I am a sentimental old fool.  I know this from experience, and from the observations of friends. It's certainly true. I have wept over sad films with happy endings, wasted precious years worrying about things that never were and will never be.

And yet.

I've just moved home.  Only my fourth time, so hardly a veteran of the process. I was in my last home for seven years; in the one before that for fifteen.  I'm predisposed to be a stayer-put, a putter-down of roots, a grower-into-places.  So you'd expect, wouldn't you (I certainly did) that I'd feel something of a wrench at leaving the place I'd been happy in for so many years?  Wouldn't you?

Very much to my surprise, no. Not a bit of it.

Maybe it's because of the immensity of the effort involved in moving house, especially when one is such an inveterate hoarder as I am.  So many boxes of utter shite lugged down those stairs.  And I was good - over thirty bags of actual rubbish (I know how many bin liners there are on a roll - and I bought two rolls), and many, many trips to the local recycling centre - yet my new (smaller) flat is still shoulder high in boxes and crates. I might also mention the sterling efforts of a couple of my friends who broke their backs manhandling my furniture down the five flights of stairs at the old flat, and the one, shorter, steeper, narrower flight at the new.  And who kindly didn't actually say that the larger of the two sofas wouldn't fit, but nevertheless, helped carry it to the lockup where it now resides, awaiting some other fate.

So is it that? The physical stress of leaving defeats the emotional longing of whatever?

Or do I just not actually get sentimental about places?  No.. I clearly do.  A trip to Walton-on-the-Naze, where I spent my childhood summers, invokes all kinds of emotions.  A walk down the High Street in Chipping Ongar, where I grew up, ditto.  But the flat in Romford, the house in Harold Hill, the flat before that, in Chadwell Heath...  there's a sort of vague wistfulness, but no more than that.

Maybe I've just grown callous in my old age.

It's six weeks since the burglary, and thus, six since I had the car nicked.  It took my insurers one day to write the old car off as a total loss after the theft.  They had all my documents within two days.  It took them, perhaps predictably, five weeks to issue a settlement cheque - which they did just in time for the throng of bank holidays, so that it's taken another week to clear.

However, today I've finally replaced my little silver Yaris with... another little silver Yaris.  Not only the same make, but the same model and year.  Feel free to point and laugh and level accusations of unoriginality.  It wasn't strictly deliberate - I had, it's true, been seriously considering getting another Yaris, purely because I'd been so pleased with the original, that it seemed sensible to stick with something I trust, and whose mechanical foibles I know well.  Of necessity, after all, I was going to be buying a fairly old, cheap car.  I didn't plan to be getting quite such a doppleganger...  However, when I saw the one I eventually bought, I was very struck by the fact that it was clearly in a much better condition mechanically than my old one - mainly because it had only just over half the mileage.  The bodywork's a bit more scuffed, but they generally don't rust much.

Driving it home was an odd sensation.   Like getting to know the identical twin of a much-loved friend.  The features are almost indistinguishable, but their face is marked by different lines and furrows.  They're also quite a bit fitter.

Dear Burglars,

It being traditional that burglaries occur in twos, and, a few weeks having passed since your first visit, you'll no doubt be calculating the optimum time to return to my flat, in order to take ownership of the inevitable shiny new replacements for the items you swagged last time.

In which case, there are some things you should be aware of.

1. No such replacements exist.  The moderately low-end computer that you stole was not insured.  If it comes to that, it wasn't strictly mine, it had been given to me by a good friend to help me out of a spot when my (even older) computer died one day.  I will be replacing the computer (thanks, in no small part, to the generosity of my Mother) but it will be equally low-end, and certainly not worth your while nicking.

2. In the unlikely event that you do visit me again, please don't bother emptying every drawer I have all over the floor.  I am a hoarder, and keep nothing of any value therein. My drawers are merely full of junk,

3. I have installed a burglar alarm, for your inconvenience.  The siren is exceedingly loud.  It is also placed only about a foot away if you try to break down the door again.  The police will no doubt be aided in their search for you by the description, "somewhat deaf, bleeding from the left ear".

4. If we don't encounter each other again, do at least be kind to my little car.  It's been a good friend over the last ten years, and deserved better.

Yours faithfully,
BaldJohn

There's a man I see every morning on my way to work.  He's one of the multitudinous free-newspaper sellers - not sure which paper.
His adopted pitch is at the far end of the Sun Street Passage tunnel that extends out from the northern end of Liverpool Street Station.

He's always there, with a broad smile for his customers.  I never accept a paper, but he always smiles anyway.  As one enters the tunnel from the station end, he's there at the other end, framed in light from Primrose Street behind, his arms flung wide, a paper in each, smiling his enormous beneficent smile.

"Welcome", he seems to be saying, "Welcome to the City. Welcome to your day."

On such trifles great cities thrive.

More on public politeness, and perceptions thereof.

I was standing on Romford station this morning, third-person deep in the small throng awaiting the 7:48. I'd positioned myself, as one does in such situations, just closely enough to the person in front of me to seem to be queuing properly, but not so closely as to encroach on their personal space.  The throng being quite dense, this meant that there was, for want of a better description, about half a person's width between us.  I'd been standing thus for perhaps a couple of minutes, probably miles away in thought.

My reverie was shaken by a woman forcing herself into the gap, almost standing on my feet, and making me step backwards.  "Sorry." I chose a look of amused surprise, and was considering saying something like, "be my guest, if it's that important to you" (see "Accelerating Towards Cantankerousness", 30th September) - when I realised that she was actually just trying to reach, and greet, someone she knew in the row in front of me.  Fair enough - still rather rude, but hey.

