Philomena

Philomena

The nice people at Virgin Media offered us two preview tickets to see Philomena, Judi Dench’s latest flick. The advanced screening was at our local Odeon Multiplex which isn’t my venue of choice – too Las Vegas lounge for my liking. I prefer Cinema City, a nice bar-restaurant with a picture house attached. But, it would have been rude to refuse a freebie. Based on true events, the film is about an elderly Irish woman trying to find the son she was forced to give up to the nasty nuns following a quickie with handsome young buck at a village fair. Well, it was the buttoned-up no-thrills Fifties and unmarried mothers were the whores of Babylon. The film co-stars Steve Coogan (who also produced it and co-wrote the screenplay) as the real-like Martin Sixthsmith, former BBC journalist and Blairite spin doctor who wrote the book upon which the film is based. The movie went on general release today so I won’t add a spoiler. Suffice it to say it ain’t The Sound of Music but it isn’t Angela’s Ashes either. The subtle, gentle and often funny script allows the harrowing  story to unfold and take centre stage without the outrage slapping the audience about the face. Dame Judi is, as always, superb and Steve Googan (who is more famous as Norwich’s very own fictitious DJ, Alan Partridge) is surprisingly good.  It’s well worth shelling out a few shillings for.

Beamed Back to Bodrum

TSDSTTR PA062The beauty of renting is that we’re not responsible for all those annoying little things that inevitably go wrong around the home. We had a dodgy boiler that refused to heat water (though it was more than happy to heat the radiators, even when not asked). Our friendly landlady despatched a boiler-suited chatty man with cute dimples. He installed a brand new heat exchanger (No idea? Me neither). I provided tea for his labours and listened intently to my boiler man recall his boiler tales. A dull date on a Saturday night, I thought. Despite the cute dimples.

Then we became undone by a temperamental washing machine that only spun when it could be arsed. The reluctant spin went on for weeks. We were seriously in danger of being buried under sopping piles of dripping undies. Our landlady dispatched a smiley man in baggy bottoms and a corporate polo top. I provided tea for his labours as he tried to wring a final spin out of the moody machine. “It’s knackered,” he concluded. His home-spun words were music to my ears. I almost invited him out for dinner.

A week later, our landlady despatched a replacement appliance escorted by a thick-set older man with an even thicker-set accent. He was accompanied by a spotty young apprentice. “Where’s it plugged in?” asked the old man. “Absolutely no idea,” I replied. After a lot of huffing and puffing, hauling and heaving, he found the socket behind the fridge. Then I watched him slice the live wire with a Stanley knife. The loud bang almost gave me a seizure. Unlike me, he wasn’t the least bit perturbed by the black flume and strong whiff of electrical burn or the fact that he’d blown all the sockets in the kitchen. The young spotty thing was shocked into silence. For one brief moment, I thought I’d been beamed back to Bodrum where all workers are fully qualified electricians/plumbers/carpenters/roofers/rocket scientists (delete as appropriate).

Laurel and Hardy didn’t get tea for their trouble, I can tell you. Well, the kettle wasn’t working.

This Sceptred Isle

This Sceptred Isle

I really like this. Okay, it says nothing about the evils of empire, world plunder, the subjugation of the Celtic Fringe by the perfidious English or the challenges of twenty-first century multiculturalism, and it’s narrated by a fast-talking Yank. But as a five minute history lesson for the modern, short attention-span generation, it ain’t half bad. The message to my overseas friends is that England isn’t Britain.

Cheers to Angela in Turkey for this one, my ever helpful dolly-drop Bodrum Belle.

Thou Shalt Blog

Thou Shalt Blog

jack-the-hack-_writingtipsRead the blogging gospel according to St Jack, chapter one, on Displaced Nation.

Those who regularly dip into Jack the Hack will know that I’m a passionate advocate of blogging—for fun and for glory. With a little effort and imagination, you really can make the Web work for you, and blogging is a very good place to start (cue Julie Andrews, the old Dame who tragically lost her fabulous soprano timbre). Still not convinced? Then let’s start at the very beginning…

More…

Downtown

Downtown

Unlike many of the stately old homos of my generation, I never quite developed a taste for the torch-song trilogy of Garland, Minnelli or Bassey. And I can take or leave the new old girls on the block – the fallen Madonna, nip and tuck Cher or crazy Diana (Ross not Spencer). But, my spot is very soft for a classy dame from Surrey, a woman who first hit the streets in the year war broke out. Then, she was performing with an orchestra in the entrance hall of a Kingston-upon-Thames department store for a tin of toffee and a gold wristwatch. She was seven. Seventy four years on, she is still going strong and is currently on national tour. I am, of course, referring to the iridescent and timeless Petula Clark – child protégé, forces favourite, Hollywood starlet, Sixties pop princess, chanteuse Française and West End superstar.

