Happy Birthday Mummified Fox

A year ago today I wrote my first blog entry. You can find it here. It’s a test one really, not about much; though in saying that I do Bobbin and Tess a disservice.

A year ago I was full of crazy excitement. Blogging was a new adventure. I hadn’t got a clue what I would write. I felt that bit by bit, writing at least a post a day, I would find my feet and discover why I was doing this.

A year on I’ve slowed down a bit. No post every day, but I try for a couple a week. And I’ve expanded. We’ve got the Trev and Simon blog on the go, and I’ve started 20th Century Mummified Fox- a blog where I can indulge in my love of films.

I still don’t know why I’m doing this. I haven’t found my feet. Of course it’s an indulgence; no doubt I am showing off, but showing off what? It’s not a comedy blog. It’s not some kind of confessional. I’m no film critic. Nor a photographer. But this blog is made up of bits of all of these. And lots of animals.

And it keeps me busy when times are tough. I enjoy it. And so, sometimes, do some of you. All of the people who come here and read or look, thank you. I know there’s lots of blogs out there, blah blah blah airline appreciation speech.

And thank you all for your comments. I enjoy reading them and I enjoy the interaction. And, to my pleasant surprise, the comments over the year have been thoughtful and considered, even when being critical. I haven’t, as yet, had to delete any for taking the chance to hurl abuse at me. Still, there’s time. My blog is just a baby.

Since the whole blogging thing is one enormous indulgence, for Mummified Fox’s first birthday I am going to pick some of my blog favourites from my 234 posts. One from each month.

November 2008- This and That’s Entertainment. Every year I go to Great Yarmouth to play pool. But which is best, Great Yarmouth or Las Vegas?

December 2008- Tommie Smith and John Carlos. I drag my family to see the Tommie Smith and John Carlos statue in San Jose.

January 2009- Murderer. Me, Trev and Cyndi Lauper have a close shave with Coronation Street murderer Tony Gordon.

February 2009- Deal or No Deal on the Dole. Ok, a bit of a weird one. this is a story about Deal or No Deal, Noel Edmonds, a luckless contestant, and Cosmic ordering.

March 2009- The Nazis. I drew them at school and only got a B+.

April 2009- A Nightingale sang in the 100 Club. A sort of review of the Nightingales and Ted Chippington.

May 2009- “Yes, I spent money on furniture”. Shadow Education Secretary Michael Gove and the elephant lamps we bought him. Including comments from the man himself (or so it seems).

June 2009- Pigs, a goose and a sheep. Just as it says.

July 2009- I’m going to cheat here and mention two posts. I’m not quite sure why it’s cheating; there’s no rules, it’s my blog. But at the top of this post I did say I’d pick one from each month, so yes, I am cheating. First Like the circles that you find- a guide to reglazing windows. And also RIP Rob. Rob sold the Big Issue outside Hither Green station. He died in July.

August 2009- Little and Large. My mum and dad used to go to The Talk of the North in the 70’s and see all the top acts. Years later I get to meet one of them.

September 2009- The Rogers Brothers and the Cox twins. The real life inspiration for two of our characters.

October 2009- Bigmouth strikes again. Possibly my most personal and indulgent post and also my most commented on.

So there’s some of my favourites for the year. If you click on any of them I hope you enjoy them. And if you do, please look at some of the remaining 221 posts.

I was going to use the blog’s first birthday to say why it’s called Mummified Fox. but I’m going to save that for next year.

Happy 1st Birthday Mummified Fox

Up

I’ve neglected this blog a little. But not much is happening. Flu jabs. MOT’s. Watching Coronation Street. That’s pretty much life at the moment.

But I’ve been doing a bit of film stuff over on my other blog, 20th Century Mummified Fox. You can find my thoughts on Up over there. But which Up?

Tess

Yesterday I visited my cat Tess. She doesn’t live with me but is looked after by some very good friends. She’s their cat too. She’s a shared cat, though cats, were they able, would deny belonging to anybody.