Unfortunately for her, however, her friend completely blanked her.  A look of horror crept across her features, as it suddenly dawned on her that, without the legitimizing influence of a response from her would-be platform companion, as far as the world was concerned she had simply committed that most heinous of acts in the English Bumper Book of Sin... Pushing In.  People looked.  People raised their eyebrows. I almost felt sorry for her.

A small thing happened on the train this morning which made me think.  A woman was sitting in one of the window seats of a four-seat section - ie., two facing pairs.  She had her feet stretched out across the gap between the seats, and made no attempt to move them as other people occupied the other seats. Two of us had to cramp our legs up in order to sit. She seemed oblivious.
This is nothing very unusual, of course, and didn't particularly annoy me.  However my first action was to post a sarcastic Facebook status about it.

It occurred to me afterwards that I've become increasingly intolerant of others with the advancing years.  My self-image has always been of a rather timid, mild-mannered, polite sort of a chap (this may already be delusional, of course).  Lately, though, there have been a number of occasions when this style of personality has really not been borne out in my actual behaviour.

If, when walking behind someone along a busy street, and they simply stop, perhaps to send a text message, or because they've seen some bright and shiny thing, such that I have to take sudden evasive action, I quite often find myself saying, politely, but firmly (and out loud), "Don't just stop in the middle of the pavement."   I've been known to say to gossiping people, who've chosen the narrowest place to have their conversation, "You're stopping everyone getting past" - again, in a rather admonishing tone.  This very morning, after my encounter with the leg-stretching woman on the train, I walked through the Broadgate Link, following a young lady trailing a wheeled suitcase (that's another issue all its own).  She was walking fairly slowly, dawdling, even.  She seemed to be mesmerized by all the shops lining the route - she was meandering from one side of the (wide) path to the other, gazing into each shop in turn - at precisely the right speed, and with precisely the right angle applied to her suitcase, that she was managing to occupy the whole width.  I found myself saying, rather harshly, I suspect, "Could you at least try to walk in a straight line?" - before striding briskly past her.

These outburst shame me.  Partly because they're so at variance with the person I, in my vanity, like to think I am, and perhaps partly because, due to that self-image, I've tended to avoid being confrontational at all costs (time was, when getting genuinely angry would just make me burst into tears, somewhat ruining the effect), so when it occurs it's a bit of a surprise.

The writing, I fear, is on the wall.  In my dotage, I shall likely become a joyless old cuss.  The sort of aged curmudgeon who, a couple of generations ago, would have been found in a bath chair, knees encased in a tartan rug, swearing belligerently and deftly waving a stick at all who come near.

Woodgrange Park station, on the London Overground.  The Barking to Gospel Oak line.  An odd mix of investment and neglect.  Shiny new station waiting rooms, an excellent and quite new PA system that can actually be understood - but trains that run rather infrequently, and that are only two cars long when they arrive - but with, so far as I can tell, a train staff of three people!

I arrive at the station at 18:43.
The display screen says the next train is the 19:05, and describes it as "on time."  I wonder what happened to the 18:50 listed on the timetable.
A couple of minutes pass, and the PA pipes up, advising that the 18:50 is delayed by 21 minutes.
A couple more minutes pass, and we're advised the 18:50 is now 24 minutes late.
I have a failure of temper and patience, and march back up the platform, intending to head for the street and seek a bus.
I glance at the display screen as I pass.  It advises the next train is now the 18:50, which it reckons is "on time".
I pause.
The PA announces the arrival of the 18:50, which glides into the platform.  All two coaches of it.
As we pull out of the station, the PA is busily announcing that the 18:50 is now delayed by 26 minutes.

This seems rather familiar.

Long term readers will know that I have a bit of a tendency towards gloom, with more than a smattering of self-pity.  I've tried quite hard of late to keep such matters off the blog, because in retrospect they're often embarrassing, and they certainly rarely achieve their rather misguided aim, of acquiring the sympathy of others.

Today, however, I find myself in the pleasant position of posting an article of entirely the opposite colour.

When I first started my attempt at professional acting, I adopted a mantra, "if in doubt, do the scary thing."  Where it came from, in those exact words, I'm not sure - it may have been my own, or it may have been borrowed from one of my very wise and dear friends.  Either way, it's proved an excellent rule of thumb for life.

Well.  A week ago, I had a message out of the blue on CastingCall from the writer and director of a show being produced throughout August, inviting me to audition.  Good for the ego in itself.  I was slightly surprised, as it was a musical comedy, set in New Orleans, and my singing and dancing skills are not something I make much of on my CV (for very good reasons!) - nor do I list an American accent among my skills.  However, I've usually made it a rule that, if someone actually invites me to audition, I will usually go, even if I don't think the show is really "me."
So on Tuesday I went.  Had a very nice chatty time with Sarah, whose show it is, did my monologue, sang Poisoning Pigeons - not awfully well, I fear, but tolerably.  Felt pleased with myself for having done it, but came away fairly comfortably certain that I wouldn't hear anything.

On Thursday evening, I had the call.  I was cast if I wanted the part.  Never has there been a more instant and complete panic.  Flattered to be cast (immensely flattered), balancing that against the knowledge that the company were already a week into rehearsals, so for me to be cast this late had certain... implications...  terror at the thought of diving into musical theatre, with only "adequate" singing and dancing skills; desperate worry at whether I could/should even consider two weeks of rehearsal instead of earning money, when I'm already teetering on the brink of financial ruin; above all awareness that the opening night would be on my Mother's 80th birthday, and that I would therefore inevitably be spending far less time with her that week than I would have liked to.  But...  I'd been complaining for ages about needing more stage work; the company seemed very strong on marketing and promotion, and there was much mention made of inviting casting directors and agents, etc.

