80 Years Apart - Westgate Road

January 28th, 2010 | 1 comments »

Whilst trawling the interwebnet thingy for references to help in my next book, ‘Men In Blacks’, I came across two photographs taken, almost from the same spot, eighty years apart.

The top image shows Westgate Road, Newcastle, in 1902 and the lower in 1982 - and not a lot has changed. Playing ‘spot-the-difference’ I see that the building on the left was Westgate Police station and it became the Essoldo cinema (now demolished and an apartment block built). The building on the corner was the Brandy Vaults pub and is a Chinese restaurant (these days back to a pub called Tilley’s); The Tyne Theatre became the Stoll Picture house in 1919 and returned to being a theatre in the mid 70s; what was a tobacconists on the right hand corner is a music shop.

Apart from those the traffic has moved from two way to one way; the lampposts are in the same place and there are a heck of a lot more people in 82.

So… eighty years on and not a lot of change. I think my main protagonist, Rob Crowther, will find himself quite at home back in Victorian days.

Chocky Tabs Anyone?

January 23rd, 2010 | 0 comments »

I see that £11.9 billion has been offered, and possibly accepted, by Cadbury’s in a takeover by USA firm of squeezy cheese makers Kraft.

What a lot of folks don’t know is that Kraft is owned by the Altria Group… which was Phillip Morris… makers of Marlboro ciggies…

Ear, Ear

January 22nd, 2010 | 0 comments »

Over at the BBC Magazine page they occasionally have a feature called ‘How To Say’. The logo for the articles - as per usual - is an ear. Todays offering is … ‘Van Gogh’.

Made *me* smile.

BUGGRITT!!

January 19th, 2010 | 0 comments »

We found out earlier this week that the publisher of my ‘Albert’ series of books has gone bust. No web site and the phone number I have for them is disconnected. Buggritt!

This also means that the first theatre tome I wrote under the Stiofan McAtinney pen, ‘Operation Brutus’, is also now not available. It soon will be - but published under the auspices of Alberts Press and I am hatching plans to bring out the Alberts 1-3 in one volume.

Looks like I’m going to be busy as I also want the next Rob Crowther theatre book out this year as well. Title? ‘Men In Blacks.’

… back to hatching

playas

December 15th, 2009 |

Whilst not published until Jan 6th I see that Amazon now has ‘playas’ to order for New Year delivery… people are buying it it would seem as it’s at 150,000+ in their sales rankings.

Happy Author

Santa & Davros

November 24th, 2009 |

Things are a bit strange in the world of theatre; luvvie.

I have known actor Peter McGowan for lots of years as both a pro and as a guy I like to have a beer with. He’s been in all sorts of things in his long career. Everything from Dr Who to Emmerdale and numerous movies. This season he is playing Santa. What I did not know is that he has a brother, Terry Molloy.

Terry is also an actor and if you listen to ‘The Archers’ on R4 you will know him as Mike Tucker. He also played Davros in Dr Who.

My life just gets more surreal by the moment. I know of Santa and Davros and one of them lives in Ambridge.

Is it a case of: !!!ELFSTERMINATE!!! (?)

Books And Fame

November 22nd, 2009 |

Well. It’s off. Off to the printers. The proof should arrive in about ten days. You can get it from the usual outlets… What? Oh, sorry. Yes. The new book. Playas’.

Synopsis: *”Rob Crowther was expecting a sun tan …

It all seems like a good idea. Spain’s Costa Blanca for August and an easy kids show in an outdoor venue. But what happens when your scenery truck is hijacked, the driver has a heart attack and the venue catches fire? Move to plan ‘B’. Only that involves getting the rest of his crew from the UK, breaking into a warehouse and getting mixed up with a bunch of drug dealing gangsters that shoot at you; and then there is the certain matter of a command performance and the fantasmas del mar.

… pass the protection factor ‘Bulletproof’.”*.

