Hello again, writing news

As I blow the dust and cobwebs away from the hinges and reopen the blog door I have news. I've been writing and submitting stuff to the real world. A short story of mine won second prize on Vanda Inman's WriteSpace website competition. £200 prize! As one of my darling kids opined when i told them 'You came second? that's not really winning is it, it's just losing with style' Lovable little tyke. I must remember to loosen his chains for Christmas.
Anyway, I've also got a Flash fiction piece on the Everyday Fiction website and I've got another due to be published on the Bewildering Stories website in the new year. I've also got a story in the inaugural issue of The Write Idea's literary Ezine The Right Eyed Deer due out in January. I'm only crowing about this because I can't believe it.

You've got to be joking...

Not content with being frightened into a response to knife crime that won't work (how many people report that young criminals in court, at the sentence or hearing evidence of their crimes giggle about it and show absolutely no remorse or fear-why do we think showing these kids the results of their actions will do anything other than make them laugh?) not content with that the Home Secretary appoints a police man to head the anti knife crime initiative. What's his name?

Alfred Hitchcock.

Cor Blimey!

The wily old fox Nick Robinson just summed it up in his usual succint way on the World at One.
'Cor Blimey!' he said.

Politician resigns on matter of principle!

Shadow Home Secretary to fight his seat as an independent and as a champion of human rights and civil liberties.

A TORY politician?

And this on the day after those natural allies Gordon Brown and Anne Widdecombe (yes, THAT Anne Widdecombe) oh, and lets not forget the DUP conspire together (without making ANY sort of a deal) to force through a contentious piece of legislation in the face of stiff opposition from back benchers.

Never has Tom Lehrer's observation been more apt. Satire is officially dead.

Beat that Private Eye!

Talking sense...

Can you believe this?

Teenager faces prosecution for calling Scientology 'cult'
Anil Dawar
guardian.co.uk,
Tuesday May 20 2008
About this articleClose
This article was first published on guardian.co.uk on Tuesday May 20 2008. It was last updated at 09:53 on May 21 2008.

The Church of Scientology Centre in Queen Victoria Street, London. Photograph: Sarah Lee
A teenager is facing prosecution for using the word "cult" to describe the Church of Scientology.
The unnamed 15-year-old was served the summons by City of London police when he took part in a peaceful demonstration opposite the London headquarters of the controversial religion.
Officers confiscated a placard with the word "cult" on it from the youth, who is under 18, and a case file has been sent to the Crown Prosecution Service.
A date has not yet been set for him to appear in court.The decision to issue the summons has angered human rights activists and support groups for the victims of cults.
The incident happened during a protest against the Church of Scientology on May 10. Demonstrators from the anti-Scientology group, Anonymous, who were outside the church's £23m headquarters near St Paul's cathedral, were banned by police from describing Scientology as a cult by police because it was "abusive and insulting".
Writing on an anti-Scientology website, the teenager facing court said: "I brought a sign to the May 10th protest that said: 'Scientology is not a religion, it is a dangerous cult.'
"'Within five minutes of arriving I was told by a member of the police that I was not allowed to use that word, and that the final decision would be made by the inspector."
A policewoman later read him section five of the Public Order Act and "strongly advised" him to remove the sign. The section prohibits signs which have representations or words which are threatening, abusive or insulting.
The teenager refused to back down, quoting a 1984 high court ruling from Mr Justice Latey, in which he described the Church of Scientology as a "cult" which was "corrupt, sinister and dangerous".
After the exchange, a policewoman handed him a court summons and removed his sign.
On the website he asks for advice on how to fight the charge: "What's the likelihood I'll need a lawyer? If I do have to get one, it'll have to come out of my pocket money."
Writing on the same website, another anonymous demonstrator said: "We also protested outside another Scientology building in Tottenham Court Road which is policed by a separate force, the Metropolitan police, who have never tried to stop us using the word cult.
"We're completely peaceful protesters expressing a perfectly valid opinion. This whole thing stinks."
Liberty director, Shami Chakrabarti, said: "This barmy prosecution makes a mockery of Britain's free speech traditions.
"After criminalising the use of the word 'cult', perhaps the next step is to ban the words 'war' and 'tax' from peaceful demonstrations?"
Ian Haworth, from the Cult Information Centre which provides advice for victims of cults and their families, said: "This is an extraordinary situation. If it wasn't so serious it would be farcical. The police's job is to protect and serve. Who is being served and who is being protected in this situation? I find it very worrying.
"Scientology is well known to my organisation, and has been of great concern to me for 22 years. I get many calls from families with loved ones involved and ex-members who are in need of one form of help."
The City of London police came under fire two years ago when it emerged that more than 20 officers, ranging from constable to chief superintendent, had accepted gifts worth thousands of pounds from the Church of Scientology.
The City of London Chief Superintendent, Kevin Hurley, praised Scientology for "raising the spiritual wealth of society" during the opening of its headquarters in 2006.
Last year a video praising Scientology emerged featuring Ken Stewart, another of the City of London's chief superintendents, although he is not a member of the group.
The group was founded by the science-fiction writer L Ron Hubbard in 1952 and espouses the idea that humans are descended from an exiled race of aliens called Thetans.
The church continues to attract controversy over claims that it separates members from their families and indoctrinates followers.
A spokeswoman for the force said today: "City of London police had received complaints about demonstrators using the words 'cult' and 'Scientology kills' during protests against the Church of Scientology.
"Following advice from the Crown Prosecution Service some demonstrators were warned verbally and in writing that their signs breached section five of the Public Order Act.
"One demonstrator continued to display a placard despite police warnings and was reported for an offence under section five. A file on the case will go to the CPS."
A CPS spokesman said no specific advice was given to police regarding the boy's placard.
"In April, prior to this demonstration, as part of our normal working relationship we gave the City of London police general advice on the law around demonstrations and religiously aggravated crime in particular.
"We did not advise on this specific case prior to the summons being issued – which the police can do without reference to us – but if we receive a file we will review it in the normal way according to the code for crown prosecutors."

