Richard Pryor 1940 - 2005

'When I was in Africa, this voice came to me and said, "Richard, what do you see?" I said, "I see all types of people." The voice said, "But do you see any niggers?" I said, "No." It said, "Do you know why? 'Cause there aren't any."'

Zuzu's Petals

Well, there’s no point fighting it. Christmas is racing towards us like the Road Runner roaring down the rocky highways of a yellow and orange Warner Brothers desert, and I don’t even have an Acme rocket sled at my disposal to stop it.

So I may as well just resign myself to the inevitable, and make sure I’m prepared with plentiful entertainments to make the season suitably jolly.

A couple of years back, I decided that at the AKA Grotto we would have a Christmas movie every year. (This is, of course, just an excuse for me to watch old movies. Let’s not kid ourselves.)

For the first Christmas in our new home, the choice was easy: It’s A Wonderful Life, the heartwarming confection about a suicidal depressive beset on all sides by small-mindedness, avarice, incomptenece, bullying and impending bankruptcy. It takes a particularly sick world to hold this movie up as The Spirit of Christmas, but I ain’t complaining. Dark, mean, and hard. Like Jim Kelly in a vendetta kind of mood.

Then, last year, I chose Planes, Trains & Automobiles. Yes, I know. My memory failed me on that one, ‘cos it’s a Thanksgiving movie, not a Christmas movie. Moving swiftly on...

This year, still mired in my strange 80s kick, I’m struggling to choose between two movies. Should it be Scrooged, with Bill Murray as (kinda) Ebenezer Scrooge, transposing Dickensian London to modern-day New York, and shifting the action to the life of a misanthropic television executive? With added Robert Mitchum for extra crustiness? And who could resist a side order of Lee Majors? Yes, TV’s Colt Seavers! It’s almost enough to make me start singing The Unknown Stuntman.

Or should I go for the classic (and I don’t use the word lightly) Trading Places? Dan Aykroyd and Eddie Murphy when they were still funny! Jamie Lee Curtis when she was still hot! Denholm Elliott when he was still alive!

I think I’m going to have to make it a double-bill, because next year, I’m determined to choose Die Hard. Yippiekyay!

Well, I'm not the kind to kiss and tell, But I've been seen with Farrah.
I've never been with anything less than a nine, so fine...

Penetrating Logic

Brazilian singer Daniela Mercury is an ambassador for UNICEF and the U.N. anti-AIDS program. The Vatican has decided to drop her from its Christmas fund raising concert, because she planned to advocate the use of condoms to fight AIDS during her performance at the show.

The World Health Organisation has estimated that AIDS has killed more than 25 million people since it was first recognized in 1981. This makes Avian Flu look like the sniffles. So far, in 2005 alone, AIDS has claimed an estimated 3.1 million (between 2.8 and 3.6 million) of which more than half a million (570,000) were children.

Fact is: something as simple and inexpensive as a male latex condom is the single most effective method to prevent the transmission of HIV. And they make for great water bombs, too.

Speaking at a news conference, event organizer Father Giuseppe Bellucci stated that "She was excluded because she had announced that at the concert she would openly promote the use of condoms to fight the plague of AIDS."

No, I don’t understand either. Given a choice between a raincoat for your rod, and the slow and painful depletion of your immune system, is it really so difficult to work out which is the lesser evil?

Living In A Box

As the glacial winds pick up their pace, I become more and more reluctant to venture out in search of entertainment. So I’ve been raiding my DVD collection for comfort. Usually, I’ll watch anything that I’ve never seen. I’ve got pretty catholic tastes, and I’ll give anything a punt once.

But I haven’t felt like doing that too much for the last couple of weeks. I’ve been retreating into the old favourites, happily revisiting Galaxy Quest, Reservoir Dogs and True Romance. An old favourite is just as warming as a crafty nip from the bottle on a cold winter’s night, when the rest of the AKA clan are either out or asleep.

Last night, I felt the need to return to the unwatched pile and popped on the remake of Assault on Precinct 13. Short review = Pointless remake that doesn’t touch the John Carpenter original. But I digress…

I was pleasantly surprised to see 80s hardass stalwart Brian Dennehy in a supporting role. And it’s got me spinning off into an 80s revival kick. I used to love the cheesefest of the two F/X movies, centred on the premise of a special effects whiz and his rubber-masked crime-fighting remote-control sleight-of-hand. Any movie that has the massive balls to end with Imagination’s Just an Illusion is pretty good in my book.

Just ordered myself the fantastic Best Seller on DVD. God, I used to geek out to that movie. Brian Dennehy paired with one of the finest slices of James Woods and his Glorious Sneer you will ever see.

But this whole 80s kick could get out of hand…I’m already getting the urge to track down Cherry 2000 and Blow Out and Trancers and Body Double and…

If my hair starts to get fluffier, and my jeans start looking a little stone-washed, you all have my permission to pop a cap in my brain pan.

Scarlet Billows Start to Spread

Inexplicably, I’ve had Bobby Darin’s Mack the Knife throbbing in my head all day. And it’s not bothering me in the slightest, although I might have to kill it with a drink or two before I go to bed tonight.

I’ve got a twitchy, restless mind today. I can’t concentrate on a single bloody thing, and every time I try and grasp for a rogue thought, it oozes out of my fingers and swims away to a darkened corner where I can’t seem to get at it. I’ve got a fistful of writing ideas, which I know for a FACT I will never be able to nail down, because they are too sodding flimsy, and I can’t focus enough to make the fuckers stay still.

Spent hours today embarking on Christmas shopping online, so I don’t have to brave the fetid chav hordes of Oxford Street. Instead, I’ll have to spend the next few weekends going to the Post Office to rescue stray parcels that the postman couldn’t get through the letterbox.

I need a fucking holiday. That’s what I want for Christmas. A week away from the keyboard, away from the phone, away from all the time-sapping bullshit that just muddies the grey mush between my ears. A remote hotel, a raging fire, a fully-stocked bar and a stack of books. That’ll do me just fine.

OK, that’s enough of my bitching. As you were.

Look out, old Macky is back!

The Annotated AKA

Starved of real-world chicanery to share with the world at the moment, it’s time for another look at what is twisting my melons in the multifarious world of popular culture. Embrace my awesome amphigory thus!

Kiss Kiss Bang Bang
“This isn't good cop, bad cop. This is fag and New Yorker.”
I could describe this as a literate deconstruction of genre tropes, but that would almost certainly ensure you wouldn’t want to see it. And that would be a mistake. Because this is the most fun you can have in a dark room with all your clothes on this side of Christmas. Ridiculously talented and underrated writer Shane Black breaks an almost-decade long absence from cinemas, returning to play with the idea of a tough crime movie with whipsmart dialogue and two mismatched buddies in the genre that he reinvented with the likes of Lethal Weapon, The Last Boy Scout and The Long Kiss Goodnight, and he’s joined by a couple of ridiculously talented and underrated actors in the shape of Robert Downey Jr. and Val Kilmer. Fast, mean, funny and hugely entertaining.

Broken Flowers
From the hipster jailbirds of Down by Law and the Memphis-bound Elvis junkies of Mystery Train to urban samurai Ghost Dog and displaced accountant William Blake stranded on the edge of the western frontier in Dead Man, Jim Jarmusch is a master at chronicling the Lives of Loners. To his Valhalla of Loners he can now add Don Johnston (Bill Murray), an impassive Lothario reluctantly sifting through his past loves, without even being quite sure what he is looking for, or even if he wants to find it. As always with Jarmusch, the soundtrack is phenomenal, shifting from Marvin Gaye to the Brian Jonestown Massacre, with Johnston accompanied on his odyssey by the Ethiopian jazz-funk of Mulatu Astatke. Comparisons with Lost in Translation are inevitable, but this is a far richer, more resonant work full of spot-on performances and no easy answers. Brilliant.

The Complete Bod
And now for something completely different. For those who don’t know, Bod was a series of children’s cartoons first aired 30 years ago on British television. Anyone who ever saw it will have the image of the androgynous bald little Bod in his yellow suit seared indelibly into the memories of their inner child. The animation was simplicity itself (a harsher man would call it primitive), and the dulcet tones of John Le Mesurier masterfully narrated the tales of Bod and his friends. Then there was Derek Griffith’s now-legendary infectious music, the game of “Snap!” at the end, and a supporting cartoon in the shape of Alberto Frog and his Amazing Animal Band…

Now, I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking: “Dude, why the fuck are you talking about some 30-year old cartoon?” Well, I’ll tell you. Despondent over the depressingly shallow and toe-curlingly inept selection of children’s entertainments available for my fourteen-month old daughter, I thought it was time to start weaning her on the classics, and bought the DVD of all 13 episodes. And she loves it! As soon as the mellifluous flute from Bod’s theme tune starts up, she is busting moves like a young James Brown. Buttercup usually only dances that hard when I’m playing her some heavy funk, or when she catches a snatch of some Bhangra at the in-laws. So, I spit in the face of the hollow computer-generated pixelshit squirted in the eyes of pre-schoolers. Flat 2-D animations hitting all the right notes still works every, single time. Want to get a Bod fix? Check out this website, where there is a full episode to tickle your nostalgia buds or to awaken you to the delights of a simpler time.

Aaaagh! My Eyes!!

I’ve just spent the entire morning wading through the Office Spam Filter looking for valid e-mails that have gotten themselves ensnared in its sticky web. I want to stab out my eyes with straightened paper clips now.

On the positive side, I have learned a few things:

I now know more about Viagra, Cialis and Hoodia than anyone on the planet. Fact.