She’s old now. Nineteen. And tiny. She weighs just under 3kg. Her brother Bobbin died a few years back at the age of fifteen.

Bobbin

Tess may miss him. We don’t know. They used to cuddle up with each other, but then Bobbin would always take it one step too far and try and have his way with her. I never knew what to do. Should we impose our morality on our cats? Tess would always sort things out with a high pitched meow and a whack. I couldn’t blame Bobbin; he deserved some fun after having vets do their business down below many years ago. I was always amazed and surprised that he still had the urge.

And then you find out more things. Who knew cats had barbed penises? Not me. So Tess, I’m sorry I didn’t stop him.

Tess is doddery now. She’s totally deaf and fairly blind but otherwise in reasonably good health considering that, in human years, she’s 173. When I saw her a week ago she had a little siezure of sorts. It could have been cramp, or rheumatism, arthritis, a stroke. She stood up and all one side of her had gone dead. She could only walk sideways and she kept bumping up against the wall. After a short while she recovered.

She has difficulty getting up and down stairs. She can’t jump up on to beds or sofas anymore, but she can fall off them.

Yesterday she was in good form. I spent a bit of time with her, trimmed her claws and combed her fur. She’s pretty good at taking care of herself and grooming, but she’s old, so she doesn’t mind a bit of help.

And she’s found a new friend, though I think it was the sun that was the attraction.

W Hate Smith and Bob Dylan

This is a blog post of hate. Maybe. Most of the following is true. The odd line, here or there, may be made up. Not quite a lie. when is a lie not a lie? When it’s a joke? How would we know.

I am starting to hate W.H. Smith. When I bought Watership Down off them sometime in the early 70’s with my Christmas book token, I loved them. But it couldn’t last.

It may be a plan they have. Sometimes, when love breaks down, when we know our days are numbered, we will create hate just to give ourselves an escape plan. Woolworth’s fought for our love til the end, and as a result I think they will come to be missed. But clearly W.H. Smith have a death wish. I’m no expert, no forecaster, but they will go. One year, two years at the most. And they won’t be missed. When the last W.H. Smith closes we will all breathe a sigh of relief, and, at last, will be given back our shopping free will.

Am I being harsh? I hope they go, but I do not wish to see their staff out of jobs. If I worked for W.H. Smith, simply put, I would work for them no longer. I would be sacked. I would refuse what they demand of me to do. And this is the crux, this is the damnable act; the way they make their staff ask us unneccessary and unwanted questions.

Their crime against the customer is heightened when it’s a W.H. Smith at a train station. Few of us travel to train stations to hang around. We’re usually coming or going and W.H. Smith is a good (well, the only) place to pick up a newspaper. And even that’s not so easy.

I knew what I wanted. A bottle of Lucozade and The Guardian. That’ll be £2.69. But wait! If I buy The Sun at 20p I can get the Lucozade for £1. But I don’t want The Sun. I can get one paper and a drink for £2.69 or two papers and a drink for £2.2o. But I don’t want that little bundle.

Still, beggars can’t be choosers (and despite my supposed P-list status I am a beggar) and so I go for the two papers and a drink cheaper option. Damn that Murdoch and his conniving ways (though it’s Sunday now and the paper remains unread).

I queue to pay. A longish queue. No surprise, for each person upon reaching the cashier is subjected to the same attempts to make the customer buy things they, until that point, didn’t want.

It starts with a “How are you today?” I reply “very well. And you?” But my question gets no response. Instead she asks me if I would like some chocolate for £1. No. Then I’m offered chewing gum. No. If I’d wanted these things would I not have picked them up? Am I too arsey? Yes, a little bit. But she takes the biscuit when she offers me a rabbit. Then a toaster. Then a mail order bride. All for £1.

Her final attempt is to offer me a  free Evening Standard. I tell her two papers is enough, and I think she starts to get the idea that I’m not falling for the devil’s sales pitch.