Now come on! I've just visited the OED site for a fairly authoratative definition of the word 'cult' (are we sure they haven't spelled that wrongly?)
and the OED says and I quote...
OED
cult
1 a system of religious worship directed towards a particular figure or object.
2 a small religious group regarded as strange or as imposing excessive control over members.

It would appear difficult for the Scientologists to argue the toss there wouldn't it?
Surely nobody is going to prosecute this kid? If thery are, well they'd better sue me too because I'm calling Scientology a cult as well. I'm also calling Christianity a cult, and Buddhism, and Jehova's Witness-ism.
Granted I'm calling Scientology a cult on a blog that nobody has even looked at but it's a gesture.
So, un-named 15 year old, I'm Spartacus, if they come for you they'll have to come for me too.
As long as they don't make us watch 'Battlefield Earth' I think I can take all they throw at me.

Friends like these...

They think they can get rid of me... Darling, unleash the hounds...mwahh hah ha!

(Gordon Brown plots revenge on his own 'bastards' from his cavern headquarters)

Oh dearie me, I said a few blogs ago that Gordon should be really careful about getting what he asked for and it appears that his erstwhile colleagues (or their proxies) are now giving him what they think he's been asking for for years. Funny that there's been absolute silence form Mr T Blair. Well maybe not.

The usual suspects line up to bash him...it's a risky strategy though,make him look too much like an underdog and there's the danger that the great British public will sympathise with him. No-one likes a bully...

The hardest word...

What is it about politicians that they can never EVER admit to making a mistake and apologising for it? There's an old saying that goes something like 'The man who never made a mistake never made anything' It's true. We don't expect our leaders to be infallible do we? I know I don't. We don't have supermen (and anyway didn't he wear his underpants over his trousers?)
Do they not realise how much more respect they'd get from us poor fallible normal folk if, once in a while one of them got up on his hind legs and said, 'Look folks, I made a right pigs ear of that. I can only apologise and tell you that I'll be extra careful in future OK?'
You wouldn't want it every week but it's miles better than people twisting themselves into all sorts of shapes trying to change history and justify what they did and why.
We all make mistakes. It's part of the human condition.