Autumn was fashionably late this year but made quite an entrance when it did eventually arrive. We were battered by brolly-snapping weather as we wandered the windy streets of Ipswich in search of the Regent Theatre, East Anglia’s largest.  We had a stiff double at the bar while we dried off. The drench did nothing to dampen our spirits and as we took our third row seats in the auditorium, the crowd buzzed with anticipation. Miss Clark has been treading the boards for a very long time and this was no better illustrated than by the giddy silver-haired fans who surrounded us. Every care home in Suffolk must have been drained that night. I swear I spotted a St John’s Ambulance crew on standby just in case the excitement got too much; mercifully, we were spared a medical emergency. Still, our Pet raised the blood pressure with a superb performance, giving those X Factor wannabees, a fraction of her age and a fraction of her talent a marathon for their money. From Gershwin to Lennon via Elvis and Gharls Barkley, Miss Clark stepped through her set with style, humour and remarkable agility. Naturally, ‘Downtown’ got the biggest cheer but, for me, it was ‘I Couldn’t Live Without Your Love’ that got me all dewy-eyed. You see, I’d chosen it as the soundtrack to the champagne reception at our Civil Partnership (“Ah,” I hear to cry in unison).

Come the finale of the two-hour gig, the wrinkly congregation got to their feet for the much-deserved standing ovation (though, in truth, it was more of a slow stagger than a youthful leap). Even a wheelchair-bound man in a turban found his legs, Twas a miracle from the lady who famously played Maria Von Trapp’s favourite singing nun. Hallelujah, sister.

Get your hankies ready…

The Faerie Queene

Faerie QueeneIt’s my birthday today and I’d like to share a little poem that my English teacher, David Steddall, wrote in the card he gave me when I reached sweet sixteen.

I know you’re not a fairy queen

I know you’re not a donkey

Perhaps you’re something in between

Like a hairy gnome gone wonky

It reads worse than it was. It’s certainly true that I was relentlessly bullied as soon as I entered the gates of my ancient and prestigious South London grammar school. The other kids knew I was pink-leaning even when I didn’t (well, actually I did but that’s another story). I survived the ordeal by developing a sharp tongue and fast legs. But, by the time I reached my O Level years, the torment had subsided and I’d won the grudging acceptance of my peers, and high praise for my compositions. What Dave was actually telling me was to pull my finger out in the poetry stakes. “It’s not that difficult,” he wrote in my final school report after I miserably failed my English Literature mock. You see, I just didn’t get it. Simile, descriptive prose, analogy, word play?  It just flew right over my cute curly head. Do I get now? Well, let’s see:

“I know you’re not a fairy queen”

Because we’re not all camp as a row of tents (ok, I can be a little lary and loose-wristed, particularly when on the sauce).

“I know you’re not a donkey”

I’ve never claimed to be hung like Eeyore.

“Perhaps you’re something in between

Another sexuality reference, perhaps?

Like a hairy gnome gone wonky”

Well, my balls did drop sooner than most of my cohort and I was (and still am) vertically challenged. And the wonky bit? Another allusion to the Friends of Dorothy? I have a feeling in my water that this isn’t about Shakespeare’s sonnets after all.

There you go. Sorted. Now, where did I put my Chaucer?

PS.  I’m sure this degree of familiarity wouldn’t be allowed these days. We live in more hysterical times, imagining a pedo lurking round every corner. And, just in case anyone’s wondering, as far as I remember, Dave was a straight as my school ruler. No mucky business going on or intended.

Lies, Damned Lies and Statistics

Lies, Damned Lies and Statistics

lies tshirtAccording to a recently published survey by Britain’s Office of National Statistics, 1.5% of the adult British population is either gay or bisexual. This figure has been extrapolated from a sample of about 180,000 and is much lower than many pundits expected.  I’m not surprised. Brits tend to be a bashful and bolshy lot, content to tell the nosy nanny state to mind its own business, particularly in matters of the boudoir. Gaydar, the gay dating site, claims to have over two million members in the UK so maybe the ONS numbers don’t stack up. In any case, percentages shouldn’t count when it comes to freedom, personal choice and civil rights. If it was all about mustering the troops, the ladies of this land would have been running the show decades ago (and that would be no bad thing). The survey revealed that the highest number of gay and bisexual people is found in London, the wicked city where the streets are paved with diversity. No surprises here either. What only-gay-in-the-village wouldn’t pay for a one-way ticket out of middle England? But which part of this Sceptre’d Isle has the fewest fairies? You guessed it; East Anglia. This may explain the dearth of come hither looks I get these days. Or maybe I’m just past my use-by date.