I asked Sarah if I could have a little think, and let her know in the morning.  She very kindly agreed.  I didn't sleep much that night, being full of terror and panic and worry.  Dragged myself into work.  It was really only during the last few minutes of my walk to work, that anything started to click.  Maybe it was the sunshine that shifted my mood, but I had a moment where it suddenly seemed possible to make a choice, rather than just immersing myself in panic.
So I chose the scary thing. 
Texted Sarah before I could change my mind.

That was yesterday.  I spent last night doing my first work on the script, preparing a small monologue on the character's background.  That little ritual of sitting with a script in front of me, a fresh, sharp pencil in my hand, a pack of brand new highlighters on the desk, scribbling notes about a fictional stranger's life, gave me an amazing clarity of mind, that I haven't had for months.  Wonderful.
Today was my first rehearsal.  The scary thing has paid off.  A lovely, lovely bunch of people, this cast.  I haven't laughed as much since (as the old saying goes) Granny got her left tit caught in the mangle.  Much work to be done - my American accent is still woeful, and the testing times of the singing and dancing are still ahead of me, but, on the whole,  an object lesson.  I came away from rehearsal in a lovely warm euphoric glow.

Happy.

This is the show, by the way.  Doesn't sound like my sort of thing, does it?  I didn't think so either.  I was wrong about that, too :)

Bernard Levin.  Growing up in the household that I did, where such gentle televisual pleasures as Face The Music were regular viewing, and where my parents would often refer in warm, vaguely nostalgic terms to the likes of That Was The Week That Was, it was inevitable that I'd be familiar with the man's name, appearance, and reputation as an acidic and unforgiving critic of the arts, and as one of that first wave of blunter, more direct, political interviewers who refused to kowtow to those in authority.  He was not, looking back, somebody I warmed to very much.  He seemed to my youthful self to be somewhat charmless, possessing a face that appeared to show no signs of ever having broken into a smile. 
Beyond the notorious TW3 incident where Desmond Leslie attempted to punch his lights out on live television, I knew little of him. After all, he was a critic - even as a teenager I was aware that critics were not likely to be people I was going to feel much fondness towards.

Well.  Forward a few decades, and my sister gives me, for Christmas, a copy of "Conducted Tour", Mr. Levin's 1982 travelogue of the world's great international opera festivals.  To my shame, that was Christmas 2008, and I've only just now, over a year and a half later, got around to reading it (sorry, Jane, if you're reading this!)

The Bernard Levin who emerges from the pages is a very different sort of chap to the one I'd imagined.  Of course, anybody perhaps ten years my senior, with a knowledge of the arts will probably know this already, but for me it was quite a shock.  Far from the sullen, misanthropic aesthete I'd been expecting, I find I'm reading the joyful experiences of a genuine bon viveur, a lover of fine wines, particularly vintage champagne, of wonderful food; a man capable of raptures of delight at acquiring a new dinner jacket in black velvet.  These are things calculated to please me as a reader.
Time and again, during this ramble through the festival capitals of the world (Edinburgh, Bayreuth, Glyndebourne, Aldeburgh and so on), there are references to performances preceded or followed (or both!) by excellent meals; to intervals (of which long operas, perforce, may have several) spent knocking back copious bubbly; to a life thoroughly enjoyed with many friends.

In short, a book calculated to lift the spirits.  I'm regularly reminded throughout just how much Dad would have enjoyed it, though no opera-buff he.  It would just have been "his sort of a book". 

As a postscript, it occurs to me, thinking about the chapter on Bayreuth (where the festival is entirely centred upon the operas of Richard Wagner), and prompted by Stephen Fry's programme on the subject, repeated last night, wherein he visits Bayreuth, that I should probably acquaint myself better with Wagner.  I can recognise some of the tunes, as can most of us, I guess:  Bits of Lohengrin, the Death of Siegfried, Rde of the Valkyries, etc., but I'd be hard pressed to tell you very much of the plot, and I've certainly never actually watched, or listened to, a whole Wagnerian opera. 

I probably should.

Some months ago, I collected from my Mum a folder entitled "Various verse" - a random stack of dusty old bits and pieces of paper, all of them bits of text written by my late father.  Mostly poems, as the title of the folder suggests, but a few items of prose too.

Prompted recently by a conversation with my sister, I remembered that I had them, and had a bit of a read through.  They turned out to be not quite what I'd expected.  Dad was a prolific, one might say obsessive, writer of poetry.  He wrote verses all his life - mostly short and humorous.  Or so I thought.
What I found was a selection of mostly serious poetry, written in the latter half of the 1940s, and a few up to the early 1950s.  Many I found to be quite breathtakingly beautiful; indeed profoundly moving.  The early ones in particular, written while he was in Belgium, during the "clean up" after the Second World War, mostly typed on the backs of old German requisition forms, chart a captivating fragment of his life that I'd never even considered before.  He seems to have been a popular and happy man at that time (as he was most of his life), a little sentimental (no surprise there, given my own weakness in that direction!), and clearly revelling in the strangely beautiful ruined Europe in which he found himself.

I'd always considered myself to be quite similar to my father.  We certainly shared some great similarities in terms of personality.  However, one thing struck me like a blow, reading these outpourings - the contrast with some of the gloomy nonsense that I've often posted here on this blog.
In amongst the pages upon pages of, admittedly wistful, but nonetheless optimistic and positive text, was one single solitary poem, that hit a darker, bleaker note.  A single piece of writing that spoke of despair, of loss, of hopelessness.  Just one.  And written at the bottom of it, presumably sometime much later, in his own handwriting, the line, "what on earth prompted me to write this?"