Later, on my way back to the station, I pass St. Martin in the Fields. A church no longer in any field, but right on the edge of Trafalgar Square. As I walk along the left hand side of the church, heading away from the Square and towards Charing Cross I walk along a display of photgraphs from around the world, and underneath each a lyrical line.

I don’t know much about Bob Dylan and so I fail to realise I am reading the lyrics to “A Hard Rain’s a Gonna Fall” in reverse order. When I get to my end, which is the beginning, I understand the story.

Mark Edwards was stuck in the Sahara in 1969. Around the same time that a man stepped out on to the moon. In the desert he was greeted by a nomad who made him a cup of tea. They sat, drank, and the nomad brought out an old cassette player and played what may well have been his only cassette. And it was the Dylan song. Mark decided to illustrate the song with images from his own and his friends travels. If you’re passing the church, maybe on your way to or from the station, and you have the time, it’s worth a look.

Looking for tricks on the Strand

It’s not what you think. Though, looking back on the evening I had, I almost wish it was.

No, I haven’t become a he-whore. On Saturday afternoon I went to the Coal Hole on the Strand, and there I met a bunch of magicians.

I’d been invited by The Beacon. Now of course he has a real name, but let’s not spoil things. For me, he is, and always will be, The Beacon. You can find out more about The Beacon, but not much more, here. He has a blog about strange belief and behaviour, and, having just finished The End Of The Affair by Graham Greene for this week’s book club, I can’t help but feel I was summoned by The Beacon, who may well become my very own Richard Smythe (a character oddly missing from the Neil Jordan film adaptation). Smythe is a rationalist, and so, I suspect, are all these magicians and mentalists who happily turned my brain into a pile of mush and confusion.

After what I saw that Saturday my life will never be the same again. Oh, and I drank a lot.

The invitation came through Twitter. I’d never met The Beacon before, nor spoken to him. Yes, I know it sounds like the set-up to a trick but it’s not. Our only communication had been through Twitter, and I have no idea why he invited me along. But let’s face it, if you got a invitation to meet a melee of mysterious magicians in a dingy old Victorian pub, well, you’d go, wouldn’t you. Wouldn’t you?

(Oh, and to the person who left the comment the other day stating that the world of Twitter is not real… well, after my Saturday experience I’m tempted to agree).

I got there at 4pm, planning to leave after a couple of pints and head off to the cinema. I left at 10pm (ish). I walked out of the Coal Hole and found myself in a London I had never seen before; urchins pulled at my trouser legs, flowers girls thrust baskets of poseys’ at me, toffs rolled by on penny farthings, and a peeler blew a whistle somewhere away in the fog. (Never leave a pub drunk when it’s throwing out time for the cast of Oliver).

And in the pub the magicians’ set about me. Rob Brown made me sign my name on the back of a card. He did this;  he did that, he… I can’t remember… too much to drink…  all I know is, a little later he pulled out his wallet and my card was in there. Signed. Now, I know it’s a trick, but-

I knew it was a trick when he got me to sign a 10p piece, and then, whilst it was safely wrapped up in my hand, proceeded to bend it out of shape. I’m sure he had a pair of pliers somewhere about him, but still, I have no clue what went on there. It’s magic, or it’s not magic. And I know it’s not magic, so… but… what happened? Am I that unobservant? Well, no. He’s just amazing. I know one thing, and that is the truth; it is a trick. But then I am being shown something else that makes no sense. And how did Jesus do that thing with the bread and the fishes?

Rob also tried to hypnotise me. It didn’t really work, but then we were in a crowded and noisy pub. I could feel where it was going. I could sense how I was being manipulated. And I can see how many people will go with it. I asked Rob if he had more success with females. I had a theory; Rob couldn’t hypnotise me but a sexy female magician could. It’s a kind of flirting, and you can choose to go there or not. I felt all Graham Greene again; if The End of the Affair is about faith (or the lack of it), in both love and God, then I’m afraid, Rob, I didn’t have faith in our love, but I do believe you are a god. I held a card at arms length. Rob told me it was the heaviest thing I had ever held. Well, of course, it seemed like it was getting heavier because it’s hard work holding your arm at length. Then he said it was getting lighter again. I knew it wasn’t, but it did, a little bit. You made me momentarily believe in something that I know cannot be; you evil devil.