Wipeout!

Well, it begins. Labour are given a kicking in the local elections and the impression that they are a government in disarray hangs in the air like greasy smoke. I can still remember the joy on that May morning in 1997 when that fresh faced champion of honesty and a new approach to politics Tony Blair took the keys to number 10 so there's a vestige of the old affection still there. I just wonder how long it will remain.
The only good point for Labour is that it looks as if Boris Johnson is going to become London mayor. If there's anything guaranteed to make Labour look good it's that buffoon.

Hello, Sailor

Oh you'll remember these fellows surely? That's right, Sailor. 'Girls Girls Girls', 'A Glass of Champagne' As camp as a row of pink tents and very much a part of the 70's glam rock 'scene' (See how easily I slip into pop journo jargon...I'm such a hepcat!) Sailor graced TOTP a few times. never being very musically sophisticated even back then I liked them. I loved the honky tonk piano sound they made and the whole sailor image. Fast forward thirty three years and I've got their greatest hits CD and do you know what? The music's still great, it stands up as camp as ever and as much fun too. Their whole image, maybe it's even a concept ,(whatever that means) is of sailors ashore in foreign ports trawling the red light districts. There's a lovely innocence to their lyrics, their songs a re set in paris and Amsterdam and the most exotic thing they can think of is a samba in some South American port. It's a lovely B Movie ethos. You can imagine Robert Mitchum or Robert Ryan in the movie versions.
I urge you all to go out and rediscover Sailor.

The price of power

Now I ask you, who would want to be Prime Minister when the changes in 10 years are this profound...

And Gordon, if you look like this now...

Powerhouse II: SHOCK! HORROR!

Drugs den revealed

Apr 24 2008
By JENNIFER FINNEGAN, Formby Times

Police expose shocking evidence at notorious property
THE notorious Powerhouse site is being used as a drink and drugs den.
Police have uncovered drug paraphenalia and empty alcohol containers on their latest call-out to the trouble-spot.
Officers invited the Formby Times to accompany them to the site where they had been called the night before.
There was evidence of drink and drugs use, with home-made smoking devices and tin foil, which had been burnt for use in smoking drugs.
There were also empty cans of alcohol, and whoever was using the area has built a den with seats and tarpaulin over the top.
Graffiti has been sprayed inside the den, with a picture of a cannabis plant drawn on the side of one bench.
Sgt Steve Matthews said: "We were called to the site in relation to drugs and, effectively, there have been drugs present.
"We haven’t found drugs but there is clear evidence that drugs are being used here."
Inspector Martin Melia added: "The responsibility lies with the owner. We could present him with evidence that alcohol and drugs are being abused on his property and he should secure it.
"Drinking alcohol and taking drugs can lead to other anti-social behaviour such as damage to vehicles on their way home."
Acting Sgt Alan Wrigg said: "It was suggested to us that kids were playing with what could have been drugs at the site and they had been found stashed behind a brick in the Powerhouse.
"There was no evidence that drugs were present but we found the site in the condition described with drug paraphernalia and empty alcohol cans.
"The evidence is there that drugs have been used. It’s little tell-tale signs that suggest drug use and quite obvious signs people are drinking down there."
Although not the owner, Mr Mike McComb has an option to buy the site and says he has spent £500,000 on security over the past three years.
He said: "It is a never-ending battle. We go weekly to see whether our security has been breached."
Following this latest incident, he is instructing building contractors to renew security measures.
Mr McComb says his ultimate goal is to convert the site into a residential development, which he is in discussion with Sefton Council about.
"That would be an end to all the problems," he adds.

Ah, local newspapers! Shock Horror What an article, if Jennifer Finnegan doesn't get a post on the Daily Mail there's no justice. Drugs, alcohol...a drugs den indeed. Well really! Teenagers drinking and smoking a bit of weed (I'd spotted the torn up Rizla packets scattered about myself but didn't immediately think drugs den) They've even painted a cannabis leaf on a bench! Reefer madness! we'll all be murdered in our beds. They've also painted a skull and crossbones on the wall of their shelter (sorry, 'den') Does that mean they're pirates? are they sailing a home-made Black Pearl up the river Alt to prey on the container ships going in to Seaforth?...or is that taking things a bit too far? Over reacting maybe?