There are a lot of wealthy Nigerians who really need my bank details. There are live girls waiting to talk with me right now! Lots of people want to offer me loans, stock tips, fake Rolexes, pet care, cures for baldness, and “hypoallergenic and dishwasher safe” sex toys.

I have also revelled in the limited joys of the deliberate misspelling, those amateurish tricks designed to fool a Spam Filter. You know the sort of thing I mean: pr0n; brest; secksual disfunktion.

So, 4000 e-mails later, my eyes burn from the fire of a thousand blazing pixels. I need a nap followed by gently massaging coffee grounds and Jack Daniel’s into my tear ducts.

New Coat of Paint

"Let's put a new coat of paint on this lonesome old town
Set 'em up, we'll be knockin' em down.
You wear a dress, baby, and I'll wear a tie.
We'll laugh at that old bloodshot moon in that burgundy sky" Tom Waits

Yes, I've changed the template. I got bored of the stagnant inert monochrome of that old one, so I've had the builders in.

Brand new threads, same old napalm attitude. Enjoy.

So this is Planet Houston

General Zod does not take orders. He gives them.

Vote General Zod in 2008!

As the man says: “I win. I always win. Is there no one on this planet to even challenge me?”

With you it's always meme meme meme

The Internet is trying to teach me things. But I’m not entirely convinced that the Internet is an honest and wise Consigliere. These are the things that the Internet is trying to tell me, via the medium of Blogthings, which has just executed my last working hour stone dead. Lies, flattery, misinformation, disinformation, or just cold hard truths? You decide!

Your Logical Intelligence is Below Average
Your Verbal Intelligence is Genius
Your Mathematical Intelligence is Average
Your General Knowledge is Exceptional

You are elegant, withdrawn, and brilliant.
Your mind is a weapon, able to solve any puzzle.
You are also great at poking holes in arguments and common beliefs.
For you, comfort and calm are very important.
You tend to thrive on your own and shrug off most affection.
You prefer to protect your emotions and stay strong.

You May Be a Bit Schizotypal ...
A bit odd and socially isolated.
You couldn't care less of what others think.
And some of your beliefs are a little weird.

Your Personality Type
The Idealist

You are creative with a great imagination, living in your own inner world.
Open minded and accepting, you strive for harmony in your important relationships.
It takes a long time for people to get to know you. You are hesitant to let people get close.
But once you care for someone, you do everything you can to help them grow and develop.

You would make an excellent writer, psychologist, or artist.

Your Dominant Intelligence is Linguistic Intelligence

You are excellent with words and language. You explain yourself well.
An elegant speaker, you can converse well with anyone on the fly.
You are also good at remembering information and convincing someone of your point of view.
A master of creative phrasing and unique words, you enjoy expanding your vocabulary.

You would make a fantastic poet, journalist, writer, teacher, lawyer, politician, or translator.

Your World View
You are a happy, well-balanced person who likes people and is liked by others.
You question whether many conventional views on morality are valid under all circumstances.
You are essentially a content person.
Sometimes, you consider yourself a little superior.
You are moral by your own standards.
You believe that morality is what best suits the occasion.

You Are 80% Weird
You're more than quirky, you're downright strange.
But you're also strangely compelling, like a cult leader.

You Are Scary
You even scare scary people sometimes!

Your Inner Child Is Surprised
You see many things through the eyes of a child.
Meaning, you're rarely cynical or jaded.
You cherish all of the details in life.
Easily fascinated, you enjoy experiencing new things.

How You Live Your Life
You seem to be straight forward, but you keep a lot inside.
You're laid back and chill, but sometimes you care too much about what others think.
You tend to have one best friend you hang with, as opposed to many acquaintances.
Some of your past dreams have disappointed you, but you don't let it get you down.

Invisible People

Running late to work today (which is becoming an increasingly frequent occurrence, but that’s a whole ‘nother story), so I had to take a bus from Wembley Stadium to finish off my journey to the office.

There was a man sitting at the bus stop drinking from a can of strong cider. At nine in the morning. He had his dog on a leash, and he didn’t look like he was waiting for a bus. He just felt like sitting at a bus stop at nine in the morning drinking strong cider.

And then he started talking to me. Usually, I would recoil from having a chat with a strange early morning boozer at a bus stop, but I was feeling pretty good this morning, so we got chatting. And we talked about his job and his dog and Diwali and traffic and politics, whilst cars churned past slowly in the background and the leaves of autumn coated the pavement at our feet like a second skin.

It was the best conversation I’ve had with anyone all week. There were no pretences, no-one working an angle, no-one was trying to get something out of someone. No bullshit of any kind. It was just refreshingly open and engaging and honest and, well, it was great.

And if I had thought about it for even a second before talking to the man, I probably wouldn’t have even got involved. I would have just retreated into the cocoon of my iPod, shutting out the man and his words.

I should know better, really. People who don’t know me always tend to find me intimidating and give me a wide berth. I dress predominantly in black, I’m 6 foot 3, I tend to shave only once a week, I give off very strong “fuck off” vibes, and I don’t talk for the sake of talking. I only talk if I’ve got something to say, which often makes people think I’m aloof and arrogant. I don’t think I’m either. I’m just not one of those people who witter on endlessly for the sake of filling the air with noise.

Eventually the bus arrived, and I bid the stranger goodbye. Seconds later, I was back in my bubble, my headphones sealing me off from the crowds of people, some old-school Digital Underground piped directly into my brainpan.

And now I’ll sit in almost complete silence until 5.30 tonight when the sky will be black again, as my colleagues avoid the surly, arrogant, scary dude in the corner.

Dark Water

Directly outside my office flows a section of the Grand Union Canal. This rank, polluted body of water stretches for 135 miles, linking London and Birmingham. This impressive passage has existed in its current form since 1 January 1929…

And if people don’t quit fucking with me, their bloated corpses will be floating in that goddamn canal tonight, with nothing but Diwali fireworks illuminating their misshapen faces and black little dead eyes. I am having the worst fucking working day I can remember since about, oh, I don’t know, some time in 2003.

I can see homicide in my future...

Fast Fiction 4 - I'm Horrible with Words

Title: I'm Horrible with Words
Challenger: Jennifer W.K.
Length: Exactly 200 Words

The empty Word document taunted him, searing his retinas ever so gently with its harsh white glare.

Writing letters of resignation was always so hard. You almost have to be apologetic for leaving a company. And humble. And you even have to thank them, like a four-year old leaving a birthday party: “Thank you for having me!”

The low wages, the unpaid overtime, the abuse, the condescension…and you still have to allow one final humiliation by smiling and saying “Thank you”. Well, fuck that!

He flexed his fingers (which had stiffened horribly from hovering motionless over the keyboard so long), and they cracked like a ball bouncing spasmodically around a roulette wheel.

And all of a sudden the words were flying from his fingertips. They went exactly like this:

“There are certain qualities I look for in an employer. Like an IQ higher than that of a lobotomised gecko. I’ve wasted three years of my life carrying out your every moronic request, and my belt buckle has more charisma than you. By the way, I’ve backed up your hard drive, and will be forwarding your cache of kiddie porn to the authorities. Please kill yourself. I’m off.”

There. That’ll work.

The End of Fast Fiction Is Nigh…

OK, folks, there’s only 12 more hours to go before I wrap this up. So, if anyone else wants to take a pop at breaking my mind, or if you just fancy commissioning a nice, swift stab of prose from me, this is your last chance. The Comments Box below is splayed wide open awaiting your penetrating words.

Before I forget, some acknowledgements. I would be remiss if I didn’t give credit where it is due. The inspiration for this stunt came from Lee “Budgie” Barnett’s blog, where he has racked up over 85 slabs of Fast Fiction, and he’s still going strong. Impressive stuff.

Special thanks also to both Brutha B and Bert for acting as joint cheerleaders, pimps and midwives for these Adventures in Fiction. I only wish that I had a Blankety Blank chequebook and pen and a Dusty Bin to reward you both.

Tick tock, tick tock…

Fast Fiction 3 - You've Got To Help!

Title: You've Got To Help!
(Strictly speaking, this is 5 words, but I am hungry and grateful for all willing challengers)
Challenger: DG
Length: Exactly 200 Words

I was waiting for the bus home when I saw the White Van slam into the rear of the Hatchback, followed by two distinct roars.

The first was the Hatchback erupting into flames. The second came from the large lion trying to force its head in between the van’s buckled back doors.

Cue the screaming. There’s always screaming. And shouting. Can’t these people shut up and let me watch the damn show? These people with their drab uneventful lives: sleep, eat, work, shit, shower, repeat. Day after day after day. And look what’s served up as an entertaining bit of Reality Theatre right on the street corner to terminate that predictable drudgery! Drama and Explosions and Carnivores!

“Help them! You’ve got to help!”

Which idiot said that? Can’t they see?? That family of five were gone just after “Boom!”. And the bloke driving the van went through the windscreen and straight on the barbecue. There’s no-one left to help.

The lion was still struggling, though.

Afterwards, the newspapers referred to me as “the brave unidentified stranger”. Probably because I was the only one willing to walk towards the burning wreckage. But I just wanted something to light my cigarette with.

Fast Fiction 2 - No Moaning No More

Title: No Moaning No More
Challenger: Bert
Length: Exactly 200 words

Blind Berry Jackson made it to the sink just in time to spit out another chunk of blackened lung meat. He knew that he didn’t have much longer.

The needle crackled and popped as he dropped it onto the 45 of his decades-old hit “No Moaning No More”, creaking out of the tinny speaker he had propped up next to his cot.

Jackson collapsed back onto the worn mattress, and felt the tired bedsprings poking at his skeletal flesh. A painful cough ripped through him, as memories of years on the Chitlin Circuit erupted on the back of his eyelids.