All the tricks made me feel nauseous. I tried to explain to the magicians that they should take this as a compliment. I’m not sure I convinced them. Dammit! I KNOW they’re not doing magic. So what are they doing?

It’s sleight of hand, it’s misdirection, blah blah blah. But it’s so much more. I could find out, I could Google, I could maybe even learn… but there would be something missing. Magician’s are dangerous people. They know more than you or I, but they’ll claim not. They’ll say they did a trick wrong, to fool you, to empower you; and then somewhere down the line, maybe two or three months later, maybe years, decades even, they’ll go “a-ha!” And they’d have had you, got you, all that time back, without you realising.

Avoid them. They’ll mess you up forever. Go and learn a trick; fool yourself into thinking you’re like them. Look everything up on YouTube. you’ll entertain the kids at Christmas but someone’ll see the mechanics and you’ll come unstuck.

And they, the bastards, they make you shuffle the cards. You shuffle them. Like it matters. Like it’s having some effect. Like you’re in control of your own destiny. They’ll let you cut the deck. They’ll let you change your mind. And you fight this because you know it MAKES NO DIFFERENCE WHATSOEVER. But you acquiesce. And you feel in some small part that you do matter, that you can affect the outcome. And then the demons’ screw you!

I’m feeling nauseous again.

Thank you so much Rob Brown, Neil Edwards, Iain Dunford, The Beacon, and all the other magicians I had the pleasure to meet but, mainly through drunkeness, the inability to remember your names.

A final thing. One of the magicians was called Jonathan. Just before he left he came up to me. He’s the cousin of Stephen, the son of my Godfather… complicated I know, and again not the set-up for a trick (or not quite). He remembered me, Stephen, and himself playing some kind of ghost game when we were teenagers. In 1978. 31 years ago. He remembered us meeting 31 years ago! I stood there a little open mouthed, a little drunk. I needed to know more.

And, like that, he was gone.

Bloody bloody infuriating brilliant evil magicians.

Bigmouth strikes again

I’ve a big mouth. I can’t help it. If I could I would. It’s always been with me and to some degree it’s part of my undoing. As a child of three or four, at nursery, the teacher would sit me on her knee and look down into my mouth to jokingly see where all that noise came from.

It’s never gone away. Occasionally I am allowed to forget. But there’s always something there to remind me.

In relationships things can be fine and dandy. Love can be in the air. It can be all around. Then one day, and I rarely see it coming, she will lean in to me, and carefully and gently go “sshhh.”

Here I am as the appropriately titled Launcelot Gobbo in a Salford Youth Theatre production of The Merchant of Venice.

"conscience", say I, "you counsel well."

Today, on the train, I did something I rarely do. I had a phone conversation with David Mercer, an old friend and a man partly responsible for putting us on TV all those years back in 1987. He’s to blame folks for ten years of Trev and Simon. Now he runs Total Eclipse TV.

I don’t like talking on phones on trains. I avoid it. I don’t like others talking on phones on trains. I scowl at them. But today, for maybe something like the third time in my life, I talked on a phone on a train. And I forget, I’m a big mouth. No matter how hard I try, when I think I am talking quietly I clearly am not.

Getting off the train at Charing Cross I sat on a bench to finish our conversation. A smart middle aged businessman approached me and I asked David to hang on a mo. The businessman told me off; he said that I obviously loved the sound of my own voice. I was embarrassed, mortified, shamed. I apologised. I tried to apologise more but he wasn’t having it. He’d made his point and moved on. He was off.