OK, as I said in the first post about this the teenagers don't own the land, Mike McComb does. Unlike him however the teenagers are actually using the land. Apart from a bit of mess and a bit of personal use ganja I don't see the harm.

Even reading between the lines of the Police's comments you can see a hint of common sense. It's all 'could' lead to this and 'can' cause that. They even acknowledge that no drugs have been found on site but there is 'clear evidence that drugs are being used here'

I suppose unexplained footprints are evidence that Bigfoot exists too.

I thought there'd be a reaction against the Trails but I hope it isn't all just bulldozed.

One last thing, it says that the owner has spent half a million quid on security at the site. All I've ever seen there is a chain and padlock on the gates. It's a big padlock and a very funky blue padded cover on the chain but £500,000! I wish he'd come to me for some more security stuff...I've got a spare fence panel I can let him have for a hundred grand.

Powerhouse

Looming on the very edge of Formby, right next to the railway line, there is a disused factory known locally as The Powerhouse. It's an ugly building with sealed up windows and loading bays blocked by huge piles of soil and rubble. Such places naturally attract kids with nothing better to do and nowhere better to go and this is evidenced by the amount of graffiti on the walls and the drifts of cans about the site. It also attracts dog walkers, amongst them me and Jeff the wonder dog. The site is alive with rabbits too and Jeff occasionally spots and chases one there. He's a greyhound but wait, I'm digressing. Next to the approach road to the Powerhouse there is a wooded hollow which leads to the railway and it's this area that I want to talk about.
These same kids have turned it into a skateboard park. There's been a serious amount of work done here by these 'feckless ne'er do wells'. Wooden walkways have been constructed, earthwork ramps incorporating the leftover Calor gas bottles abandoned by the factory owners, water jumps and embankments. Just beside it in the wood itself there's a fairly substantial shelter of wood and tarpaulin with benches inside. I walked there one morning and found a cache of tools tied up with a chain and combination lock and every time I go there there's always some kind of an addition to some part of the ...well I'm going to call it a project because that's what it is.
More interestingly there is also what I can only describe as a shrine. A large flat piece of plywood has been set up like a billboard and spraypainted on it are the words' RIP HARO' The 'O' of Haro is represented as a solid white oval and inside it is painted a trident shape. I haven't any idea who Haro might have been and whether or not he's even real (or even a he!) A flag made of an old checked shirt flies on a flagpole nearby and there are broken bikes hanging in the trees. The other day there was a bicycle wheel, spray painted orange and set up like a steering wheel on a column in the same area. It's a fascinating site. I shall try to get some photos to post here because I fear that the authorities may wish to get rid of this place. I know it's not their land but as with the story of Lobby (see this blog earlier) what harm is being done? No-one else is using the land for anything. Watch this space!

D'oh!

Last week I had to go to London for a half day assessment with a view to getting a job with a Government Department. Because the assessment started at 8:00am I had to travel down the night before and book overnight accommodation...in London.
Now I'm scared of London, don't mind admitting it. I have a real hick from the sticks fear of the big city, a quasi Dickensian image of a fogbound London, horse shit in the gutters, and Hansom cabs plying their trade while troops of quick fingered pickpockets prey on the newly arrived yokels.
OK, that's perhaps a bit strong. I don't even know if I can claim to be a yokel or a hick when I come from Liverpool but you take my point. I was afeared of the dreaded underground, finding the place i neede to be, finding my hotel-oh I was in a right state. Imagine my delight when the tube station was on the same road as the assessment centre which was in turn within eyesight of my hotel.
Result! Apart from the shock of being charged £3.25 for a pint of Bombardier bitter I was well pleased.
The next morning I turn up at the assessment with everything except photo ID. Despite there being a name badge for me and my having copies of all the forms they had emailed me and despite my argument that who else could I possibly be? they couldn't 'do ' me.
Ever had to kill six and three quarter hours in London when you feel like a dope and just want the world to swallow you up?
It was an omen.
My next interview is with a firm that is ten minutes walk from my house.
That's more like it.