If ever there was a testament to what a positive outlook on life he had, that was it.  Not only was there, among all the moving things he'd written, just the one truly sad poem, but it was a sufficiently rare experience for him that he felt moved to comment upon it.  Not for the first time, I wished I'd really got to know my father better.  We were very alike, certainly, but in this we differed - he never acquired the habit (never allowed himself to acquire it) of wallowing in self-pity.  He had as many knocks as any of us, in his lifetime, but they were never allowed to define him.  Lesson for me there, I think.

Just over an hour ago, two families were travelling through Romford by car.  As luck would have it, they both arrived at the traffic lights outside my flat at about the same time.  One of the cars, it scarcely matters which, jumped a red light.  The two families, who might otherwise never have met, came together about as violently as it's possible to do.

An hour later, all traces of the encounter have been cleared away, but:  Two people left by ambulance, one of them injured badly enough that they had to be cut out of their car, and lifted carefully, oh, so carefully, on to the gurney.  A small child has had an experience that will probably give it nightmares for a long time.  Two more people are severely shocked.  The two cars involved are just so much scrap metal.  All their lives will have been severely blighted for a fair while.

I don't know any of these people, but this all makes me very sad.  Not in any judgemental way; I'm not complaining about careless driving or suchlike - every driver there's ever been has made mistakes at one time or another; nor even in a "somebody should do something" sort of way (especially not that) - just sad for the trauma caused to these five people.  Life's a harsh bugger.

I went for a walk this morning.  Been doing a fair bit of walking lately, in an attempt, possibly vain, to prevent (or at least stave off) the moment when I must upgrade to a new size of trouser.  Indeed, vanity has thus far prevented me from throwing away the moderate stock of lesser-sized clothing that continues to gather dust in my wardrobe.

So. A walk.  It didn't look very promising when I left - a light drizzle was falling, and it looked very gloomy.  However, as I left the flat, I was hit by that wonderful smell of fresh rain on hot, dry ground.  I pressed on.  An urban walk - Oldchurch Road, and up Crow Lane as far as Whalebone Lane - then just retrace my steps; nothing fancy, about three and a half miles.

With every step, I was assailed by new smells.  Smells of Spring, of things growing, of the earth.  The smell of damp wood and fresh compost in the underpass beneath Oldchurch roundabout.  By the remains of the old hospital, deep drifts of forgotten autumn leaves, mouldering aromatically in the damp, pierced by fresh spears of green, overflowing with the creamy scent of cow parsley.  The sun came out, and the humid, intimate smells of spring were suddenly joined by the broader, extrovert ones of blazing summer.
Every garden I passed fizzed with a new wave of glories.  Cut grass; an early iris; a moment of heady, almost unbearable sweetness from an unseen jasmin; a freshly-painted fence; sawn timber; the hint of a barbeque... and everywhere a mélange of unidentified, but intensely familiar smells; smells I've known all my life; the smells of every family camping trip; of every school nature walk; of every lazy, sunny, grass-stained summer afternoon.

I can't deny that I'm a sentimental old fool, and experiences like this make me rather glad of it.

Three days of my allotted eight done.  About a third of the way through the book.  Rather enjoying myself.  I wasn't sure if I would, to begin with - the first day was quite a tough one, and something of an assault on my self-belief.  I'd always considered myself quite a decent cold-reader, with moderately good diction - but this belief was based on a slightly skewed experience:  That of cold-reading scripts.  Scripts have one particular characteristic that other pieces of text do not - gaps.  When cold-reading a piece of dialogue, especially if it's a conversation, there's usually a liberal sprinkling of gaps - while another person is speaking; while one's own character thinks what to say next; "pauses for dramatic effect".  It turns out that what I'm good at, is reading ahead, and having the next phrase, already adorned with appropriate inflection, cued up in my head ready to fire.

Audiobook reading, I've quickly discovered, is a very different technique.  At least, in the case of a non-fiction book like the one I'm currently working on.  Why?

There are no gaps.  The occasional paragraph, yes, but that's about it.  Where there is conversation, the reader must provide both sides of it - no opportunity to prepare your next, perfectly-inflected line while another actor is speaking, because the other actor is you!  Dramatic pauses are possible, but there's precious little chance to see the opportunities coming before they're upon you, and then, if you're not careful, the moment has passed, you didn't seize the moment, and read ahead, and you're back into the onslaught again.

It's one of those "Zen" skills, it seems, like so many things.  Direct path from eye, via subconscious, to mouth.  The conscious mind is watching, certainly, directing the performance, but the moment it interferes, the flow stops, and every second word is a fluff.  To my surprise, I found the most successful passages to be those where my conscious mind had drifted off, and was thinking about something entirely different.  At one point I realised I'd spent something like a minute worrying whether I'd turned my phone off, and how embarrassing it would be if I got a call or a text.  As soon as I spotted myself doing it of course, in waded the posturing bully of my consciousness, and I tripped over a simple word.
Definitely getting easier though.  Yay for the learning of new skills!

Internet clichés.  Specifically, the rather predictable responses that are so frequently trotted out on discussion forums.

Some tend to be specific to a particular type of site, such as, on social networking or dating sites, it will often only require a few minutes between somebody starting a thread complaining about being single, before another user will tell them one or more of the following:  Seeming needy isn't an attractive trait; you can't love somebody else unless you love yourself; relationships aren't all they're cracked up to be; it's better to be single.

Similarly, a bad luck story in a support forum will almost certainly quickly produce a post from a contributor telling them they should think themselves lucky, and either: a) go on to mention a far worse experience that they went through and survived, or b) tell the original poster not to be so selfish, and to think of all the people in the world who are less fortunate.