The white girls used to sneak in the back door to hear him playing those run-down ol’ dives, hypnotised by his delicate fretwork, his gnarled fingers shimmying across the guitar. He used to fix them with his one good eye, and his rumbling voice would ooze out. “Know what they say? Darker the Berry, Sweeter the Juice.” They would melt when they heard that.

In a moment of perfect synchronicity, the needle skated off the end of the record just in time to catch the last breath rattling out of his body and into the fusty air of the room.

Fast Fiction 1 - Will Mime For Food

Title: Will Mime For Food
Challenger: B
Length: Exactly 200 words

As a huge blob of rain hit him right in the eye, all Marcel could think was, “This is going to end badly”.

He stared helplessly as a lump of white makeup rolled down his cheek and landed like a lump of bird diarrhoea on his shiny black loafers. As the heavens opened, the crowd started to disperse. Women screeched as the rain came down, as if they were The Wicked Witch of the Fucking West, melting under the onslaught of filthy city water.

Each bullet of rain took bits of his facepaint off and hurled them at the ground. He wanted to shout “Stop!” at the fickle punters, but he was sure that would be breaking some old mime Code of Conduct.

His black gloves now streaked with red and white, he bent over to pick up the battered trilby at his feet and flicked through the varied detritus resting at the bottom.

Three pounds and fifty nine pence. Some euros. (What the hell was he supposed to do with euros?) A guy’s phone number scrawled on the back of an old travelcard. And a greasy wrapper containing a half-eaten cheeseburger. Oh well, at least dinner’s taken care of.

Fast Fiction - Prologue

And we're off. Before I dive in, a small disclaimer that applies to everything written as part of this challenge. Here it is:

All site contents ©2005 AKA, Sucker Punch and http://straybullets.blogspot.com. The author has asserted his moral (and immoral) rights. Sho Nuff! Absolutely nothing found here may be used without prior permission of AKA, but feel free to link to anything you find here.

OK, now that's out of the way, let us begin.

Fast Fiction – Let’s Get Ready to Rumble!

OK, let’s play. I want you to challenge me. This is the deal:

You give me a 4-word title (do it in the Comments Box below), and I’ll write a short piece of fast fiction. For the purposes of this challenge, I’ll define Fast Fiction thus: Firstly, it’s short. Very short. Let’s say it’s a piece of fiction of 200 words. Secondly, I have to really bang it out. This means no re-writing, no polishing, and no screwing around staring at the screen wondering what I’m going to write. And that’s it.

So, you throw a 4-word title at me (as long as it isn’t a pre-existing 4-word title, so no To Kill a Mockingbird or Catcher in the Rye – be original), and in return I’ll throw up a 200-word piece of fast fiction just for you. You only get one piece each. But everyone who challenges me gets one. (Judging by the miniscule number of hits this blog gets, this isn’t going to last long, but, screw it, what the hell?)

Ready, steady…GO!

Goodbye Grey Sky, Hello Blue

The weekend comes, my cycle hums, ready to race to yoooooooooooou.

Yes, only hours to go before the weekend arrives and I can claw back a couple of days of normality for myself. So, let’s take a leisurely stroll through the news:

Despite strenuous denials from the White House (because they are usually oh so honest), George W. Bush has been flapping those inarticulate gums once again. There’s no stopping the man! This time, Bush is reported as saying: “God would tell me 'George, go and end the tyranny in Iraq'. And I did."

Oooookay…

Now, correct me if I’m wrong here, but isn’t that the kind of shit that serial killers say ALL THE TIME? Stuff like: “Sorry, mister, but God told me ‘Jack, you must cut up that little girl and then feed her parts to your hogs out back!’" or maybe: “The Lord came to me in my sleep and said 'Frankie? You know that woman of yours ain’t right! You better get that axe from the barn and teach her whose boss!’”.

INSANE people claim to perpetrate acts of violence due to The Voice Of God. PRESIDENTS should take counsel from people who aren’t just disembodied voices telling them to go and kill.

What else? Well, there’s this story on the BBC which begins: “Cutting edge studies on artificial dogs' testicles, locusts which watch Star Wars and penguin defecation have been honoured with Ig Nobel awards.”…I think I can let this pass without comment, because it speaks for itself….

And finally, Stately Wayne Manor escapes being burnt to the ground by a raging fire.

That’s all. I have a weekend to enjoy.

These Happy Days are your's and mine, Happy Days.

Kneel before Zod!

Now, I like comics more than most, but this is just sick and wrong. That poor, poor kid…

Maybe the Avian Flu that’s about to wipe us off the face of the planet is coming to thin out the rapidly growing number of insane morons on our poor, ravaged, twisted little mudball.

And when did “pandemic” replace “epidemic” as the all-purpose media-endorsed word to describe a massive widespread something-or-other? Hmmm? Enquiring minds want to know!

Can I Take It To The Bridge?

Ugh. I feel dog tired today. Worked 12 and a half hours yesterday, which meant I got up in the dark at 6.30 and ended up rolling in again at close to midnight. Everyone was asleep when I left in the morning, and everyone was asleep when I got back home.

Even James Brown screeching “Hot Pants!” into my ears isn’t helping me to shake myself out of this fug of exhaustion today. Whenever I try to do anything, my body responds just a little bit too slowly, as if I’m swilling around in a translucent vat of molasses, pushing against the air just to get anything moving.

A short while ago, I forced myself to go outside to grab lunch, and to sit and read a book. Yes, it’s a bit too cold to be sitting outside, but I needed a bracing hit of murky North London oxygen. As I sat reading, a massive hunk of cigar ash landed in my lap and exploded in a little cloud of grey filth all over my clothes, courtesy of my boss flicking his rancid stogie off the wrought-iron staircase, which curls from the ground floor straight up to the second floor fire exit, where he was sucking on that wizened little necrotic cock of a cigar like he was gobbling down some indispensable elixir.

Like I said before: Ugh.

Well, once today is over, I’m off for the rest of the week, the reason being that tomorrow marks Buttercup’s First Birthday. Time flies, don’t it?

The combined forces of my commute and my job keep me away from her far too much at the moment, but I make the most of it over the weekends. This last weekend, I taught her how to hum the theme tune from Bonanza. I have no idea why, other than the fact that we both had a hell of a lot of fun doing it. And I think the pair of us have now seen Monsters, Inc far too many times to be healthy, I’m sure. She scooches across the couch until she’s comfortably nestled into the crook of my shoulder, sucking vigorously on her thumb with her eyes glued to those uniquely popping Pixar colours. Anyone who says that small children have a short attention span hasn’t seen my daughter giggling at the antics of Monstropolis’s Finest.

Anyway, I can’t hang around here all day. I’ve still got a good few hours work that they want to squeeze out of me.

Epistemology

Here's a quick rundown of the stuff that's been floating around my ganglia and sparking bright lights across my cerebral cortex over the last couple of weeks. Check out the shape of AKA's head in September '05:

Land of the Dead – George A. Romero, the Big Daddy of them all, finally got the opportunity to bring his shuffling flesheaters back for a fourth instalment of The Dead. As always, Romero has his satirical laser-sharp eyes on the world around us, taking potshots at Homeland Security, and a world in which it is becoming increasingly difficult to tell who are the monsters and who are the victims. Despite the hefty bodycount, this is by far the most optimistic entry in the series.

Scott Pilgrim – Only half way through Volume 1 at the moment, so I'm hesitant to recommend this wholeheartedly, but so far, so great. Riffing on everything from manga comics to videogames, Bryan Lee O'Malley's tale of a young Canadian slacker trying to woo the rollerblading object of his dreams is vibrant, passionate and damn good fun. Jump onto the Pilgrim bandwagon before the rumoured Edgar Wright movie adaptation comes along, so you can say you knew about it years ago.

Carl Hiaasen's Skinny Dip – If Elmore Leonard was an outraged liberal and committed environmentalist, he'd be Carl Hiaasen. One part crime fiction and one part justifiably vitriolic screed about the rape of Florida's Everglades, with a nice line in oddball characters and killer one-liners. There might be a feeling of over-familiarity for Hiaasen fans, but a page-turner nevertheless.

The Engine - Comic creator and curmudgeonly Old Bastard Warren Ellis has set up a new online forum with the purpose of giving a home to people who want to promote their indy comics, or just for creators to hang out and talk about creating, writing, drawing and promoting their creations. Obviously geared primarily towards comic writers, but a lot of stuff here is applicable to anyone of an Artistic Bent with that fire in the blood that makes you want to get stuff out of your head and out into the world. And it's an Absolutely No Superhero Zone. Which is nice for a change. Go, Explore.

And with that, I'm gone.

Iron in the Soul

Jean-Paul Sartre was one miserable motherfucker. In my teens, I tried to read Nausea and I absolutely hated it. I think it remains the only time in my life I have given up reading a book half way through and hurled it into a rubbish bin in disgust. He may as well have just sprayed arsejuice all over the page. That’s how appalled I was with his moping, pretentious moans of existential pain. I’ll take a chunk of Camus over Sartre any day of the week.

But there is one thing of value that ol’ JPS squeezed out of his anguished existence. This excellent, multi-purpose quotation that I find sums up my feelings on an increasingly regular basis: “Hell is Other People”.

It was the office Summer Party last week. (Judging by the arctic gusts off the Thames, I’m guessing the party was a month late this year). And it’s becoming obvious to me that I don’t like most people. Outside of my circle of friends and family, I’d rather spend time on my own than be subjected to the inebriated blatherings of complete strangers.