The Catbird

Just thought I'd share a bit of nonsense verse with the world.

The Catbird

There once was a cat that climbed a tree and wouldn't come down at all.
He built a nest in a sheltered spot and said he'd never fall.
Well he never fell, but his fur wore off and feathers grew instead.
And he grew two wings where his front legs were and a sharp beak on his head.
He learned to sing when the sun came up and sleep when the bright sun fell.
He even tried to lay an egg and he managed very well.
The catbird sat upon his egg and kept it warm and dry.
But nothing hatched from the catbird's egg and nobody knows why.

One of Wilde's

A couple of years ago I developed a mini obsession with Oscar Wilde. I didn't start wearing green carnations or running up huge debts at the Albemarle Club or anything, I just read a few books because, up until that time all i knew of him was that he was quite witty and wrote some plays. He'd come across my horror loving radar as the author of 'The Picture of Dorian Gray' and 'The canterville Ghost' but I'd never read him.
Well, I still haven't read much of his work but the fragrant nosegay I have plucked from his ouevre is just amazing. I defy anybody to read 'The Selfish Giant' without a lump forming in their throat (try reading it aloud to someone-the last paragraph'll kill you!)
I'd also recommend highly 'The Ballad of Reading Gaol'
Get into Oscar-he's Wilde!

Between Iraq and a hard place.

I wore out my blogging fingers five years ago telling whoever would listen that to follow Dubya into his Iraq adventure would be disastrous. There were worse threats than him around at the time. Now five years on they're still there and Iraq is the rats nest we warned about.
It's too much to hope that any of the present cabinet will come out and say 'well, we fucked that up' The previous incumbent is clearly never going to admit he was wrong (a Middle East peace envoy for God's sake! Tom Lehrer was wrong, political satire didn't die when they gave Kissinger the Nobel Peace Prize it just went into a deep coma. Tony just switched off the life support machine on it.) and the Whitehall elves are working feverishly to rewrite history so that it was actuall always our avowed intention to remove Saddam.
It just makes me weary. Too tired to fight-almost.
Oh and one more thing, I hate it when anybody who voices anti war feelings is accused of betraying our troops.
For the record, our forces are the only ones to emerge from this with clean hands. They get sent to do the bidding of the political pygmies, they don't have a choice.
Anti-war, yes, pro troops, definitely.
Five years on.
And on.
and on

Ah, Darling

On behalf of the nation's smugglers and bootleggers I would like to extend the warmest and most heartfelt thanks to our Chancellor of the Exchequer. Once again he has seen fit to raise the duty on a packet of cigarettes by 11 pence. Cheap foreign travel is now so easy and affordable that they can arrange more and more fag runs. Couple this with the master stroke of actually cutting front line staff (and don't listen to the stock answer about 'brigading' and targeting areas) at the airports it's a bootlegger's bonanza.
What the Chancellor fails to realise is that more tax on tobacco here makes the prospect of buying cheap fags very attractive to almost everybody. It's a watered down prohibition and we all know how well prohibition worked in the US in the 20's and 30's don't we?
I speak as an ex customs officer when I say that we are scratching the surface of the problem. The seizure figures may well show a rise in the numbers but the street price for bootlegged fags is falling. Do you know why this is?
I'll tell you. It's because the Customs Officers at the airports (themselves haunted by targets) pick easy targets. You stop an average bloke and his wife with a bagload of Lambert and Butlers coming back from Malaga. He's seen the posters saying it's fine to do this so he feels happy. Then he gets pulled by a Customs officer, he gets questioned, formally interviewed. The world flips over and the Customs officer seizes his goods because he believes they are being held for a commercial purpose. Now your average bootlegger knows the answers to give to the Customs officer to, if not convince him, then at least give him no room to manouevre. Nine times out of ten they walk with their goods while the innocent guy who doesn't know what to say fulminates. Oh and they'll tell you about the appeals procedure. That's another good one. I'd love to ask the HMRC just how many appeals are upheld. (actually I know...and it's virtually none)
So, well done Chancellor. You've made bootlegging even more profitable, you've piled even more pressure on overworked Customs officers and you've alienated the travelling public (not to mention annoying ordinary smokers again -but that's fine because we're the only minority it's legal to discriminate against) all at one stroke!
Masterful.

