His Mouth Is Moving, But Listen To The Funny Sound He Makes...

Have you ever stopped to listen to yourself and wondered 'What in all hell am I talking about?'...
I'm pretty sure we are all guilty of this insecure little moment from time to time... BUT... I have noticed it more recently than ever.
I'm not an insecure person... In fact I'm a pretty well rounded-secure-type-thingumy-bob... BUT (this is the second BUT of this blog)... I've noticed recently how many people talk and talk and talk and have nothing interesting to say. 
This got me thinking... I'm not the high and mighty type, which led me to speculate that if other people talk and talk but only of inane things... maybe I do it too!?!?!?
I really hate the thought of being perceived as boring or inane but the likeliness stands that if you notice lots of inane conversationalists around you... you're probably pretty close.... WAHH?? 


Some recent highlights include: 
          "The show's good but it's much better now that Nick Jonas is in it!" (a crazy fan at the Les Miserable stage door)
          "That's great but what do you do for a real job?" (Juliet the New Zealander questioning my cast about their acting careers)
          "I'm not bothering anyone... It's just a cigarette!" (Woman being thrown out for smoking in the aisles of a Tesco Metro)
          "GOD HATES LADY GAGA!!!" (Westboro Babtist Church)

Doesn't it make you wonder? I can easily look at these ridiculous people and laugh at their pathetic pointlessness... BUT (that's number three)... What if we're all the same?
I guess a certain amount of insecurity is good for all and everyone. Obnoxious arrogance after all is something no one desires to possess. As a species, we humans (particularly westerners) tend to have wild delusions of grandeur in most walks of life and, to a degree, believe the world revolves around us. It would be marvellous if this were true but I think not... I fear that our western problems and life hurdles are, for the most part, unfounded and insignificant.
What a to do!? I need to spend less time talking and worrying and far more time learning and listening!


Here's to fearing pointlessness
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Aaaaaagh!! They're Dead!!!

This is nothing really... Just a short, single question that I'm going to send out to the world without any hope of a reasonable or rational reply...
WHY CAN'T I EVER KEEP A BLOODY BONSAI TREE ALIVE???
My past is like a circus of bonsai genocide... That's all... Just had to get it off my chest
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How Do I Love Thee London? Let Me Count The Ways...

I learned something horrifying today...


There, glaring at me from the pages of my Evening Standard was a small story on page 6 that made my blood run cold. The borough of Kensington council have given the go ahead for a large section of Portobello Road Market to be pulled down to make way for modern apartments.
STOP!!! WHAT??? EXQUEEEEEZZEE ME???
What is going on? What kind of brainless, cultureless, cretinous, money grabbing, souless, artless, loveless, barren, imbecilic, moronic nincompoop would look at such a proposal and not laugh at the ridiculousness of such an idea? What is happening to London? Our beautiful city needs no nip-tucks!


Call me biased, but London to me is the centre of the world. The epicentre of art and theatre and fashion and literature. All the best tales are set in London. After all, only London can boast that under its silent gaze, Peter Pan flew in through the Darling's Nursery Window, or Cruella De Vil stole 101 dalmatian puppies, or Ebenezer Scrooge trudged home through the snow to discover Marley's face had replaced the door-knocker, or Mrs Lovett baked wonderful pies using the finest cuts from Sweeney Todd's victims, or Oliver Twist was taken under the wing of Fagin and his band of pickpockets. It is the cosmopolitan metropolis to rival all others. She has been blown up and burned down. She has seen plague and pestilence and war and murders and riots and pollution... BUT... my god she's pretty.
Henry James got it right when he said: "It is difficult to speak adequately or justly of London. It is not a pleasant place; it is not agreeable, or cheerful, or easy, or exempt from reproach. It is only magnificent."


I may sound like one of the rambling types that stand at speakers' corner and rave about the fact that we are all descendants of a long line of extraterrestrial beings... but... how far is this going to go? With the sad loss of Spitalfields Market (which is more like an American shopping mall than the hub of the Victorian east-end cauldron) and other popular markets following very closely in its oh-so-shiny footsteps, are there going to be any places of true historical originality left? 