Some are more general - a lot of forum users, for instance, are familiar with Godwin's Law regarding the tendency of internet forums to end up in references to Nazi Germany.

The first point about all these, like the majority of clichés in all probability, is that they are largely true.
The second point, is that, by and large, in the context of an discussion forum, they're absolutely no help whatsoever.
The third point, is that they're the grist to the mill of most forums, which would be duller places without them.

So I was delighted to discover a new, emerging cliché - in, of all places, a discussion board on an acting jobs website.  I've seen it about three or four times now. It runs like this:
Somebody starts a thread, asking about an item of acting technique: Specifically, how to cry on cue on an occasion when, for whatever reason, the tears won't come.  There will be a smattering of posts about "tear sticks", onions, pepper (!), Vicks vapo-rub, etc. And then, always, without fail, some bright spark will say that using these aids is cheating, and that they should try acting.  Always.

Ticks the boxes nicely:  Is it true? Yes it is.  Is it any use to anybody? None at all.  Will it incite the other posters on the thread to expansive gestures in defence of the original poster?  Damn straight :)

A rather specific example, certainly, but I felt a sort of warm, patronising glow at the thought that a comparatively young set of discussion boards had somehow come of age. 

The same set of forums now has the beginnings of a major rant at the owners of the site about a tiny unsubstantiated rumour related to data protection.  I'll get the popcorn.

I've been allocated my first book by the RNIB.  "Nemesis - The Battle for Japan 1944-45" by Max Hastings.  Oddly relieved that I hadn't imagined the "yes we'd like you to work for us" conversation, and I won't deny that there was always a slight paranoia that perhaps they tell everybody that they want them, but just don't book 'em!  Not that I really believed that, you understand, but self-doubt was always a mainstay of my personality!

The book arrived in the post yesterday, and a sturdy tome it is, too.  A quick scan through suggests it's the sort of language throughout that I ought to be able to do well - properly-phrased, cleanly-written, and in sentences of sensible length, to allow for normal breathing.  I now have a little over a month to "prepare" the book.  Being a complete tyro at the job, I'm not sure where to start, but I guess actually reading the book wouldn't be a bad idea.  Make a note, perhaps, of any names of pronunciations I'm unsure of.  Annotate the text where necessary, for nightmare text lurking the other side of a page-turn.  Decide whether to attempt accents for the various places Sir Max quotes regional vernacular.

There's also the matter of travel and/or accommodation costs.  The RNIB are of course a charity, and don't pay full commercial rates for their readers.  Nor do they pay expenses.  The exercise, then, is not going to be a huge money-spinner for me, and I'm comfortable with that.  I see it as very useful experience in audiobook narration - if I ever have a desire to work for the likes of Naxos or Audible, then I'll need some sort of portfolio of existing audiobook work, and this should certainly help to provide that.
Travel to and from Peterborough by car would cost me around £15 return, and at the moment, this looks like being the cheapest option:  Simply to commute every day.  It's a lot of driving though, with an early start.  The train's not really an option - it's no quicker, and it costs around twice as much. What I'd really like would be to find somewhere cheap (very very very cheap!) to stay, in or near Peterborough.  In the summer months, I'd be tempted to just pop my little tent in the back of the car, and find a campsite. So long as there's somewhere to grab a shower, that should be fine.  It's only ever likely to be as much as a week of work every couple of months, so I don't mind roughing it a bit for short periods.  This end of the year though, when it's a bit nippy at night...  maybe not.

All quite exciting though.  As I say, it's never going to make me rich, but it's another string to my bow, and I will at least be earning money doing something vaguely creative!

For years, people have told me that I had a good voice.   I've generally smiled, thanked them, and left it at that.  Not entirely out of modesty, either - for a very long time I had a genuine dislike for the sound of my own voice.  It was probably bred from the usual alarm that most people feel on first hearing their own recorded voice played back, fed by the insecurity of having been a nervous stammerer when younger.  At any rate, I did nothing much about it for a very long time.

I'd done the occasional voiceover job since starting the attempt at professional acting, and these had been received well.  About a year and a half ago, however, I was invited by a  friend of mine, the very talented Ben Leto, to narrate a story of his, "The Lonely Tale of King Furciel", for Arthur Fowler's Allotment.  It went well (though I still cringe a little at the thought that I managed to completely skip one of the key lines, in spite of reading the thing from a script). Many nice comments were made, both about the wonderful story itself, and about my reading of it.  Ben's subsequently put together a film of the tale, complete with the illustrations he made (and "operated") for the performance.  I heartily recommend that you watch it.
Well.  I was very flattered to have been asked to read it, and equally flattered at all the nice things people said about it afterwards.  By this time I was starting to believe that maybe my voice wasn't so bad after all...  (trying not to sound disingenuous, honest!)

Last year, when all the savings ran out, I started doing some casual work at a call centre, doing market research.  Please don't hate me.
Supervisors, listening in to the calls, as they do, would sometimes say things like, "have you ever done any radio work? You should"
On one occasion, while doing a phone survey, I apologised to the lady at the other end of the line, for how long the questionnaire was taking, and she replied she didn't mind how long it took, she was just enjoying listening to my voice!

So, I made it my business to see if I could get some proper, paid, voice work.  Signed up for some voice talent websites, and, amazingly, almost at once landed a commercial job, voicing a corporate video for Osram, all about their developing of eco-friendly lighting technology.  Paid rather well, too.  A couple of smaller jobs have come along, as well, and I've spent many many hours recording, editing and emailing voice auditions to a plethora of people all over the world.   I find that I now actually quite like the way my voice sounds (I originally wrote, "like the sound of my own voice" but I fear that has other connotations!)