Band on the ...ground

There is a menace on our streets and it is growing. Well that's overstating it quite a bit. Is it just me or has anyone else noticed the number of red elastic bands on our streets? I take the dog for a walk almost every day and, about six months ago, I started to see red elastic bands on the ground. They'd be singles or sometimes groups of three or four. I started to pick them up. Very soon I had a huge mugful of the things and I wondered where they were coming from. I found out that the Post office use them exclusively. This was confirmed when I discovered drifts of the things in the car park of the local sorting office as I walked past (yes I know how this makes me sound...)
Now I'm no economist and I'm not in business but it doesn't make a lot of sense to be closing down little post offices for not being economically viable when their staff are so profligate with their resources!
So pick up those little red rascals, parcel them up and send them back to the head of the Post Office...whoa, getting a little bit Daily Mail there for a second, starting to get carried away with the insanity. It is a point though, I can't remember seeing so many bands about before.
Maybe I should just forget it and have a nice cup of tea...

Mair

Certain broadcasters become brands, Humphries, Paxman, Dimbleby, and Whicker. By fair means or foul the best of them get information out of their subjects. No-one who saw it is likely to forget Jeremy Paxman's repeated asking of the same question to Michael Howard (back in the Jurassic period when Tories could form a government) which revealed far more about that particular reptile than would an answer to the question. John Humphries of course is at his best when lightly roasting any politician brave or foolish enough to attend for the 8:10 interview on the 'Today' programme.
Well I'd like to add my praise for another of these.
The incomparable Eddie Mair.
I first came across him one Sunday morning years ago when I discovered 'Broadcasting House' He was irreverent but never silly or lightweight and was capable of a marvellous turn of phrase. When he left BH (and I'm sorry to Fi and Paddy but it's never been half as good since) I was delighted to find him on PM. His style is sort of a cross between Alan Whicker, Louis Theroux and Robert Carlyle's character 'Begbie' in' 'Trainspotting'. You know what I mean; he goes into an interview with his gentle tones and his air of wide eyed interest. Sometimes I swear you can hear his interviewees purring as the questions wash over them and they can trot out their prepared text. Then, like Begbie at the bar, Mair strikes. The other night on PM he had some junior minister on talking about the railways. I'll confess it was washing over me too leaving nothing memorable behind. I was aware that the minister was talking at some length, an answer packed with statistics and bullshit. He paused and you could imagine him high fiving his spin doctor. Then Eddie, in his best modulated tones said. 'What does that mean?' with a slight emphasis on the last word.
The pause that followed reeked of sudden panic, bowel-stirring shock as if he had just been glassed in a pub. When he regained his composure the ministerette's answer was broken and so was any credibility he might have had. On reflection, perhaps glassing is not the right analogy. Mair is more subtle, a stiletto perhaps.
It's not just on the attack that the approach works either. Just today (March 3rd) Mr. Mair was presenting 'Cleaning up the camp’ a programme about the Service's attitude to homosexuality. He interviewed a guy who had been drummed out of the Parachute Regiment in the eighties after a long and unblemished career as a bandmaster. His offence was that he was a homosexual. He described how during his interrogation he was told by the provosts that he must have slept with his dog and his two brothers if he was gay. Dreadful stuff. At the end of the show after the 'happy ending' of the change in the law had been described Mair spoke to the man again. He described how he sat and wept after he had lost his career. Mair asked him, with his trademark simplicity,
'What were you crying for?'
The pause that followed that was eloquent indeed. The man genuinely had to think, there wasn't a knee-jerk answer. The pause spoke of the loss of more than a career for, as the other contributors had said, the Services aren't just a job but rather a life choice. Even those treated appallingly had no rancour for the service itself just the outdated and prejudiced rules that applied.
All that was expressed in the pause and the pause came because Mr. Mair asked a simple question.
Now that’s worth the license fee.