I am sorry. And to all those people I bothered who didn’t have the heart, nerve or whatever it takes to say something, I apologise. I just wish this man had scowled at me, said something on the train, instead of saving it up with a dig at the end of the journey. But it can take guts to say something and maybe his move was the best to make.

For what it’s worth, I do not love the sound of my own voice. I doubt I love any part of me. I know he didn’t mean it so, but I have been thinking about it so. I must have some kind of crazy ego about me, after all I’m typing this now and who knows who’ll read it, but no, my voice is the constant bane of my life.

Maybe it’s an illness, maybe I can be cured by a voice coach. But it is difficult for me to face up to it as such a problem. I choose to think I am quiet and unobtrusive, but every know and then my own voice yells at me through the reactions of others.

As I thought about this post; as I thought about the comments of the man; the voice I hear in my head is still mine. Try listening to your own voice and see if you can hear it as you would like to hear it; maybe sounding like Sinatra or Morgan Freeman. I’ve tried, but I can’t do it. It’s always me. And me doesn’t half go on.

Tonight it is choir. It’s our birthday. We are a year old. tonight I can sing loud and blend in.

York

After finishing filming on Elevator Gods I stayed in York another day. I wanted to talk to the geese and the swans. They can be quite chatty, or honky… until they realise you come without food. Then all hell breaks loose. I saw a goose fight a swan. The goose won and the swan swanned off.

Then I headed to York Minster. The day before I’d been there with one of the cast, Caroline O’Hara. I was thrilled and over-excited to be spending the day with someone who had not only been in Coronation Street, but had had a fight in it. We got there at the end of the day and bought passes which we could use on other days to go up the tower, down the crypt.

So, the next day I headed of to walk the length, breadth and height of the Minster. First thing I did, maybe spurred on by Caroline’s Corrie caper with Claire, was to get into a fight. The tower was closed. The lack of grace from the deputy supervisor at the Minster was astonishing. He really couldn’t have cared less that I had an access all areas pass. It was closed because they just didn’t have the staff to escort people. I said I’d be ok on my own. He begrudgingly gave me the £1.50 difference in ticket price. He was so shockingly rude and dismissive I had no option but to point out that I didn’t think I should have to pay to go into a church. I was told I only had to pay for sightseeing; services were free. Sightseeing? I’m sightseeing all my life. And this church has a shop. I did the only decent thing. I went into the shop and tipped over the tables of repro gargoyles. I threw out the 3D laser crystal minsters. I jumped on the boxes of Bishop’s fudge.

I don’t know all the Commandments… the big ones, yes. No killing, no stealing, no petting. But I do know God missed one out; my Churches shalt not have shops!

I crept into the crypt. When I was a child we visited York a lot. The walls of the crypt are concrete with huge metal bolts at regular intervals. I used to think I was in a Dr. Who set. I wasn’t interested in all the things they’d dug up, and I’m not really now (I blame Tony Robinson) but I did love these concrete bolted walls. Yesterday though, I was shocked and disappointed. As a small boy they towered above me, they scared and thrilled me. They must be all of four feet high.

I went into the Zouche Chapel. This was an act of defiance. A sign on the door read “The Zouche Chapel is not available for sightseeing, but visitors are most welcome to use it for prayer and meditation”. I sat in silence for 15 minutes or so, pondering the fate of the despised sightseer.

I ended my day walking more York. Going to Little Bettys, a smaller version of Bettys Tea Rooms. I asked one of the staff why there was no apostrophe. No one knows.

Emperor Constantine looks out over York

Swanny river

Today has been a good day. It was our last day of shooting for Elevator Gods. We only have small parts- I’ll rephrase that… we only have cameos, but it’s a first for us; a feature film. And the whole experience has been lovely.