And now?  On Tuesday I drove up to Peterborough for an audition with the RNIB, for their Talking Books service.  Seemed to go well, very nice bunch of people.  Yesterday, they told me they wanted to add me to their panel of readers.  Chuffed to bits.
Ok, not going to make me a fortune - they're a charity, and their rates, though perfectly respectable, do reflect that.
But oh...  what a wonderful thing. To be paid to read books.  Any and all kinds of books - their library's very diverse and eclectic.  I find myself quite excited at the prospect; more so than I've felt for quite a while.  I wonder what the first book will be?

In and around the environs of Liverpool Street Station.

A small, straggly group of people, three couples, fresh from the pub.  One man, bearing a carrier bag containing a bottle, stops and looks at it in dismay - clearly there was something else there that he's dropped or left somewhere.  He and his partner start back to look, all uncoordinated limbs and ineffective motion.  The rest of the group press on towards the station.  Halfway across the road, another man turns, and bellows down the length of Appold Street, "ARE YOU GUYS GETTING ANY DRUGS?"

Halfway along the tunnel under Sun Street Passage, all not-quite-stainless steel and concrete, some luggage - a case, some smaller bags, strapped to a small wheeled trolley.  Beside it, on two flattened pieces of ancient brown cardboard box, a thin, weathered man in unremarkable clothes performs yoga, his face clenched in concentration.

Walking north along Curtain Road, two men, perhaps 40ish, side by side, one pulling a small wheeled suitcase.  Dark suits, expensive, beautifully cut coats.  "City types", deep in conversation about investments.  Holding hands.  Not people I would instinctively warm to, but together like, that, they are beautiful.

Well, I seem to have arrived more or less intact.  There's rather more of me than there was a decade ago, and several areas are starting to suffer the effects of gravity, but by and large, the whole assembly seems to be still largely ticking over.

It's often considered traditional to be a bit retrospective on these occasions, so, if you'll allow, I shall indulge myself a little. I shall probably stray into moments of pomposity and self-congratulation, so apologies in advance for that.  As far as possible, I'm not going to mention anybody by name - you all know who you are, and if I start referring to specific people, then I'll have to mention everybody, and I'm bound to forget someone, and then where will we be?

This has, without question, been one of the most eventful decades of my life.  Life didn't actually begin at forty, and indeed, one of the biggest changes (that of properly coming out) had already started a couple of years previously, nonetheless the sequence of events which this triggered have certainly coloured the last ten years in ways I could never have imagined.  I have been privileged to meet some wonderful people, some of whom have proved to be among the finest and truest friends I've ever known, and I love them dearly.  Other, longer-standing, and equally great and true friendships, have continued to flourish, where each meeting is like a continuation of the last, regardless of the length of the gap between.
I have left the secure but infuriating cocoon of the Day Job, and flung myself into the jaws of chance, in the hope of pursuing an acting career.  A decision which, though I might have done it anyway, helped along as I was by a chunky redundancy payment, was certainly made all the easier by the support, encouragement and belief of those friends I mentioned...

Particular highlights?  That redundancy is certainly up there among them, and the extraordinary feeling of liberty when I walked away from the office for the last time.  The swelling in my breast on getting the phone call calling me to my first audition, and the impossible-to-contain soaring elation of the subsequent phone call telling me I'd been cast.  The three months of that tour taught me an enormous amount; about acting, about people, and about being careful what I write in my blog. Ahem.
At the end of the tour, one of the first things I did was to audition for a panto.  I think it's fair to say that I made a woeful spectacle of myself, and went home vowing never to attempt a singing audition again.  A year later though, aided by some masterly singing tuition, and prodded by a few people, I went back and auditioned again for them, got the part, and had some of the most fun I've ever had on stage, with a wonderful bunch of people.  Quite proud of that.

This last year has, it must be admitted, not been quite so euphoric.  This has been true for a lot of people, of course.
My savings have completely run out, Barclays Bank no longer smiles upon me, and I've discovered that LiDL's 80 tea bags for 28p are false economy.
Auditions have been harder to get, and castings from auditions harder still.  So I find myself doing what has become a classic "resting actor's job" - working in a callcentre, telephoning people who don't want to talk to me, and asking them impertinent questions.  Probably good for me - given me a thicker skin.

There's a definite sensation of improvement though - the early spring sunshine blazing through the windows certainly adding to that.  Auditions are starting to trickle in again, I've had some very nice voiceover jobs recently, and I can feel the green shoots of enthusiasm pushing their way out into the light.

Onward and upward.  Fifty feels like a nice age so far.

On the other hand, this cheap tea really is vile.

Central Line tonight, a young man sitting opposite. Somewhere around St. Pauls, he begins mouthing words to himself, as if in prayer.  Fair enough.  Gazing idly about, my eyes fall upon a small group who appear to be Chinese tourists. They too seem to be silently muttering to themselves.  A little surreal.  No evidence of iPods for them to be quietly singing along to.
Then they all stop, more or less at once.

Next to the first muttering man, a young woman.  She opens her bag, and fishes out a Boots' paper bag. From it she produces a white cardboard box, which rather proudly and prominently bears the words, "Derbac M" in an unnecessarily lurid font.  She begins reading the instructions, occasionally leafing through an English/Hungarian dictionary.

A happily drunk chap in his thirties sits down next to a yonger man who is reading a book, and says, "Ish that a good book? Are you enjoying it? What'sh it about?"  The younger man, to my moderate astonishment (and respect at his show of humanity), puts down his book, and enters into an amiable conversation with the drunkard.

Two people on the train caught my attention on my way home today.