I don’t know why People I Don’t Know think that it’s appropriate to share their sexual predilections and patently-bogus peccadilloes with me. I don’t care how drunk you are, I really don’t want to hear about your cunnilingus technique, and I could do without the exaggerated reconstructions to underscore the point.

And I hate the whole social pantomime of being asked dull questions that I don’t want to answer, followed by watching them as they ignore everything I say. Gah!

Other than that, the New Job is OK. No, really, it is.

Damn, too much coffee and not enough water today. I’m going to feel like I’ve been punched in the kidneys later on.

Query-Based Snapshot

Yes, clearly I’m a terrible bastard because I started a new job and then dropped off the face of the Earth.

OK. Here’s my current thinking on the shape of my world - I have absolutely loads of interesting, nascent observations about The New Job, the people, the area, etc…but I’m holding fire at the moment for two reasons:

Firstly, this is early days still, and whatever I write will inevitably become obsolete within the subsequent 24 hours and, secondly, and more importantly, I’m working in the kind of office where I wouldn’t be surprised if someone stumbled across the blog, and then I’m fucked. So, I’m not planning on writing jack until I’ve sussed the place out a bit better.

I’ll tell you this much, though: About a week ago, I set fire to a computer, and the smell of scorched plastic filled the office for hours. I was convinced I was going to get shown the door, but I managed to get away with it. I have no idea how…

Another reason I haven’t blogged much in the last couple of weeks: I suddenly got a great idea for a zombie movie that wouldn’t stop bopping around in my head, and it’s still pinballing away up there. It’s gone from a deadly serious zombie movie last week and now it’s mutated into a satirical, very funny zombie comic book this week. Still tinkering with it. Knowing me, it’ll just end up on the growing pile of Things I Must Finish Writing At Some Point. I’m going to keep punching it until it surrenders to me and turns into something workable. I’m very itchy creatively at the moment, and I have to keep scratching or the desire to write becomes a bit too overwhelming. Developing…

Woolly Headed

Note to self: never, ever blog drunk again. Ever. That was two in a row!

Not making apologies here, really, just adding a bit of context. A surfeit of alcohol allows my righteous indignation to rage unchecked, careering down the slippery roads of my thoughts and pulling free of my fingers out onto the keyboard and released untamed into the world.

One last link on the Katrina nightmare. And that’s the last I’ll say on the matter.

God, I’ve got a raging hangover today…

Dixie City Jam

Over 24 hours later, and I’m even more disgusted with Bush than ever. Correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t it that inept fuck’s job to look after the people of the United States? Isn’t that one of the fundamental components of his job despcription? Isn’t failing in that regard kind of a deal-breaker? Can’t you finally impeach this fool?

With regards to rescue and relief efforts, Bush concedes: “The results are not acceptable.” Not acceptable? Not fucking acceptable? You are the President! Fix it! That is your JOB! Being President isn’t a hobby you fit in around international banquets and a round of golf! Your concession doesn’t change the staggering and mounting death toll. The man is a killer by omission. His failure to act effectively is essentially a death sentence for hundreds of people.

But wait, there’s more, amidst reports of lootings and shootings, there is this (excerpted from BBC News articles): "You've got an entire nursing home evacuated five days ago - people in wheelchairs sitting there and slowly dying," and, worse, this: “At the Superdome there were two reports of rape, one involving a child.”

It may be 1.40 in the morning, and I may have a total of six beers obliterating vital neurons and receptors in my weary head, as well as the early flutterings of a killer hangover, but I can say without a shadow of a doubt that It Is Now Official: The World is in serious trouble and I shudder to think of what is going to come next.

A hot shower, two pints of water and a good night’s sleep might make me feel superficially better, but the facts will remain unalterably and distressingly the same…

Katrina and the Waves

Good Evening, and welcome to Drunk Blogging! Nothing like an ice cold beer or three after a not-remotely hard day in the office.

Today, I was going to write about my first day on the new job, but my pleasure at rejoining the Daily Grind has to go on hold temporarily. I’ll come back to AKA’s Fun with Work another day. This evening, I’ve got my blood up…

Before I start, go and take a look at this. Go on. I’ll wait.

So, that motherfucker, not content with the deaths of Iraqi civilians and US troops in huge and growing numbers, decides to just fiddle with his little instrument whilst people on Homeland (and I have no doubt the irony of that will be lost on him) watch their lives literally float away.

How the FUCK did this man get re-elected? How can this fucking chunk of barely-sentient mucus be the leader of the world's last superpower? Doesn't this shit terrify and disgust you? Can someone please please please assassinate this prick?

In completely unrelated news (and totally jarring and inappropriate contrast), the OTHER thing making me sick this week is this – Tom Sizemore spunking away his dwindling millions. (By the way, this is by far the least worksafe thing you are likely to see today, unless you’re the webmaster for porn sites of corpulent Hollywood burnouts).

Tabula Rasa

I got myself a new job.

What’s that you say? A little too understated? OK, I’ll take another run at it.

I’VE GOT A NEW JOB!!!

I’m not going to go into any more details at this point…Just think of this blog posting as an episode of Lost – just enough information to keep you interested, but not enough to answer any of the really big questions…

Back of my neck getting dirty and gritty

Yesterday didn’t go anywhere near According to Plan. My adventures with the filthy bitch I call London went a little something like this:

I was all set for an interview in the early afternoon – one that, despite my financial travails, I was reluctant to attend, primarily because it would involve a daily round-trip commute of between 5 to 6 hours. But, I’m in no position to turn down the prospect of cold, hard green, so I got up early to get ready for the trek to Guildford.

After hours of travel, my journey stalled at Waterloo. Someone had decided to embark on a Train-Assisted Suicide, eviscerating themselves on the front of a speeding train. I waited for almost 90 minutes, but the departure boards weren’t working in my favour, so my journey abruptly terminated itself, and I had to cancel the interview.

Well, there’s no point in wasting a perfectly good day in the Big City, all gangster lean in my fly suit, so I ambled over to the South Bank. It was a beautiful day, and the big concrete monster on the Thames was heaving with action. The idiosyncratic and ill-considered architecture of the South Bank makes it one of the best places in the country for skateboarding, and the skatekids were out in full force, flying up and down the concrete, adding to their growing collections of grazes and bruises, in front of a beautiful wall of pretty sweet graffiti tags. The second-hand bookstalls were crowded with bargain hunters and tourists, riffling through the musty tomes looking for Words on the Cheap. I grabbed a spot outside the NFT bar (now known as the Film Café, but I don’t think I’ll ever call it that), and nursed an ice-cold beer while I plotted out the rest of the day. I broke up the day with a leisurely walk over to Charing Cross Road to snag myself some cheap books or CDs. But it was back to the South Bank for the evening.

I scoured the film listings to find something I wanted to watch, but the batch of new releases was painfully uninspiring, so I decided to kick it a little bit old-school, and went for His Kind of Woman at the NFT, a suitably twisted offering from the time when Howard Hughes had his hands on RKO, a Robert Mitchum – Jane Russell confection, from a time when men had glass jaws, women were dames, and Vincent Price was the comic relief. A perfect ending for a luxuriously lazy Summer day.

But now I have to get the hell of this computer and get ready to make moves to Alperton for another interview. This could be the one...

Makes You Wanna Hustle

At some point last week, something slotted into the right hole somehow and my perpetual efforts at securing a regular pay cheque started to bear strange fruit. I don’t know how, I don’t know when, I try not to question the fickle finger of fortune or the capricious cock of karma – I just take my lucky breaks where I can get ‘em. So, I've got to the interview stage of the game, and I have a feeling I'll be back in the Working World again by next week. We shall see.

Nevertheless, instead of burning up phone lines, I’m now running around to a selection of the most unusual places trying to dazzle prospective employers with my charm, wit, poise and a selection of my PG-rated party tricks. Just hook me up with a hypodermic needle, a handful of baby tomatoes and a bottle of cheap vodka. It slays ‘em every time. Sho nuff.

Anyway, I can’t get into all that now. Just wanted to point you in the direction of this - Definitive evidence that proofreading saves embarrassment.

Silver Scream

Mainstream Hollywood filmmaking is doomed. Doomed, I tells ya!

Look, this is from Dateline: Hollywood (by the way, all italics and highlighting are mine):

“A study analyzing the year’s box office data has revealed that a glut of original ideas is to blame for the year’s sharp downturn in box office revenue. Never-before-seen concepts like The Island, Stealth, and Cinderella Man have been some of the summer’s biggest disappointments, while remakes, sequels, and adaptations like Dukes of Hazzard, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and Fantastic Four are keeping the studios afloat. “This just goes to prove that the problem in Hollywood is too much originality,” said James D’arcy, president of Exhibition Analysis.”

By the Hoary Hosts of Hoggoth, both Hollywood studios AND filmgoers suck! Now, I’ll come clean and admit I liked both Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and even Fantastic Four, but, dammit, who the hell wants to see Dukes of Hazzard? A redneck carcrash of a movie based on a TV show that was absolutely terrible in its own right? Give me Smokey and the Bandit or the divine Cannonball Run over that anytime.

And Bewitched?? A film that can’t even stretch itself into actual remake territory, but nevertheless whips out its evil incancatations to unleash a volley of poisonous piss onto the grave of Elizabeth Montgomery. And don’t even get me started on the ridiculous prospect of Steve Martin “doing” Peter Sellers in The Pink Panther.

And whilst I’m on a role, here’s another question. I can’t be the only person bored of the endless Stiller, Wilson, Vaughan, Ferrell fratpack comedies, can I? Granted, there have been some good ‘uns, but the trailers for Wedding Crashers made my skin crawl, and I got a similar queasiness from the 40-Year Old Virgin trailers. Tired, tired ideas, repackaged seasonally, just so you don’t feel like we’re watching reruns, when only the surface has changed, but the guts of it all is identical.