Forget the shiny, mirrored, inverted, abstract, post-modernist buildings that have started to dominate our beautiful city's ever changing skyline. Give me the bare victorian brickwork and the the winding, twisted alleyways of Whitechapel and Brick Lane. Give me the grime and the drains and wonky, grubby walls. Give me the cobbles and the yelling and the fish smelling corners of Borough Market. Give me the chipped paint of Wilton's Music Hall. Give me "Maria's Bubble and Squeak" and a cup of milky tea. Give me the filthy, polluted Thames.


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Boys For Breakfast, Boys For Lunch And A Proper Dinner...

Jean Maurice Eugene Clement Cocteau... Visionary, playwright, opium addict, painter, sculptor, potter, poet, film director, novelist, theatrical designer, exuberant homosexual and all round inspiration... How's that for an introduction?


I was introduced to the works of Jean Cocteau by a friend and was instantly captivated by the strange, wafer-thin man. He was an energetic concoction of man and faerie and mythological being all rolled into one wiry, angular body.
I have often been known to state that I was born to the wrong era. His life of gay abandon and artistic experimentation set against the hedonistic backdrop of the French Riviera in the 40/50's is one I am most jealous to have not been a part of.
His artwork still adorns the dockside chapel in the town of Villefranche. I love the obvious clash of a chapel built for the hard, very heterosexual laborers of a french dock that is covered from ceiling to floor in the homoerotic frolicings of  toned, beautiful angels and muscular fishermen. What a sense of humour he had...

I cannot help but feel a great deal of jealousy towards the likes of Jean Marais (Cocteau's Muse). It was his face that inspired hundreds of Cocteau's grecian paintings. He stood as the epitome of male beauty in Cocteau's eyes and starred in many of Jean's films including Orphee and both the role of the beast and the opposing prince in La Belle Et La Bette.


Oh dear... I'm living in the wrong generation. How I'd love to sidle toward the seafront in Villefranche, dressed in 1930's attire and introduce myself to the visionary that was Cocteau. No doubt he'd be sitting at the dockside smoking and enjoying the company of a great many beautiful, young men...
Oh well... I've viewed his murals in the French church on Leicester Square, Chuckled at the interior of his painted chapel and stood next to his sculpture by the boats in the harbour of Villefranche. That's about as close as I'll ever get... Humph!!
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Barbaric Customs...

Everybody needs to rebel...

Short of collecting A.S.B.Os, injecting narcotics or throwing televisions through hotel windows, my little rebellion of choice is that of the Tattoo variety. Though I am by no means the Tattooed man from a victorian freak show, I'm wracking up a small collection and have my next one planned and in the pipeline.
Tattoos (in my opinion) can be amazing, artistic and liberating things. When executed with a skillful hand and chosen with a tasteful eye, a tattoo can be a thing of rare beauty.


True, there are some bloody dreadful ones walking around (see the examples below)... Nothing quite like having the the word "EXREME" plastered across your chest or a shark devouring a baby in the safety of your armpit.

But... BIG BUT... it cannot be ignored that, since ancient times, the human race has loved adorning and embellishing their bodies. I find it very interesting that tattoos can be looked upon with such a disapproving eye when body modification is happening in almost every walk of life across the globe. Be it ear piercing (or any other piercing for that matter) make up, the latest fashion, tummy tuck pants, push up bras, high heels or hairstyles. They are all methods we humans employ in the endless struggle for individuality. They all take us that little bit further from 'the way we were made' and push us slightly closer to being unique... different... special!?

I for one love tattooing and stand firmly by the fact that it is no longer reserved as the dockside practice of sailors and skurvy dogs. Tattooing (good tattooing) is a fine, delicate art form that requires a skilled artist and a brave volunteer.
Here's to fine art...
Here's to barbaric customs
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Where've You Been???

A lot has happened since my last blog... Time flies far too quickly when your mind is preoccupied with other things. It's scary!
I have been extremely busy fighting dragons debt collectors, writing sweeping sagas of great derring-do stories about toilets and getting lost down them, drinking champagne tea, eating caviar on delicate brioche toasts bubble and squeak at Borough market, shmoozing with the likes of Trevor Nunn my mum and Salman Rushdie the man in the newsagents. It's very tiring work, But... I'm back! Let the blogging commence
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A Short Rant...

I'm done... DONE I TELL YOU...

I am a total winter chap. I love winter. I love cold, blustery days and thick, wooly winter clothing. I firmly believe that the White Witch had the right idea but... BIG BUT... I'm bored now.