Available from the usual outlets from the 6th of Jan 2010 at £7.99 … or you could leave me a message and get the author discount :)

Other news is that someone close to me reckons that I look like a Take That member - Howard… Naaaah! I’m much prettier… wiser… older.. skinter…

Guns 'n' Roses Xmas?

November 16th, 2009 |

You must have heard Axl Rose singing ‘Sweet Child Of Mine’, from the 1987 album ‘Appetite for Destruction’, at some point. This Xmas it is to be featured as part of John Lewis’s TV and cinema ad campaign

Thing is Mr Rose ‘n’ the Guns are nowhere in sight. This version is done by a Swedish folk band ‘Taken by Trees’, and is the first time G’n’R has allowed its music to be used in a UK advertising campaign.

I prefer the original.

Incase You Are Interested...

November 13th, 2009 |

I am currently suffering a head full of feathers; a nose full of snot; a sore throat; my eyes feel like PHITS.

Other news: there are only 5 (yes five) more Fridays left and then it is Xmas. I am starting my “BAH! Humbug!” early.

And I Get Shot At?

November 12th, 2009 |

A piece in today’s DTeleg ‘Alan Johnson defends Ministry of Defence bonuses’ just goes to show how little our government cares about our front line troops.

Mr Johnson said that this year’s MoD bonuses, worth more than £47 million, were justified because some civilian staff from the ministry “go into the front line.”

So? That’s their job. Same as a squaddy. And what does a squaddy get paid? A private in the Army can be paid as little as £16,681 a year, with a bonus of £13 a day for serving in Afghanistan. and The MoD says that means a private on his first operation is paid at least £20,255.

£20,225 sounds like a lot to some people but then again most people don’t go to work to get shot at and blown up. If you work this figure down it is worth 388 quid a week; in a 40 hour week that’s £9.70 an hour - before off-takes. Do soldiers in the field work a 40 hour week? I doubt it very much.

Oh, yes. Nearly forgot to mention. Just in case you’re interested there is a job going in the civil service as a (junior) Graphic Designer, for the Highways Dept, based in Yorkshire. Salary? £28068 - no guarantees over getting shot at.

Plodding On

November 9th, 2009 |

Just lately I have been unable to sleep for more than a few hours every night and have resorted to earlytimes TV. It is, in the main, dreadful.

One of the progs is called ‘Nightwatch’ and deals, occasionally, with crime from the Victorian age - some of it quite entertaining.

Last night was one of those inner-city, modern, cops-with-cameras-dealing-with-binge-drinking efforts. Yawn. If anything could get me back to sleep that could. I persevered - and was glad I did.

A young man, staggeringly drunk, was brought down, after a fracas, by four burly coppers. The usual tussle on the ground ensued. The law being restraining and the youth struggling. One of the plod stood up to tell the bloke he was being arrested. Cue comedy moment.

P.C.: “I am arresting you - blahdy, blah - do you have anything on you that you shouldn’t?”

MAN (struggling): “Yeah!”

P.C.: “What?”

MAN: “Three f*ing coppers!”

I almost wet meself.

Damn Yer Ayes!

November 6th, 2009 |

In The Canterville Ghost (1887), Oscar Wilde wrote: “We have really everything in common with America nowadays except, of course, language.” and this is becoming more and more true thanks to global news.

The Yanks can be forgiven, somewhat, for dropping letters out of certain spellings and calling a road the pavement, but what is really getting my goat at the moment is the use of the letter ‘I’ - which has crept across to the BBC money roundup on the news via their Singapore based reporter, Rico Hizon, and World Business Report.

Listening, rather than watching, the other evening I was suprised to hear about a company called ‘Naye-san’. I looked up to be greeted with a Nissan logo. Further on in this bulletin we had people referring to Aye-ran and Aye-raq.

Now I know that we say ih-ran and ih-raq and that the local way of saying it is actually ee-ran and ee-raq so where the flame do the Yanks get the Aye bit from?

I don’t go to the Ay-enformation counter; terrorists are not Ay-enterred and the gods help them if they ever have to pronounce “impossibilification”.

It all started with Sesame Street I reckon: “Today is brought to you by the letter ‘Zee’”.