Pre-movie trailers these days are just an unending litany of snapshots of remake, sequel, based on a TV show, comic book, novel, adolescent wetdream…

And Christmas so far seems to hold only opulent baubles like Narnia, Harry Potter and King Kong…I have nothing against big, shiny things, and for all I know, some of these movies may be good…but can’t we have some NEW big, shiny things to play with for a change?

The Man With The Plan

He’s been The King of New York, now it's time to make him The President of the United States!

Vote Walken in 2008!

And people say politics is no fun…

Conflict of Disinterest

During times of job search drudgery, I have become accustomed to hearing a variety of brush-offs from recruitment consultants. The two top rejections that I hear, in almost equal measure, are:

“You don’t have enough relevant experience for the role. It’s far too senior for you.”

Or

“You have too much experience for that particular role. It’s far too junior for you.”

It’s frustrating the shit out of me. I am now taking what I have dubbed “The Goldilocks Approach” to job hunting, looking for that Baby Bear Vacancy which fits me juuuuuuust right.

No Title Required

Wow.

Satanist dances on Reagan's grave...and urinates on Nixon's grave too.

Twilight Zone

I’m pretty sure that it’s nowhere near as dull for you to read this as it is for me to live it, so I’m going to give yet another update on the as-yet barren search for work. So, you have to suffer through this shit one more time:

Number of jobs applied for: 121
Number of interviews so far: Still only 1

And I’m running out of ideas about what to do about it.

Tom Stoppard once said that: “Every exit is an entry to somewhere.” Well, I exited my last job on June 17. Since then, I don’t think I’ve entered anything at all, other than a bizarre existence that entails an endless round of begging, phoning, e-mailing, pleading, and losing little fragments of my sanity that slip away and rest on my pillow when I get up every morning. I’m just sitting in a Cosmic Waiting Room hoping someone calls my name soon.

This is how Sisyphus must have felt.

Scores on the Doors

As Week 7 of the interminable Job Hunt begins, and I hunt that elusive hulking great salary like an impoverished Captain Ahab desperate to sate my own personal financial demons, I thought it might be time for an action-packed round of “Fun with Stats” with me, your host. So, have at thee!

Number of jobs applied for: 97
Number of interviews so far: 1
Number of helpful recruitment consultants: None

There. Now you know. But in this case, knowledge isn’t power. Sucks, don’t it?

In another part of the virtual world, the terrifyingly prolific Bert has called me out, asking: “Dear Jim. Can you fix it for me to find out what you have been listening to whilst being holed up in your pit?”

Now then, now then, ‘ow’s about that? You ask, I answer:

United Future Organization – The Sixth Sense
Prince – Gotta Stop (Messin’ Around)
Ramsey Lewis – That’s the Way of the World
De La Soul – Pawn Star
Smokey Robinson – Cruisin’
Prince – Cream
Gil Scott-Heron – Fast Lane
The Blackbyrds – Rock Creek Park
Jabba – Superbad
Red Hot Chilli Peppers – Mellowship Slinky in B Major
Public Enemy – Mind Terrorist

Happy now? Now, getouttahere, kid, ya bother me!

Two Countries separated by a Common Language

To any American journalists lurking around here, please take note:

There is no such thing as the “London Subway”. It’s called the “London Underground” or, to the 8 million Londoners who live in this fair city, it’s “The Tube”. Don’t try and bend our language to fit your lazy journalistic standards.

Pop Goes the Weasel

And another day of wacky “transport ‘n’ terrorists” mayhem kicks off in London, with some dude getting five rounds pumped into him at point blank range by undercover cops on a train at Stockwell Station.

I wonder if anyone can help me reconcile these two conflicting statements that the police keep giving out when something kicks off in London: “stay where you are” and “carry on as normal”. Huh?

AKA’s Movie Round-Up

You know what they keep telling writers with tedious regularity?

“Write what you know.”

Well, right now I don’t know shit. Apart from a few things about movies, those celluloid confections that give me a two-hour window into a life that isn’t mine. So, it’s time for me to chew your eyeballs right out of their sockets with what is Good and Right at your local cinema emporium and all fine purveyors of cinematic wonders. So, let’s do this:

Kung Fu Hustle – Imagine Shaw Brothers meets Looney Tunes, or Kill Bill’s Crazy 88 doing dick ‘n’ fart gags, and you just about scratch the surface of Stephen Chow’s retina-scorching love-letter to the golden age of martial arts cinema. Neither as cute or laugh-out-loud funny as Chow’s Shaolin Soccer, but still a solid use of a couple of stray hours that you need to fill. Like a throwing star to my frontal lobe, this kept me pinned to my cinema seat. Or maybe that was something sticky under my chair…

The Consequences of Love (Le conseguenze dell’amore) – The words “existential Italian thriller” may fill you with balls-shrinking dread, but this little gem is one of my favourites of the year so far. Any film that can keep you rapt for over an hour without even getting the story started must have a little something special on the go. Or maybe someone smeared Crack on the screen. I don’t know. Either way, this is a beautifully shot, meticulously paced character study of one man’s seemingly aimless existence, held together by the mesmerising central performance of Toni Servillo.

War of the Worlds – Watching scenes of mindless destruction and helpless death a week after the London bombings made me look at this film in a different way, and it certainly wasn’t the mindless bubblegum diversion that I expected it to be. Surprisingly dark, brutal and increasingly bleak, Spielberg proves that he still has the chops when it comes to edge-of-the-seat set pieces, even though, despite the note-perfect closing of the criminally underrated The Terminal, he shows that he STILL hasn’t worked out how to end a film, adding this to his growing list of “Great Movies That Just Don’t Know When To Stop”, along with AI Artificial Intelligence, Minority Report and Catch Me If You Can.

Back by Dope Demand

Hi, I’m blogger AKA. You might remember me from such blog entries as “Hate Crimes” and “Brother, Can You Spare A Job?” .

Yes, I know I haven’t been blogging much recently. But, dammit, I’ve been out of work for a month now and I don’t have a hell of a lot to say for myself. I have no “a funny thing happened on the way to work” anecdotes. No “moronic bullshit spouted by my hateful colleagues” stories. No “I saw this weird thing, and here are my irrelevant observations on it” type of meanderings.

Nevertheless, nature abhors a vacuum, so I’ll just keep ploughing on with this shit regardless. Here’s the short version of my last month of job-hunting: Applied for about fifty jobs so far. Managed to get one interview, but I didn’t get that job either. So despite my best efforts, I’m no closer to finding a new job at the moment.

I still have a few plates that are spinning away merrily, so I’ll just stay positive and keep on hammering at it. I don’t have any other choice. It’s either that, or go suck on an exhaust pipe. I’ll go with the former for the time being.

Other than the very occasional foray beyond the front doors of my humble abode to sneak a movie or two, I haven’t seen anyone or done anything of note. I am now officially the Crazed Hermit Man who mumbles into his stubble and glares at strangers in public. Oh yes I am.

When I’m not looking for work, I’m keeping my eyes on young Buttercup. She has now mastered the art of crawling, and I can’t look away for a second, because she can scoot across a room like a horizontal Peter Parker, getting herself entangled in all manner of seemingly innocuous household objects.

Another pitfall of Summer Unemployment is my weakness for Big Brother. Yes, I know I’ve written extensively about my hatred of Reality TV, but I’ve always had a debilitating weakness for this particular Freakshow. And with 24-hour live streaming, I’m always in danger of losing hours to this televisual time-thief.

Fuck me, my mobile keeps ringing while I’m trying to concentrate on writing this. But not one call is job-related.

Right, I feel like my writing muscles are now suitably limber. Thanks for the warm up. I’ve now got to go off and write some old boring shit that may or may not get me a well-paid permanent writing post with some fancy London-based company. Wish me luck. I fucking need it.

A Brief History of London Under Fire

Well, we certainly do live in interesting times.

With London such a fundamental part of my DNA, it would be inappropriate to ignore the events of last Thursday by refusing to mention them at all. It goes without saying that it was a horrible and unpleasant sequence of events that will leave a mark on my city. But it’s important to put things in perspective. So, here goes:

New York & the Pentagon - September 11 2001
Death toll: 2,986

Bali – October 12 2002
Death toll: 202
Wounded: 209

Madrid – March 11 2004
Death toll: 191
Wounded: 1,460

London – July 7 2005
Death toll: At the moment, over 50 confirmed
Wounded: Over 700

I’m not trying to diminish the events of last week. Without a doubt, it was a terrible day for London. But other cities have faced carnage far in excess of the London bombings last week. Let’s bear that in mind.

Putting things in historical perspective, London has faced far, far worse itself over the years. Look:

The Blitz – September 7 1940 – May 16 1941 (although bombing continued until the end of the Second World War in March 1945)
The Nazis carried out sustained and intensive bombing of UK targets, resulting in 43,000 deaths and the destruction of a million houses. And we are still standing strong.

And let’s not forget the frequent bomb attacks on London by the IRA from the Seventies right through to 2001. I can’t seem to get my hands on exact data for this at the moment, but London has a history of being bombed and attacked by the IRA. And we are still standing strong.

David Copeland, the London Nailbomber, targeted London’s gay, black and Asian communities in 1999. On April 17 1999, his first bomb went off on Electric Avenue in Brixton. His second bomb targeted Brick Lane, the heart of London’s Bangladeshi community. Copeland’s third and final nailbomb went off in the Admiral Duncan pub in Old Compton Street, a popular watering hole for London’s gay community. Three people died and over a hundred other people were wounded and maimed by the nails in the bomb. I was in a pub a street away when the Soho bomb went off. The pub shook ever so slightly. And then Soho was full of noise: the thwacking rotors of police helicopters in the sky; the streets blanketed in sirens and the desperate, insistent chirpings of mobile phones.