Am I just jealous?

It's an alarming 31 years since I read anything with a view to studying it. Back then we read plays, novels and, of course, poems.
Now I still think the reading of plays is perverse and against everything the playwright intended. Language on the page can be pinned down like a moth and dissected until we know how it's constructed and classified so we know what it 's related to but that just leaves it as sterile and lifeless as a microscope slide. Hamlet's soliloquy does read beautifully but how much better is it when you hear the words spoken, interpreted? On the page 'Out, out damned spot' could be construed as an angry instruction to an erring pet but not when you see Lady Macbeth wringing those encrimsoned hands and hear the desperation and anguish in the voice. Since I left school therefore I have never read another play.
(Just to go off at a bit of a tangent here I learned with alarm that nowadays kids no longer read whole plays. Instead they watch a video of a performance and learn two 'key' scenes about which they answer questions and write essays. Now I don't want to get all 'Daily Mail' here but if that isn't dumbing down what is? Isn't it a bit hypocritical of me to complain about not reading whole plays right after saying that I think reading plays is perverse? Well of course it is, but if I had to plough through Julius Caesar, Henry IV parts one and two, Othello, Doctor Faustus and The Duchess of Malfi then I don't see why my kids can get away with reading two scenes from the The Tempest or The Merchant of Venice and claim they know the play!)

Lobby

Just outside Formby on the bank of the River Alt there is a World War 2 pillbox. It's an ugly concrete structure standing on a triangular wedge of ground cut off from the main field by a branch of the river. Some time ago (he says 12 years) a local man , an ex TA soldier moved in to the pillbox. It was full of rubbish as you can imagine and infested with rats. The ex soldier cleaned it up, got rid of the rats and turned it into a fairly serviceable home. A friend fitted windows and a door. The local paper ran a feature on him and his unconventional domicile last week. The pictures made it look very nice indeed. The walls were whitewashed; it was furnished with what looked like cane garden chairs and Lobby, as the man is known, looked really happy there. (See picture which is courtesy of The Formby Times so I hope they don’t mind me reproducing it) He caught rabbits, fish and eels to sustain him and claimed no state benefits at all. It's not a life many would choose for themselves I know but as far as I can see he wasn't causing any harm to anyone.
That didn't stop the owner of the land, Lord Leverhulme, from seeking a court order to evict Lobby.
OK, I know the land didn't belong to Lobby but I didn't see the good Lord aching to use it for anything either. Even if he argued that he wanted to grow crops or whatever in the main field the pillbox is, as I said above, physically cut of from it, effectively on an island. Why couldn't he let the poor guy stay there? It strikes me as just bullying. I wondered whether the paper was going to run a campaign, it might have made a nice human interest story and I was looking forward to this week's issue. Just this evening as I drove past the spot on the way to a meeting at my son's school I noticed that the windows were smashed, the frames ripped out and the place looked abandoned.
This morning I took a walk up there for a closer look and yep, he’s definitely gone and he’s torched the place-or rather the place has been torched – so no-one else can use it... I don’t know why but this case has really bugged me. Why was the land so desperately needed after Lobby’d been living there undisturbed for 12 years?