It is, of course, extremely rude to make personal remarks about people, whether one is acquainted with them or not.   However, I was very struck by what I would have to interpret as a major disparity between the image of themselves they presumably intended to display to the world, and the reality they actually achieved.  So struck, in fact, that I feel compelled to record the details here.  Not, emphatically not, in order to ridicule, but rather, in a peculiar sort of a way, to marvel.

The first traveller was a young lady.  She had provided for herself, in the current fashion, a fairly detailed makeup.  Very expertly and precisely done it was too, bearing witness to great attention to detail.  She had chosen, as seems quite fashionable at the moment, quite a deep colour of foundation.  The sort of colour one might describe, if one were purchasing it from BandQ, as "Terracotta" or perhaps, "Brick."  I confess though, that in the uncharitable mood in which I found myself, the expression that sprang at once to my mind was, "Mattesson's Crab Paste."

So to the second traveller.   This gentleman is well on the way to having a haircut like my own.  The poor soul still possesses though, a dusting of (sadly rather dark) hair on his scalp, just enough to give the uncomfortable sensation of fine pubery.  He is also cursed by that little island or tuft, front and centre of the forehead, that so often remains behind when all other cranial turf has fled.  Traditionally, these remnants would have been grown long, and expertly coiffed into that style still known, decades after its creator abandoned the style, as "a Bobby Charlton."  Modern habit wisely spurns these vanities, and opts for the simple expedient of clippers.
Our hero, however, had spurned both of these approaches.  He had opted for an application of hair-styling product.  He had also opted - remarkably, in one so thinly crested - for a centre parting.  In full-face, as he will no doubt see himself in the mirror of a morning, the effect was very acceptable.  The central tuft, suitable gelled and parted, provided a passable facsimile of a quiff-like hairline, supported by the wisps of bumfluff behind.
But alas!  A head must also be seen at other angles, and it is my sad duty to report, that from all viewing positions other than front-on, what one seemed to see was an elaborately-waxed Poirot moustache, glued to the middle of the forehead.

Hmm.  There but for the grace, etc...  and I'm much given to wonder where my own self-image parts company with the surfaces on show to the rest of humanity.
For I'm quite certain that it does.

The conclusion is inescapable:  The life I'm used to is clearly on the threshold of its ending.  A simple glance at my bank statement makes that abundantly clear.   The last three years have been a wonderful time; perhaps, who knows, a wonderful experiment that will soon be over.  Well, maybe, I hope not, but something's clearly going to have to Change. My dear. And not a moment too soon.

Odd thing is, unlike most of the changes that have occurred in my life so far, for this one I have no plans whatsoever. None.

On the one hand, that's quite terrifying, at least a 6.5 on the sleep-deprivation scale, yet on the other hand, the feeling of exhilaration and freedom is quite unprecedented.

It's not imminent, nor is it (yet) an emergency, but it's certainly soon.  What will I do?  I could make conscious changes to avoid the Big Change, or I could just follow the river over the rapids.  Reinvent self to avoid, or allow involuntary reinvention to sweep me away.

There's a sort of sadness, I won't deny, but remarkably little panic.  This may change, of course!

Maybe life will begin at fifty.  It will certainly have changed by then!

A day for feeling a bit ashamed of my own nation.  No, not just England's dismal performance in the cricket...

Tonight I've been re-watching the TV series about Britain's attempts, mostly successful, to develop nuclear weapons, and the various means of delivering them - in each case, usually then being discontinued, in favour of using an American version instead.  Whatever one's views on nuclear weaponry, the shortsightedness exhibited by successive governments in developing, and then cancelling, all these various systems, was staggering and saddening.

I was particularly struck by the last episode, about the Blue Streak missile programme, which spawned a fully functioning satellite-launching system, Black Arrow.  This, somewhat in spite of the government, rather than because of it, in 1971 placed into orbit the UK's only self-launched satellite, Prospero, which is still orbiting today, and, so accurately was it inserted into orbit, that it's expected to be there for a long while yet.

Sadly, the project had already been cancelled, and Black Arrow never flew again.

Wikipedia's page on Black Arrow bears a rather telling statement:

"As of 2009, the United Kingdom is the only country to have successfully developed and then abandoned a satellite launch capability."

What a sad thing.  What a bunch of visionless idiots we've had at the helm of this country, and for so many decades. The colour of the rosette changes every now and then, but the ability to totally fail to have a clue lives on.

A week ago, on the recommendation of a man who knows about such things, I bought the DVD of Armando Ianucci's wonderful In The Thick Of It.

We watched several episodes that very evening - I was, of course, impressed and entranced, and laughed myself silly, for it's quite superb.
I finished watching it a day or so afterwards, which was probably poor timing on my part - I was feeling a little gloomy, and had intended that it would cheer me up.  Sadly, the actual effect of watching something so beautifully acted, was to amplify existing feelings of inadequacy about my own acting ability.  This, in collusion with a couple of other generously-wallowed-in paranoias, made for a pretty crummy week in the end.

But there's more, as they say:

This evening, I have watched the first three episodes again, listening to the commentary.

The description of how the show was put together; how the writing was dovetailed with the improvisation; the freedom that was allowed the cast to perform the piece - all these things rekindled in me a spark of enthusiasm.  The production team began to describe how the rehearsals and improvisational process were managed, and the cast began describing the terrors they felt as they began to confront the task.  Apparently, every single one of the principals individually took Ianucci aside, and said to him that they felt they were worried they weren't up to the standard of the rest of the cast.  The evidence, of course, as witnessed by the quality of the performances, is entirely the contrary.