But back to last week. The bombers aren’t the only villains of this piece. There are others. Here are a few objects of my ire:

George W. Bush on July 4 2005, three days before the London bombings: "We're taking the fight to the terrorists abroad so we do not have to face them here at home."

Is that right, motherfucker? Tell that to the families of those injured and killed in Bali, London and Madrid. Time to find another angle for your spin to justify your continued atrocities all over the world in the name of “freedom”.

Here’s a doozy. This from Fox News’ top anchorman Brit Hume: “My first thought when I heard - just on a personal basis, when I heard there had been this attack and I saw the futures this morning, which were really in the tank, I thought, 'Hmmm, time to buy.'"

What a colossal, venal, shit-sucking scumbag. Want to respond to Mr. Hume? His e-mail address is brit.hume@foxnews.com and his office number is 202-824-6300.

All of London is back to work today. London’s the John Wayne, the Lee Marvin, and the Clint Eastwood of world capitals. We take a licking and keep on ticking. Don’t fuck with London.

I'll leave you with the words of London Mayor Ken Livingstone, which I think says it all best: "In the days that follow look at our airports, look at our sea ports and look at our railway stations and, even after your cowardly attack, you will see that people from the rest of Britain, people from around the world will arrive in London to become Londoners and to fulfil their dreams and achieve their potential.

They choose to come to London, as so many have come before because they come to be free, they come to live the life they choose, they come to be able to be themselves. They flee you because you tell them how they should live. They don't want that and nothing you do, however many of us you kill, will stop that flight to our city where freedom is strong and where people can live in harmony with one another. Whatever you do, however many you kill, you will fail."

(Special thanks to The Huffington Post and Wikipedia for helping me with the research for this piece.)

London's Burning

And so my fifth day of unwanted self-unemployment begins, and the sky is no longer on fire. And I’ve got yet another day of fruitless job-hunting ahead of me.

I haven’t had the chance to do any writing of any kind for the last week, and I fear this may turn into a permanent state of play until I start carving my day into immutable chunks: family time, job-hunting time, writing time, etc. At the moment, it’s just a huge lump of shapeless hours that disappear quickly and before I know it, the sun is setting again and I haven’t got anything done.

I’ve been battling a particularly virulent bout of hayfever for the last week, trying to get stuff done with my head swollen, a neverending supply of mucus clogging up my nostrils, strangling my brain, coagulating on mountains of tissues strewn all over the house. Lovely.

On top of that, London has been melting for the last week, a wall of heat pushing down from above, not a breeze in the air to take the edge off the fire. Yesterday, on the hottest day of the year, with temperatures topping out at around 31 degrees C, I bravely / stupidly (delete as applicable) ventured into the heart of London for a press screening. Which meant tackling the horrors of the unventilated subterranean inferno that is the London Underground, drowning in the sweat of a thousand commuters, my skin permanently slick with a sheen of bubbling perspiration, rapidly darkening with the grime of the Big Smoke clinging to me like a black membrane of ash.

And to make it worse, the air-conditioning at the cinema was broken…so there was a room full of film critics pumping out acrid heat, listlessly fanning themselves with press notes, swilling warm water that was supplied to try and keep us from passing out.

After the movie, there was a bit of a party thing going on, so I grabbed a couple of ice-cold beers and propped up the bar, with the beer turning into steam the second it touched my lips. I didn’t stay for long: I didn’t recognise anybody I knew there, so I headed for the exit soon after.

What else? The last week has included my leaving drinks from my last job; Father’s Day; Batman Begins…but I haven’t got time to get into all that now. There are jobs to find, writing deadlines to meet, facial hair to shave. Otherwise, before I know it, the demands of family life will interrupt my already fractured flow, and it will be the weekend again.

I’m busier now than when I had a full-time job! Where the hell has that 40 hours a week gone?

Liquor in the front, Poker in the rear

What can I tell you to stop the blood pouring from my eyes and the brains oozing out of my ears? The last hours of my current employment are dying away minute by interminable minute, and I’ve become so bored and disconnected from it all that I’m tempted to get up and head for the exit now, rather than wait for the hollow good wishes and back-slapping sure to be spewed onto me tomorrow morning.

Can’t wait to see the back of the lot of them, to be honest. Having these fucknuts pollute my life for the last ten months was quite a steep price to pay to watch my little girl grow up. A little girl that I am on the verge of renaming “Mad Monkey Kung Fu” by deed poll. My body seems to be the most exciting climbing frame she has ever seen, and her little legs flail around like fleshy nunchakus.

That is all. The next time you hear from me, I will have rejoined the ranks of the unemployed. Again.

Oh yes. One last thing. Stop reading this now. Find the nearest cinema and go and see Sin City. Go. Run. Now. Film of the Year so far (if you got the stones for it). A world where a film like this exists seems to me to be a world worth tolerating just a little bit longer.

Dumb Shit I've Heard

More in the occasional series of stupidity my ears are assaulted with. And, yes, I really did overhear someone saying this:

“I was watching that Pulp Fiction the other night. I didn’t understand it. Halfway through that John Travolta gets killed, right? And then later on, he’s alive again! What’s that all about?”

Pucker Up

Today, the company that I resigned from last year is carrying a story on their news site about the events that will lead to me being made redundant from the company that I left them for.

Oh, Sweet Irony, let me suckle on your barbed and bitter teats.

The Last Laugh

Could this week possibly suck more??

On top of my ongoing work travails comes something far more grave and depressing. Frank Gorshin, the one and ONLY Riddler, has died at the age of 72. But first, a little AKA history lesson.

By all accounts, I was a very placid and peaceful baby. Hardly ever cried, always smiling, never shouting. However, according to my Mum, once a week I would freak out. My younger self, despite having absolutely no concept of time, always, always, always instinctively knew when Batman was coming on TV. (And, I know it goes without saying, but I mean the Adam West / Burt Ward pop classic). Undoubtedly, they must have been reruns by this point. I was far too young to have seen them the first time round

Barely one year old, I would spend the entire morning bouncing around the house going, “Nana nana nana nana, nana nana nana nana, BATMAN!”, driving everyone nuts. And once the show came on, I would sit in complete and utter silence, in an almost trancelike state, gazing at the TV in wonder and awe. The show was a revelation to me. It was my first Favourite Show Ever.

And so, to me, Batman can never be Michael Keaton or Christian Bale. He’s always Adam West. And he’s not a Dark Knight or a vengeful borderline psychotic. He’s Gotham City’s Caped Crusader, living with his young ward Dick Grayson and his unflappable butler Alfred, with that cool red phone patching him directly through to Commissioner Gordon, and that kickass car!

And Jack Nicholson is not the Joker. The phenomenal Cesar Romero holds the undisputed title as the Clown Prince of Crime. And, of course, Jim Carrey is not the Riddler…

Frank Gorshin was amazing. That incredible cackling laugh. That wiry, manic physical presence and boundless energy. A frenzied emerald dervish whirling in a blur of question marks. A voice that could effortlessly slip from playful trickster to chilling menace. It was, and remains, perfection.

Frank’s final screen performance is in Tarantino’s feature-length season finale of CSI airing in the UK in a couple of months. I was looking forward to it anyway, but now it’s become unmissable.

And I’ve just ordered the 1966 feature-length Batman movie on DVD, so I can reclaim that part of me that remembers how to sit in wonder and awe, hypnotised by the blisterlingly bright primary colours of the heroes and villains of Gotham City.

And as for Frank? I can picture him right now: “Hey, St. Peter, riddle me this…”

Six of one, half-dozen of the other

OK. Now the shock of impending unemployment has subsided somewhat, let’s take a mean, sneering look at What Happens Next, and stare at the implications until they flinch:

Good News: I’ll be back in the heart of London again soon.
Bad News: I’ll be back in the heart of London again soon.

If you live and / or work in London, the dichotomy there will need no further explanation.

Good News: I’ll be out of this backwards-looking little parochial burg with its unevolved fuckheaded denizens, and I’ll return to the spiky embrace of the seething metropolis known as the 21st Century. At Last. I’m Coming Home.

Bad News: Less sleep. Longer and more expensive commutes. Less time watching my little girl growing up (which was always one of the main aims of my experiment in working here).

What else? It’s difficult to get into specifics, because at the moment there aren’t any. I don’t know when I’ll find another job. I don’t know what that job will entail. Will it be another I.T. role? Will it be an Editorial position? How much money will I be taking home every month? I’ve got variables seeping out of my ass, so there’s not too much point in playing a speculative “What If?” game. That’s just a bit too frustrating.

I can tell you this much, though. The next six weeks until the axe swings are going to be pretty damn uncomfortable. I’d much rather they take me round the back of the building right now and give me a double-tap to my brainpan, get this shit done quick. As long as there’s a juicy severance package thrown in, of course.

Up for the Down Stroke

This isn’t going to be an easy post to write, but I need to get all this stuff out of my head. This is also going to be a bit joke-light. Sorry about that.

The short version first: I am almost certain that I’m about to lose my job. Here’s the long version:

My company currently employs 54 people (I just checked). Around the middle of June, it is highly likely that there are going to be redundancies reducing the number of staff to only 30.

The company is about to sell off around a third of its assets. If the sale goes through, the staff cuts go-ahead. If the sale falls apart, the staff cuts will be scrapped. But let’s work with the worst-case scenario here.