Today the journey from Gavin's to Mine left me freezing with red, frost bitten hands and a sinus cold to rival any other. I want spring. I'm finally hungry to see green things growing and to enjoy the luxury of wearing fewer layers without suffering. I want to see my poor little bonsai tree with new sprouts on it and to leave the back door open and welcome in the neighbour's cat. 

Roll on the fairer seasons... This here winter lover is ready to be unfaithful.

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A Sad Goodbye...

Just a small nod in the direction of (Lee) Alexander McQueen. Though I have no links to the fashion world whatsoever, I'm a great follower of his rebellious, innovative work and admire his rags to riches story very much. What an inspiration to all the misfits and the eccentric youth of today that the son of an east London cab driver could rocket skywards and become one of the most respected designers in today's British fashion scene. His suicide has left enormous ripples across the world. What a sad, sad loss to the fashion industry and to England as a whole. 
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Saint Who?

I pose some questions to you dear reader... 


When was the last time you called it 'Saint' Valentine's day? Who was Saint Valentine and does he/she mind that their saintliness has been quietly dropped from this international holiday's title?


With February 14th looming, I'm starting to sicken of bright red hearts and cuddly toys in shop windows. There are signs and billboards everywhere, subtly brainwashing London's busy shoppers into believing that love isn't real unless it is accompanied by a stuffed bear with the words "hug me" written on its pudgy belly. Where did this madness come from?
Call me a miserable, old curmudgeon, but I think Saint Valentine's Day is close to vomit inducing. I sat in a cafe yesterday evening watching men (You know the type- the tracksuit bottomed, sovereign ringed man who's idea of romance is allowing his wife to accompany him to the pub to watch the football) pouring in and out of Clinton Cards with armfuls of pink junk and mass produced cards stuffed with cliched declarations of love... It was enough to put me right off my skinny decaf latte.
Is this what love is about? Surely love should be shown on every day of the year and not just when the card companies vow it is time to do so? 
Being someone who loves a good excuse for a spot of research, I did so and discovered some very interesting facts. Ready? Good!
Apparently, the link between matters of the heart and February dates back to a pagan festival of fertility. To celebrate this special occasion, a carefully chosen animal was slaughtered and then all the young women of the village would strip naked and run around whilst the men of the village would chase them and slap their bare bottoms with the sacrificed animal's entails. This, obviously, made the young women more fertile and cemented February as one of the more amorous months of the calender. 
A second interesting little nugget was the execution of Father Valentine on the 14th of February somewhere between the 14 and 1600's (the dates differ quite substantially from source to source). According to some rather unreliable records, Valentine was put to death for performing secret weddings in a time when marriage was outlawed by the king in order to keep his army's minds on the mission and off the ladies. Right before they cut the poor bugger's head off, it is said that Father Valentine slipped a note to his lover (again she varies from his wife, the King's sister and even the executioner's daughter) that was signed "From your Valentine", thus the first Valentine was sent...


Lovely. Brilliant. So...!?!?!?


There were many Saint Valentines, though none have anything more than a tenuous link to February 14th. There's a pagan bottom slapping ritual, a dead priest, and somehow they all morphed into a commercial, extremely unromantic holiday about romance.
I call each and every person who believes in a spot of real romance to stand up and say "NO". No to the mass produced cards. No to the cuddly toys. No to the vile, eighties cliche of red roses.
Stand up you final few and say "I shall treat my loved one no differently on this day because I love them EVERYDAY!!!!!"


Phew... I got quite riled then... I think I need a sit down and a cup of tea...
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Birthday Blog...

It is 11.45 pm on a snowy January day and I have exactly 15 minutes to write a birthday blog before it isn't...
As the first blog of 2010 I had hoped to write something profound or exciting, but sadly I have nothing much to say.
Today is my birthday... 27 today... bluuuurrrggghhh!
I have achieved all my some goals... I am a highly successful writer struggling writer. I am world famous and adored by all that know me have just spent the past christmas playing Marius in Les Miserable Peter pan in Canterbury's annual pantomime. I have a body that would make adonis jealous need to go to the gym a great deal more often and I have paid off my overdraft and put down a mortgage for a house am living in the cosy confines of my fat, fat overdraft.
But...
Things are good! Really good! 2010... Here we go!
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