Back on the Treadmill

Back on the Treadmill

treadmillRegular readers will know that I’ve been under the doctor because of something called PAD (Peripheral Arterial Disease). It’s caused by the thin veins I inherited from my father and a wayward lifestyle of sex, drugs and sausage rolls. The condition affects my mobility and is quite common in old farts of my age, apparently. Following the double stent to unblock my dodgy groin, my consultant (and Dr Green from ER lookelikee) decided that exercise was the best way of evading the surgeon’s knife. This was uncharted waters for me. Apart from a healthy amount of rumpy-bumpy, I’ve always taken the path of least resistance in the physical therapy stakes – buses, tubes, taxis, piggy-backs. I’m a hop on, hop off kind of guy. Ask Liam. He knows. I always figured that if God had wanted me to walk further than the pub, She would have given me more than a 27 inch inside leg. Still, to avoid going the way of my dear old Dad (who didn’t make it past 50), I took the quack’s advice and joined a city-centre gym (no sniggering at the back). It’s a low-cost 24/7 DIY affair, fit for the age of austerity. Stripped-down and ultra-modern without a fluffy robe or juice bar in sight, there are just rows and rows of hi-tech instruments of torture and wall-to-wall mirrors for watching the inquisition. Thankfully, I’m not too intimidated by half-my-age beefed up muscle marys on steroids. While they’re pumping iron on the top floor, I’m fast-walking with the girls downstairs. Life’s a catwalk and I’m back on the treadmill.

Jack’s Cottage Industry

Author2author (851 x 315)It’s a funny old world. Almost by accident, I seem to have started a little cottage industry. Anything to keep me off the streets (and the wolves from my door). Over the years, I’ve learned a thing or two about this blogging and internet malarky and people have often asked for my help (and I’m happy to oblige – what goes around, comes around). So, I thought there might just be a little brass in it. I now offer a web design, blogging and social media service to authors (or anyone else for that matter) and I’ve already garnered a few quality punters attracted to my quality offer. I’m cheap but I’m good (well, I would say that, wouldn’t I?).

All_Books

Here’s the hard sell:

“These days, authors are expected to do a lot more to market their books. This means developing a strong online presence, an appealing author site to draw in the crowds and regular engagement with potential readers through blogging and social networking. Not everyone has the time, the inclination or the skill to set the wheels in motion. Author Jack Scott has been there, done that and built up an impressive social network to promote his own books. Let Jack take the worry out of the web. He can build a fully integrated website, blog, Facebook page and Twitter page for you. He can even produce a short book trailer to add a little Hollywood sparkle to your words. All Jack’s packages are offered at an affordable fixed price and the more you buy, the more you save.”

Apple GidleyIn the best Blue Peter tradition, click on the apple to see something I prepared earlier. And, since I now offer book trailers, I thought it was high time I updated the trailer for my first book, Perking the Pansies, Jack and Liam move to Turkey.

Check out my all-new author2author website and Facebook Page (a few extra likes would be appreciated). If you know someone who would like a little help, send them my way. I thank you.

Enemy of the State

Enemy of the State

I see that the Daily Mail (or Daily Hate, as I prefer to call it), has hit the headlines with a vicious character assassination of the late Ralph Miliband (father of Ed, the current Labour Party leader) by describing him as ‘The man who hated Britain.’  It’s not the first time this particular rag has dressed up nasty prejudices as legitimate political comment, though libelling a dead man is low even by their own very low standards.  Well, the dead can’t sue, can they? These days, quite a few people would be tripped up by the Mail’s paper-thin definition of what it means to be British, me included. I’m a bleeding-heart pinko liberal who leans towards republicanism, refuses to doff my cap to my ‘betters,’ can’t abide cricket or warm beer (make mine a chilled glass of French), prefers Italian to a full English, considers organised religion to be, at best, plain daft and what else? Oh, yes, I’m a shirt-lifter to boot. I guess this must mean I hate Britain too. Except, of course, this is nonsense.

It was left to Quentin Letts, that well-known man of the Mail (though not of the people), to defend the paper’s reputation on BBC’s Question Time. Over to Mehdi Hasan, a British Muslim and the political editor of the Huffington Post in the UK, who left poor Mr Letts looking like he’d just been scolded by nanny. Priceless.

If you want to know more about the story, simply Google ‘Ralph Miliband.’ It’s splashed all over the web. Make you own mind up. Don’t let the Daily Mail do it for you.