In about six weeks, it looks very, very likely that I will lose my job. Yes, it is possible that they will want to keep me, and it is possible that the sale might collapse. Possible, but not very probable.

The third of the assets up for sale is the shit-end of the company assets. The remaining assets are the good stuff. Which makes the company portfolio attractive to prospective buyers. Which leads me to believe that the rest of the company will be up for sale within the next couple of months anyway. Everyone’s a loser, baby! (Unless you are one of the company directors, in which case you’ve got a hell of a payday coming up.)

I could go into more detail, but at the moment I just can’t be fucking bothered. To say that I am hugely demotivated right now is a massive understatement. Time to polish up the ol’ C.V., get on the phone to bother recruitment agencies, and all that fun shit.

When this has all shaken out and everybody knows where they stand, I’m sure that the future will hold bigger and better things. Right now, though, this is a messy and unpleasant transition stage.

I will return with my regular bouts of nonsense and vitriol shortly, once I have figured out a way to reignite my sense of humour.

Labour Pains

So…Election Day. What can I tell you?

I went to vote this morning and, despite being convinced that I was going to vote Labour, at the last minute I spontaneously decided to go for LibDem. And here’s why…

Labour, in all probability, is going to win. And I think that’s OK. We can live with that. I decided not to vote for them as a Conscientious Objector to what has become known as “The Complete Fucking Mess in Iraq”. Too many people dying for too little reason. So, consider my floating vote a petulant bitchslap for Blair. The other reason that I decided note to vote Labour is Alastair Campbell. What an utter cunt. He’s spent years bullying the media and kicking them around, leading to forced resignations at the BBC and the Mirror over minor factual mistakes, even though the general thrust of what they were saying was, by and large, absolutely true. I vividly remember Alastair Campbell storming onto the set of Channel 4 News unplanned in the summer of 2003 to rant and scream about the media in the face of a powerless Jon Snow. Funny stuff, but you could see the foam-flecked bile flicking onto the camera from his raging, angular face. He really, really does need to go fuck himself.

And the hypocrisy of Campbell is mind-boggling. Blair deliberately mislead the British Public. Fact. So he really is in no position to question the veracity of any news that goes against his party line.

So, I reckon the ideal scenario would be something like this: both Labour and Conservative parties shrink in this election, and LibDem grow slightly. Ultimately, if the LibDems became the party of Opposition, and the Conservatives got shunted to the side as the lame duck third party, the next General Election should be a doozy, with those two parties upping their game somewhat, whilst Howard and the Conservatives can go and crawl into a corner somewhere, rename themselves the Neo-Conservative Party in a rare moment of insightful honesty, and then they can be ripped to shreds by wild dogs in the middle of a fox hunt. Sound good?

I’m also concerned about Voter Apathy, but that’s a whole ‘nother kettle of shit. All I’ll say is this: You know the end of the world is coming when people make more of an effort to vote for contestants in reality TV shows than they do for the Leader of their Nation. And you have to pay to vote for the dipshits on Big Brother too!

One, final politics-related note before I wrap up. Just finished reading Ex Machina: The First Hundred Days by Brian K. Vaughan and Tony Harris. Imagine The West Wing with the trappings of science-fiction and superhero fiction. Absolutely stunning stuff, and the finest first issue of a series I’ve read in years. And you lot, you lucky people, can read the first issue absolutely free if you follow this link.

Day of the Dense

“Stupidity is replicating itself at an astonishing rate. It breeds easily and is self-financing.” Frank Zappa

I’m too goddamn tired to deal with these fucking morons today. I was up late last night fiddling around with my new iPod, and my eyes are as red and raw as my temper today.

Today’s inane question that I really have absolutely no idea how to answer:

”How come you’re so good at spelling?”

And If I hear one more person say “May the 4th be with you”, I’m going to slap the shit out of them.

Any suggestions on how to deal with the overabundance of fuckwittery I have to battle on a daily basis are greatly appreciated.

This blog entry was brought to you by the letters ASS and HOLE, and the number .357.

Twist and Shout

Be unafraid. Everything I write here will remain Spoiler Free to avoid ruining your enjoyment (or lack thereof) of the shit discussed below.

One of the most hackneyed plot devices in modern cinema appears to be The Twist. You know, where everything you’ve just seen is A Lie! Or an Elaborate Hoax! Or Deliberately Misleading! Where everything exists solely for a punchline, invalidating the complex shenanigans of the previous ninety minutes or, alternatively, validating a huge slab of tedious build-up. Far too many films exist today purely for The Twist. And I don’t want to sit in a cinema for two hours just to watch someone do a variation on screaming “Not really! It was all a dream!” at my head.

Just to be absolutely clear, twist endings don’t constitute a last minute re-write because the filmmakers have no idea how to wrap things up, or because a test screening of two hundred morons in a mall in the asshole of nowhere didn’t like the original ending. Twist Ending, using my definition, is deliberate. The whole film deliberately builds towards it. Most films should still be able to stand tall without the twist. Sadly, more and more, it has become the movie’s raison d’être, and everything else is just subterfuge and window-dressing.

Man, I am so damn bored of the Twist. Granted, there are fine examples of The Twist. Off the top of my head, I can think of The Usual Suspects, Se7en, Fight Club, and Memento. All fine films enhanced by their closing moments. Significantly, they would still all be fine movies without the twist.

But here is where the problems start. I guessed the twist of The Others about half an hour into the movie, and I was disappointed to find my guess was spot-on at the end of the movie. Tim Burton was never going to be able to top the twist of the original Planet of the Apes, so he sidestepped the problem with an illogical swerve that, whilst entertainingly maddening, makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. One of the worst twists in recent years, for me, was at the end of Basic, the much-touted reuniting of Pulp Hitmen John Travolta and Samuel L. Jackson. Manipulative bullshit fakery that screams contempt for every single person in the audience.

Nowadays, it seems that M. Night Shyamalan has rummaged through Chubby Checker’s wardrobe to steal the crown and make himself King of the Twist. But with each subsequent movie, the twist becomes more and more important, and the actual meat of the film, the damn story, is merely a tool to get you there.

The Sixth Sense – Pretty good twist if you don’t spot it in advance. Unbreakable – My personal favourite of his films, because it’s the only film that doesn’t live-or-die by the twist at the end. Without the twist, the film would still hold up. Signs – Ugh. The rot is starting to set in now. Crop circles and glasses of water. Just silly.

But what really prompted this tirade was The Village, a film I had the deep misfortune to suffer through over the weekend. Easily snags a high place in the Worst Films I’ve Ever Seen List (and I think you all know how many films I see. And I also have a pretty good tolerance level for crap. So, this film must stink pretty badly, right?)

The Twist here renders everything that comes before it utterly meaningless. To keep myself entertained during the movie, I tried to think of the worst possible twist ending. Shyamalan duly delivered, and gave me my Worst Case Scenario Twist.

NOTHING in this movie makes sense. I lost count of the number of plot holes and inconsistencies. None of the build-up justifies the ending and the absurd contrivances needed to get you there. The ridiculous “Those We Don’t Speak Of” are spoken of in Every Bloody Scene! At one point, Sigourney Weaver proclaims: “What nonsense are you saying?”, a charge she would have been better off levelling at the writer-director of this cinematic atrocity.

Community Disservice

Every now and then, something New! And Exciting! is touted as the Latest Bestest Thing to come out of the Internet. It Will Change Your Life!

What a load of horseshit. There are genuine innovations and breakthroughs on the Internet all the time (like, say, weblogs). But for every real, useful service that appears, the Internet graveyard is clogged up with a hundred more useless electronic carcasses, gorged on bandwidth and strangled by their own worthless html.

A couple of years back, a whole bunch of “online communites” sprouted up, to put you closer to people with similar tastes, or similar desires, or similar postcodes. As far as I can tell, none of these virtual clubhouses worked at all.

At the moment, I’m mentally backtracking trying to remember where I’ve left a trace of myself in these Internet ghost towns, so that I can remove my details. I don’t need my information stored all over the place for no reason whatsoever.

First up on my Shit List is Friendster. The idea was this: you register, and your friends register, so that you are linked to your friends, and the friends of your friends, and their friends, and…

…and who gives a shit? I can easily get in touch with people I already know. I have their phone numbers, mobile numbers, e-mail addresses, postal addresses…I don’t need a website to provide a third party service in that regard. Cut out the middleman. Save me the fucking trouble.

And people I don’t know? Well, I don’t particularly care about them. If they are friends of friends, and they are sufficiently interesting, I’ll meet them in due course anyway.

And I certainly don’t need to contact people on the basis of similar tastes. I don’t see the value in contacting complete strangers on the basis that they also list Battle Royale amongst their favourite films. That is not the basis for a friendship, much less a casual conversation.

My main criticism of Friendster was that it was painfully slow when I first registered. Pages took aeons to load. I can’t be bothered.

The bottom line is this: I never contacted anyone using Friendster, and no one ever contacted me. So, with a couple of devastating keystrokes, my profile has been deleted.

Next on my list of Worthless Web Communities is Ryze. Clearly based on the premise of early Internet darling First Tuesday (which flamed out in an inferno of wasted millions, non-existent profits and raging egos. And I was in a position to know.) , Ryze is a networking community designed to get you in touch with relevant business contacts. Not a bad idea. But the worthless fucker never did shit for me. All I got was my “guest book” signed by people whoring services that had absolutely no relevance to my life. As soon as I get round to it, I’m going to vaporise my profile on there too.