Hurray for Hollywood

Do you like movies? Now I mean really really like them. Do you watch them or do you live them?. Do you enter their world completely for their two hour length? I get very affected by films, always have done. Even trailers, hell, especially trailers. When we go en famille to the local multiplex the kids and the present Mrs Tomlinson (like Terry Wogan I like to refer to her in that way to keep her on her toes) turn to watch me when they show the trailers. I can't help it. They get to me. It's the quick cuts, the striking images, the stirring language. They're designed to grab the viewer and make him want to watch the whole film aren't they? Well they grab me. My eyes fill up with slow fat tears and my breathing grows short. Sometimes (and I'm whispering this) I make involuntary squeaking noises or giggles. It's embarrassing to be mocked by a seven year old for getting too excited in the pictures.
It's not as if it gets better with age.
I remember when I was about eight and I was watching the John Wayne version of 'Stagecoach' on TV. It's a great western, a great movie really. A disparate band of travellers forced together to make a journey. Their secrets are slowly revealed and always in the background there's the lurking threat of the Indians. (Now I should just say this was a long time ago and I was unsophisticated and I was terrified of Indians. Of all the movie villains they always seemed so implacable and savage. Thanks Hollywood for your history lessons)
Anyway the whole film culminates in an attack by the aforementioned indians upon the eponymous stagecoach as it plunges across the desert (probably Monument Valley where all those Wile E Coyote rock formations are). You will maybe have seen the famous stunt performed by Yakima Canutt as he goes underneath the speeding stage and clings on to the back. The point is it's exciting Ok? The music, the editing, the threat to these characters you've followed for a couple of hours. It's just great. The Indians look as if they're going to win, the good guys are low on ammunition, some have been killed. The Indians are whooping and hollering and catching up!
Who can save our heroes?
Well, as corny as it sounds, the Cavalry arrive. yep, it's that cliched. You hear the raucous bugle call sounding the charge and the camera cuts to a troop of cavalrymen, sabres drawn, pennons flying, Springfield rifles at the ready and you know that everyone's going to be OK.
I had to be carried away from the television and held and soothed until the hyperventilation calmed and I stopped shaking and laughing and crying.
Now you may say, well, you were just a kid. OK, I was but do you know what? Just writing that last paragraph my eyes filled , my breathing quickened and my throat tightened up. It's still there, I've just learned to keep a better lid on it.

While it's embarrasing it's also kind of fun too. I feel like I'm getting my money's worth from a film, experiencing it just a bit more fully than most. There are movie moments that set up the reaction even when they are divorced from the rest of the film. Hell even snatches of music will do it. You play me the Raiders of the Lost Ark theme, just the 'Dan der dan dan dan der dan!' and I'm a jelly. I checked the website for the new Indy film and just the sight of the hat and the whip on a packing case had me choking. The Star Destroyer flying over your head at the beginning of Star Wars just after you've watched Leia's ship do so and thought that was pretty special
Han Solo coming back at the end and helping Luke 'Come on kid let's blow this thing and go home'
ET pointing his geeky glowing finger at his heart and saying 'Ouch!'
The gunshot in Bambi
Sam carrying Frodo up the unforgiving slopes of Mount Doom
The Rohirrim charging down the hill at Helms Deep with the rising sun behind them
'Yippe Ki Ay muddyfunster' (or something) in Die Hard
'You can't handle the truth!' in A Few Good Men,
Chief wrenching up that water thingie in One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest
Buzz and Woodie 'falling with style' into the car.....
Oh dear God the list is endless. I can't even remember what was the point I was trying to make so distracted and excited have I become by the memories.
Hmm? maybe that's enough of a point.
Hurray for Hollywood.

A lot of it about

There seems to be an awful lot of grisly murder about just lately. We've had Steve Wright in Norwich and now this Levy Bellfield in London. On top of their killings there's a grisly case opening up on Jersey of all places with sniffer dogs indicating more possible human remains in bricked up cellars. All very Edgar Allen Poe.

It begins...

Did you ever do something just because it was there to be done? I'm not talking conquering Everest I'm much more downscale than that. I'm talking about this , this blog!
What have I got to say in a blog that anybody but I might want to read? Surely it's the height of vanity to want to commit one's maunderings and mental doodles to the information superhighway (unless you're Oscar Wilde of course)
So what can any poor benighted travellers who happen upon this space expect to find? Well, I may be moved to post some of my stories here, there'll be comment on the issues of the day, family stuff, jokes. Nothing to concern you and nothing I fear to keep you long either.
It was just there and I did it.
Who am I?

Mark Tomlinson, I'm 49, a father of four and currently unemployed but Job Seeking (you have to capitalize those words, job seeking is so much more noble sounding than on the dole). I was in the Civil Service for almost 30 years and while I can do almost anything I haven't got any bits of paper that say so. So, expect the odd update on the employment front too.
There. That's broken the back of it. I reckon I'll post this now and if I remember how to get back onto this bloody thing I'll be back to add more.