And quite suddenly I saw myself back in December 2006, in rehearsals for Counterfeit Skin, absolutely bricking myself about our week of improv rehearsals, mentally measuring my abilities against those of the rest of the cast... and then occasionally catching the eye of one of the others and seeing the same terror lurking within.
And the voices of the cast of The Thick Of It began to echo my memories of my own thoughts during those days... and as though somebody had flicked a switch, all the enthusiasm I thought I'd lost for ever, all my self-belief, simply popped back into my head as though it had only been round the corner for a packet of Marlboros, and was surprised to find it had been missed.

Oh and how wonderful that the office used for "The Department of Social Affairs" turns out to be the same building used in the Doctor Who story, The Invasion, as Tobias Vaughan's factory.  Now sadly demolished.

Being a bit under the weather, I decided the answer was lots of sleeping, interspersed, as is traditional, with slouching on a sofa in front of a DVD.
So I treated myself to a copy of The Deadly Assassin.

Lots of good things among the special features, but one that caught my attention was about the reaction the story received from a certain Mary Whitehouse, a major campaigner on the side of moral outrage during the 1970s

I was particularly struck by something that, surely, must have been remarked upon before, though my own meagre googling efforts could produce nothing.
So here we go:

Had a day's filming yesterday, for the Police Bravery Awards.  I was playing one of a group of police officers who faced down and arrested an armed youth.  Was all quite exciting: Filming on "The Bill Backlot" at Talkback Thames, in Merton.  Using a lot of genuine police equipment, shouting obscenities loudly in public over and over again (always fun).  My shouted "stand still you c----" seemed to produce a lot of interest, including, if I'm not mistaken, from Simon Rouse (The Bill's "Jack Meadows") who was doing a photoshoot just behind us.

A good day.  Ok, slightly marred by one incident, where, when I was chasing our "villain", I missed my footing on a bit of loose gravelly surface, and prostrated myself on the rather unforgiving concrete road.  Hands first, of course, as one does.  Lovely big area of skin missing from my right elbow, scrapes on both palms, and a very shaken left arm, that, although not all that painful, didn't really work properly for the rest of the day.  We were nearly done by then, however, so I carried on - wouldn't want to get a reputation for being a wimpish actor, and besides, I thought it was just a bit of a strain.  Did make the handcuffing sequence a bit tricky though, as my left arm had less strength than usual.

By the time I got home though, it was starting to be a bit of a problem.  Slept on it, and went to A&E this morning.  Cracked the head of the radius, apparently.  Not badly, so no plaster, just a sling and some nice painkillers.

Not going to be able to get to the audition I was supposed to attend tomorrow, though, and work next week may well be a problem too.  We'll have to see how the drugs work.  Bloody annoying.

Summer evening, pursuing its slow, luminous death.  The sky, a watercolour palette of fluid washes, o'er-seeing the scurrying beetles of humanity as they wind down their day.

Who are you?  And you?  What is your errand, and where your home?  What brings you to the street?  Who awaits you, wherever you're going?  Who sent you on your way?

Who would miss you, were you never to arrive?

1. If in doubt, do the scary thing.

2. There are, in fact, some truly lovely people in the world.

3. Say "yes" a lot.

4. Walk in the sun when you can.

5. Look for adventures.

6. Ugly, drunken, bigot-women in parks know nothing, and can shove their Stella-soaked heads up their no-doubt pile-raddled arses.

So here I sit.  No plans.  No possible plans, nothing I could plan that would make any sense. Nothing that could invoke any kind of enthusiasm. Chatrooms on all day, a few people look, look away. What do you see, beautiful men, when you look at me? How desperate do I seem? How sad? How tearful? How revolting.
Here I sit. Sunshine outside. Must be lovely. Would like to be out in it, but not alone, not alone. Too much beauty to handle all alone. Beauty must be shared or there's pain. Pain long suppressed. Pain of all the beauty ever seen that I wanted to share and couldn't. Beauty I've seen others share with their beautiful lovers. The beauty of the sharing itself. Beauty not for me.
So here I sit. Dreading evening. Afternoon bad enough, but evening worse. Longing for tiredness, longing for the escape, hoping tomorrow brings something new. Sleep, retreating, child-like. foetus-like, everything-better-in-the-morning. Not that it is.
So here I sit. Not even the courage to phone. Human voice would help, maybe, a few platitudes (yes really), anything to remind me I'm not worthless, not maybe quite that loathsome. But no courage. In case it'd be inconvenient. In case I weep down the phone. In case I can't think what to say. In case fat bald old poof crying down the phone is too much to inflict on anyone.
Here I sit. Tea-drinking; in the world yet outside of it; craving God knows what; no clue where to find it, where to look, who to ask; do some laundry, good; washing-up, good; keep busy. Going through the motions, yes. Motions in all senses; rearranging life-turds; exercise in futility.
Here I sit. How many years have I done this? How many more till it's done. How long till peace?

So. Here I sit.

So often, over the years, this has been my escape.

When all else fails, sleep.  Even if it is still daylight.  Even if the rest of the world is still out there enjoying itself.  Or especially then.

Yes, it's running away.
But at least it's something I'm in control of.

Please don't let me dream.

Ivor Cutler.  To my shame, I'd forgotten all about him (and he only died a few years ago).  I even have an album or two, but for some reason I hadn't listened to anything of his for a long time.

Which is a pity.

I was reminded of his glorious weirdness this morning, when somebody posted a video of Looking for Truth With A Pin on a forum site I subscribe to, which led to a happy, silly hour reacquainting myself with him.
Here are a few to be going on with:

Pickle Your Knees
How Are You Shut Up
Shoplifters
I'm Happy
and the wondrous Big Jim