Today was our big scene. We play Leslie and Hilary Bartle; two brothers who’ve won £47 million on the Lottery. They use some of their winnings to fund The Bartle of the 80’s Bands; a tribute act concert with £250,000 going to the winners. But on the night Hilary is laughed at for looking ridiculous. He storms off and weeps in the dressing room, his brother Leslie trying to comfort him. They’re freaks, one freakier than the other; a weeping fool and a sensible comforter. Guess which one of us plays which.

It was fun, and Pete, the director and writer, let us improvise a bit. This led to Hilary’s one source of comfort. Leslie reminded him he was rich enough to buy anything he wanted. Hilary almost managed a smile through the tears as he dreamt of buying the one thing he craved- a naked lady riding a tiger- a Tiger Godiva.

Yes, it may end up a deleted scene.

Mid afternoon we were all done. Trev headed back home whilst I chose to stay in rainy York. I met up with the delightful Caroline who plays Becky in the film and we headed over the bridge of swans into the centre of town. It was so rainy we had no option but to run into a pub and drink and drink. We drank and drank and then ran into the Minster where we went to places that God has declared out of bounds.

This church lark is all wrong. They charge you to get in and then they seal off the sanctuaries. Well, we’d paid and we wanted access all areas. We asked each other, “what would Jesus do?” And the answer was obvious. He’d throw out the moneymakers, open all doors, and fill the aisles with Tiger Godiva’s.

And then we had sausages at The White Swan.

Later, a little more sober, I felt the need to wander out once more. This is my holiday, if only for a day.

I walked. Back to the haunt of the night before. The Slaves of Solitude wedged into my pocket. A swift pint. Then the return; seeing the swans, asleep on the mud banks, necks lolled back and curled into their bodies.

Slave of York

I’d love to start this by saying it’s quarter to three… but it’s not. It’s 12.30am. Scoot back a bit.

I’ve been based in and around York for the past week and a half, playing a small part in an exciting new project, a low budget feature film by all-round wonder kid Pete Hunt called Elevator Gods.

It’s Sunday night now. 12.30. We had the weekend off so I nipped over to Manchester to see my mum. Today was her 74th birthday. I did what any good son would do for her mum’s 74th birthday weekend; on Friday night I took her to see Richard Hawley at the Bridgewater Hall and then on Saturday I took her to see Inglourious Basterds at the Filmworks in Manchester.

Some of you may be thinking- you just took your mum to see what you wanted to see- I won’t disagree. But there’s another side to it. I just have a cool mum.

I had to leave later on her birthday, back to York, for filming on Monday morning. The train from Manchester to York was packed, standing room only. At my old age that takes it out on the knees.

I checked in to the flat I’ll be staying in with Trev and the legendary Ralph Brown. Trev is coming up from Broadstairs in the morning. Ralph was in the flat when I arrived. We walked along the Ouse and shot the breeze, and then, the professional that he is, Ralph headed back for an early night.

But I needed beer, food and Minsters. I found plenty of beer and food but only one minster (I didn’t have then energy for Beverley). I wandered the streets of York. The Shambles. Me and the streets.

When I was a child I visited York often with the family; day trips. Up Cliffords’ Tower. Even now, in passing, it looks too may steps to take.

Tonight I just wandered. I had venison and juniper berry sausages in the White Swan, and two pints of Seafarer. I walked and got lost. I felt like I was in a book a friend had bought me last Christmas, The End of Mr. Y. I wasn’t. I was, after two pints of Seafarer and another pint of something named after a ghost centurion, just a little drunk.

So I wandered. I didn’t know my way home. And I didn’t really care. I was in York. And I like York. And, eventually, if you don’t know where you’re going, you get to where you want to be.

(oh… a p.s. why slave in the title? It’s a poor pun I know, but as I travel and drink, I read; and I’m reading The Slaves of Solitude by Patrick Hamilton. That’s it. That’s all.)

Goodnight. Not quite quarter to three but will no doubt be by the time my eyes close.

Bin Strike Mess Anger

Whilst filming in Tadcaster for Elevator Gods I saw this local paper headline. It’s my favourite ever and whoever wrote it should be on Newsnight.