Interestingly, my most fruitful online endeavour is right here. You’re looking at it. Sucker Punch has resulted in interesting dialogues and arguments and conversations with both friends and people I’ve never met. It’s helped me stay in touch with people I don’t often have the opportunity to see. It’s forced me to focus my mind on writing on a regular basis. Ironically, I’ve got no agenda here. I’m not trying to make friends or business contacts or cash out of this site, but it’s ended up giving me something tangible and satisfying without me asking for a single thing in return.

Thanks for that.

Jamming on the One

There are many things I could write about today.

I could write about my day out of the office yesterday, and the I.T. seminar I attended in Fulham Broadway. I could tell you that a room full of well-groomed suits-and-ties turned to glare at me when I walked in with my five o’ clock shadow, jeans and leather jacket. Fuck ‘em.

I could tell you that the seminar itself was Snoresville. I felt like Jeremy Northam in Cypher, struggling to stay awake during speech after speech. I could tell you how I flinched every time a bit of Business BallsSpeak was uttered. My favourite: business should plan “for the valley not the peak”. They should be shot for crimes against the English Language.

I could tell you how I decided not to return to work in the afternoon and spent the rest of the day enjoying a sunny afternoon in W1. I lay in the sun in Green Park, thinking that, a year ago, I would have been lying in the same spot with Beckett and Coupland, trying to avoid being hit in the head by a stray frisbee.

I could mention that I went to see and enjoy the much-maligned Be Cool in Leicester Square, with John Travolta reprising one of his signature roles as the effortlessly cool Chilli Palmer. High fives also to Vince Vaughan, Cedric the Entertainer, the late Robert Pastorelli, and especially The Rock in a superb turn as a gay wannabe actor slumming it as a bodyguard. A funny, cute and entertaining film, which nevertheless is never quite as funny, cute and entertaining as it thinks it is.

I could mention that I cruised the cheap bookstores and comic shops looking to snag myself some bargains, eventually walking away with £30-worth of books for £10. In Forbidden Planet, the overpoweringly sweaty stench of “Eau de Geek” assaulted my nostrils. Damn, can’t these nerds take a shower every once in a while? They are totally to blame for the continual perpetration of the stereotype of freakish basement dwellers, oozing all over their weekly stack of four-colour power fantasies. You know, all the comic lovers that I know are amongst the coolest, smartest and cleanest people I have ever met. Why can’t we be the template for the comic-reader stereotype instead?

I could also tell you that I wandered past my old office, now an empty husk of a building on the verge of being razed to the ground to make way for a “plaza”, which is just fatuous fancy talk for “mall”.

I could tell you all these things. But I won’t. Because there is something Bigger than all that on my mind:

Today marks the First Birthday of Sucker Punch. I’ve blown out the candles and toasted this momentous occasion, so let’s grab ourselves a slice of cake and look forward to the second year of the Punch. Shit, I’m just getting warmed up.

The Force is Strong in this one

Reasons why London is the Greatest City in Existence Part 594

We get to see Star Wars Episode III Revenge of the Sith THREE WHOLE DAYS before the rest of the world.

At the Empire Leicester Square on May 16, there will be a back-to-back one off screening of all six Star Wars movies.

George Lucas will be there. So will Hayden Christensen, Ian McDiarmid, Anthony Daniels and Peter Mayhew.

At other Leicester Square cinemas, the other five movies will be screened throughout the day.

There will be FREE performances of Star Wars music by the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra.

There will be a selection of one-off activities presented by Lucasfilm and Twentieth Century Fox – open to absolutely everyone.

The 501st UK Garrison of Stormtroopers will be on duty all day in the Square.

“Galactic Passports” to the entire event cost a mere £50 per person.

I fucking love this city.

Ball of Confusion

White smoke at night, new Pope’s delight. Or something.

I’m not overly interested in this latest turn of events. It’s a new Pope. Whatever.

But there is one element to all this that I am interested in. Something I find slightly insidious and disturbing.

This new Pope, Benedict XVI, has some views and opinions that, to me, seem horribly outdated and ever-so-slightly disconcerting, solidifying the gradual paradigm shift towards an Old World full of Archaic Beliefs, where freedom of speech is increasingly encroached upon, where all manner of freedoms are curtailed under the illusory belief that this somehow helps in the nebulous War on Terror, where what we say, think or do is monitored by Big Brother on the flimsiest of (legal) pretexts. And this man now has a hugely influential platform from which he can espouse these beliefs.

Here is a brief hit list of some of Benny 16’s “Beliefs”:

Opposed to Birth Control.
Belief in the celibacy of the Priesthood.
Opposed to the ordination of women.
Anyone who supports the “grave sins” of abortion and euthanasia should be denied Communion.
Opposed to homosexuality.
Has denounced rock music as “the vehicle of anti-religion”.

This dude used to be known as “God’s Rottweiler” and they just made him the Pope! He served briefly with the Hitler Youth. (Always a deal clincher on the old Papal Resumé, although he now claims he was Only Following Orders. Hmmm...) And he’s chosen the name “Benedict” which comes from the Latin word for “blessing”. I’ll be honest with you, I’m not feeling too blessed right about now.

Call me misguided, but I’m pretty sure that, whichever Almighty Being you believe in, He doesn’t want our lifestyles to be so restrictively monitored and policed by any religious figurehead. People, generally speaking, understand right from wrong, morality and ethics, and don’t need to be told how to live their lives. I haven’t murdered anyone (like, say, loads of Iraqi civilians), I haven’t raped anyone (like, say, the natural resources of numerous countries the world over), I haven’t stolen anything (like, say, the American Presidency in 2000).

The world seems to be having a swing back towards conservatism, with a right-wing American president bolstered by an even more hard-right cabal of cronies (Rumsfeld, Cheney, et al); a British Prime Minister leading a left-wing party virtually indistinguishable from the right-wing (Meet the New Boss, Same as the Old Boss); a world that goes apoplectic at the sight of Janet Jackson’s nipple (we all do have nipples, you know. Nothing scary there.); and Terri Schiavo isn’t allowed a peaceful, dignified death, because the American Right uses it as yet another platform for their restrictive opinions.

This is the shape of the world in 2005. And it’s pretty fucking terrifying.

I only smile when I lie, then I tell them why

I really should be getting ready for work, but I just wanted to grab a minute to point you in the direction of Jennifer W.K.’s Hot Bloggers List (or, as I like to call it, Hot Idol).

I make it in at Number Five on the list, which just goes to conclusively prove two things: that Jennifer’s taste is as exquisite as her writing, and that I am undeniably Hot.

Now, I’m going to put on some asbestos clothes, and get my bad self off to work.

That's Entertainment

As I’m sure I’ve mentioned before, I used to work in the Television Industry, right smack-dab in the centre of Soho, haven for deluded wannabes, vacuous morally-vacant coke-snorting Nathan Barleys, vicious bastards of every persuasion, people without an ounce of creativity, but enough money to throw at things that they hope we don’t notice.

Of course, I was still a bit too wet-behind-the-ears to realise all this at the time. I was a Runner, just starting out. So, to me, this was My Big Break. I worked for a post-production company on the impossible-to live-off salary of £12,000 a year. I vividly remember my first day on a film shoot. Nothing fancy, but I was popping my Live Action Shoot Cherry, so I was excited. It was a one-day shoot doing the opening titles for a Pop Music Chart Show.

Film Shoots are notoriously long days, and it was a freezing day in the midst of a typically arctic London Winter. I worked directly and closely with the Production Manager on the shoot, who also happened to be both my boss and the Managing Director of the company. Fourteen hours after the working day had begun, the day was over at last. But there was a problem…

For the shoot, we had ordered, paid for and had delivered a “flat”. (In non-industry speak, a “flat” is “scenery consisting of a wooden frame covered with painted canvas; part of a stage setting”. Thanks, dictionary.com!) The flat was huge, and heavy, and thick. It must have been about 10 feet by 10 feet, on solid, unforgiving wood, bright red on one side, bright blue on the other.

After the models, and make-up person, and the director, and the crew had all disappeared home, we realised that the flat was still in the studio. The Studio Manager told us we would have to get rid of the flat, as there was another shoot due to take place the following morning.

But the Production Manager had forgotten to arrange for the flat to be collected, taken away and destroyed. And, anyway, she had dinner plans, and couldn’t possibly do anything about it. “AKA, get rid of it.”

I asked the Studio Manager if he had any thing I could break it down with. Nope.

I went back to my office to see if I could find anything I could break it down with. The only thing I could find was a teeny, tiny hand saw. The kind of saw that would make it difficult to cut through a thick twig.

The Studio Manager told me that he was closing up, so I would have to take the flat out and cut it up in the alleyway. Both my office and the studio shared the same alleyway. It was, of course, an alleyway in Soho. So it reeked. The place was full of shit and piss and puke and blood and discarded food and used condoms. And me, a tiny saw and a massive wooden monstrosity. And it was late and cold. Getting later and colder all the time. And then it started raining.

It took me about three hours in the rain and cold to get it all into small enough pieces to cram into a dustbin. My working day was now over seventeen hours long. And I still had to get myself home.

The last thing I remember was returning to my office to put the saw away. I sat in the kitchen for ten minutes trying to get warm, and I found a bottle of Jack Daniel’s hidden at the back of a cupboard. I poured myself a generous shot, and then I sat and wept. That is the first and only time in my working life that a job has broken me so badly. (Although it was only the first time I would be so horribly demeaned and abused over the next two years in the Heart of the Business. There was plenty more of that to come.)

And it was all for a piss-poor pathetic £12,000 a year.

It’s all seems such a very, very long time ago now. And I’m glad I finally turned my back on it all, and radically changed my career-path. But this is the article that I found that brought it all rushing back. Which just goes to show that Slavery is still alive and well and thriving in the Television Industry. Dammit.