Taste Of Spain

October 27th, 2009 |

My next door neighbours have been having some work done on their house for the past ten weeks or so. Namely a loft conversion.

Bang, bang; saw, saw; hammer, hammer; indeterminate thumps. They apologised in advance for the disruption, which was nice of them, and asked what was my fave tipple. “103 Brandy de Jerez.” I replied.

Tea time today I met them outside my house, returning from a shopping trip. “Hang on Slim, we have something for you.” A bottle of 103 was produced.

So this evening I am settling down with a large glass of 103 and one of my fave Spanish cigars (Alvaro Elegantes) that were bought for me during the summer.

Readers of my theatre books may notice that these two things are also indulged in by my main protagonist, one Rob Crowther … strange that. :)

Eating Dogs and Other Hokum

October 26th, 2009 |

With the Copenhagen jolly about to take off - where one G Brown will save the world again, according to reports, and one B Obama will not attend - the ‘papers are full of what was ‘Global Warming’ but has now been re-branded as ‘Climate Change’.

A medium-sized dog has the same impact as a Toyota Land Cruiser driven 6,000 miles a year, while a cat is equivalent to a Volkswagen Golf according to authors Robert and Brenda Vale in their book ‘Time to Eat the Dog: The Real Guide to Sustainable Living.’

The Gruniad has a quick carbon calculator whereby you can work out the impact of your travel, home and shopping habits. The average person - if there is such a thing - has a footprint of 15.4. I worked mine out at 7 (don’t own a car or take flights, etc) yet HMGs Climate Change Bill laid down that, by 2050, the British people must cut their emissions of carbon dioxide by well over 80 per cent. Looks like a Medieval lifestyle for us all, eh?

A poll by the Science Museum designed to convince the nation of the perils posed by climate change has backfired after being hijacked by sceptics. 2,385 people who took the poll said “count me out” compared to just 415 who said “count me in”.

All this talk of climate change has me convinced that a lot of the, so called, science is pure hokum. ‘Polar bears are not drowning as there are four times more of them now than there were 40 years ago; the number of hurricanes and droughts have gone down, not up; the Antarctic, containing nearly 90 per cent of all the ice in the world, has actually been cooling over the past 30 years, not warming’ (don’t just take my word for it - go look it up). Christopher Booker, D Teleg, reveals how a handful of scientists, who have pushed flawed theories on global warming for decades, are trying to get one over on us and keep themselves in jobs.

There has always been climate change and there always will be - some believe it leads to wars. A rise of four degrees in Britain was declared as a disaster for the country as the short-lived heatwave we had a couple of years ago ‘proved’. Sorry guys but I would love to live in a Mediterranean climate.

On a more regional level we have the weekly/fortnightly eco collections by our local councils. Why is this? Save the planet? Let’s look Green? I doubt it. At the end of the day it’s all about money. Councils have to pay for landfill so by getting us to put out our tin cans et al they are able to recycle them. Or put another way sell them to the recyc companies thereby making a profit on the collection of them - trouble is, at the moment, the price of recyc paper and other commodities is so low that they are having to store all this stuff until the price goes up. Somewhat of a false economy.

My economy is such that I don’t mind turning down the heat or using the eco light bulbs, I use public transport when needed and don’t go daft on buying clothes made in China or Asia (last purchase 2 years ago). My eco stance is that if it saves me money all well and good - just stop pushing the social engineering at me.

Power Down

October 22nd, 2009 |

There’s a bit in todays D.Teleg entitled ‘50 technological advances your children will laugh at’ and it discusses that over the last 30 years the pace of technological change has increased so quickly that one decade’s must-have gadget becomes the next decade’s laughing stock.

The majority of these devices use electrical power and I wonder if the laugh will be on the other side of childrens faces when there is none. Power cuts are on the way - so they say.

Personally I have very few of the devices discussed, apart from a TV and a computer. The mobile phone that I carried until the middle of this year gave up its battery - I gave up the phone. Life is just somewhat sweeter without it.