he said 'let go.'

So we got up.

'How's my eye?' he said.

I looked; it was bloodshot.

'Sorry' he said.

Then his mates came to watch the scrap.

'What happened' they said.

'It's all over' and I sat on the floor next to me new pal.

I used to like boxing but didn't bother again with it much as I had high cheek bones which would bruise easily and my nose would bleed even easier.

But I was never scared of anybody after that even though I never looked for trouble but I have heard of people wanting to fight all the time and look for fights in pubs or whatever.

When I lived in a village in Northamptonshire I heard that the vicar's son went in to the pub, one day, and sucker punched someone as the fella was drinking his beer. He saw the jaw and hit it. The poor fella suffered a broken jaw and the bully got away with it.

I'm not sure if I would ever dive in if it was nothing to do with me but – you know we never know what we would do in a crisis.