IT’S THE CLIMB

 “Hey there,” said the cute brunette in the back of the jeep.  “Wanna come party with us at camp Zabeldorf?”

  “Nah, thanks,” replied Pete. tugging on his backpack ruggedly.  “Me and Mount Susudio have a date with destiny.”

  “You can have sex with us both,” chirped the spritely blonde in the driving seat.

  “No thanks,” replied Pete, flashing his best boyish smile.

  “FAG!” the blonde shouted before driving off. Those crazy chicks.  They just didn’t understand the joy of the climb; conquering that sheer cliff face and the joy of the view at the top was sadly better than anything they could give him.  He trundled off at a moderate pace.  The mountain was summoning him.

  He hit the bottom of the rock face at 11am and checked his equipment; everything was there.  He looked up at the imposing visage.  From down at the bottom it’s subtle nooks, crevices and outcrops were all but invisible, throwing down a fierce visual gauntlet.  It was only when he got up close to it’s fearful face that it revealed its more subtle lines and deep ridges that he could get feet and finger holds.  Before he began he caressed the surface of the rock.  As the sun beat down it heated the rock that created a bond, a feeling of intimacy between man and nature that just couldn’t be felt anywhere else.  With a deep breath and a huff he mounted the beast of a mountain, and started the journey.

  The sun that warmed the rock today was no ally, beating down and generating an impressive 28 degrees heat that meant that Pete had to stop a couple of times extra to replenish his ever diminishing water levels.  Progress for that reason was slow, but a hundred metres came and went, two hundred metres, same.  This for Pete though was the boring part, staying sane while making the first thousand metres.  After that the water erosion of several thousand years the fissure that it had carved out and had split the cliff 

face would appear.  It was waiting there for him to enjoy.  Determined he pressed on and, after a while, he felt himself get in the rhythm that everyone needed in order to have a good climb and eventually it started to feel like the mountain was moving like a conveyor belt beneath his body.  Concentration was coming easy and stage by stage he and the wall were increasingly feeling as one.  The crack was just above him now and he slid his arm inside.  As he did a piece of the wall came loose and crashed upon his left hand.

  “Ow!  Shit!” said Pete.  He moved his hand sideways and managed to dislodge his thumb and three fingers but the little finger was wedged tight.

  “Dammit!” said Pete.  He daren’t risk yanking his hand out as he could wind up tumbling down the mountain with only the guy rope there to stop his fall and, although he knew it there as a safety measure he never wanted to know that it worked.  Pete yanked at his finger a few more times but no matter what he did it just wouldn’t come.  Pete looked up at the rest of the rock face.  He had just got to the good part.  He didn’t have supplies to get caught on the mountain overnight and wanted to finish as the sunset so he could walk back into town.  There was nothing else for it.  If the mountain wouldn’t remove itself from his finger then would have to remove himself from his finger.  He reached down to his boot knife with his free hand.  The blade reflected the sun in his eyes as he turned the blade.  He always made sure that the edge was super-sharp if ever this moment came, but always hoped that it wouldn’t.  He placed the blade against his little finger knuckle.  The skin parted at even the slightest touch from the blade.  He then put his remaining weight on the blade.

  “AAAAAAAAAGGGGGHHHHH!” he screamed.  The sound bounced and bounded up the walls of the split rock face.  The reverberations ricocheting through even the slightest cracks running through the crevasse, birds of all types, both the hunted and the hunters scarpering at that glass-shattering sound.

  Pete hauled himself into the split and reached back with his good hand to remove his back pack while keeping his left hand jammed under his right armpit.  He was losing blood and had to work fast if he was to have any chance of survival.  Removing the first aid kit he placed a dressing over the wound in order to try and stop the bleeding and then began wrapping bandages frantically round it while swearing constantly.  He held his hand beneath his arm and settled in the huge tear in the rock to regain his strength with some food and knock some painkillers down.  He looked down and then up.  He was caught dead in the middle of the rock face.  Either a thousand metres down or a thousand metres up, that was the choice he had.  He also knew that while it may seem safe to head down 80% of all rock-climbing/mountaineering accidents came about during the descent and he didn’t fancy his chances of surviving the climbdown while missing a finger, whereas going up ...well from this point on it was largely a case of just lodging himself against both sides of the rock and forcing himself up.  He could probably do that pretty easily.  Couldn’t he?  Yeah, course he could. He looked at his left hand at the dark blooded stump where his little finger once was, he could mourn that loss as soon as he got to the top.  

  He drove himself up the mountain passing the 1100, 1200 and 1300 metre stages with relative ease and three stop points.  After every hundred metres he felt that little bit worse.  Not because of the pain but due to him now chasing the sun.  Every time he moved further up the rock face the sun’s light moved every further up the rock.  It was disheartening, but he had little choice but to move ever onward.  Ridges came and went and as time elapsed the easiest part of the climb unfolded simply.  It was just a case of pinioning himself between one side and t’other.  A foot shape gap appeared perfect for his left foot and he placed it there, a ledge above seeming prefect to act as a double point of leverage.  Unfortunately his scream earlier had weakened the rock face and, as he pulled, the rock wall came loose, the largest part of it being a thirty kilo boulder that slid down and crushed his left foot.

  “YEEEEAAAAAGGGHHHH!  FUCKING HELL!” spat Pete as the boulder shattered every thing that used to be his left foot.  Suddenly going for mobility over strength seemed less of a good idea.  Again Pete found himself trapped; so close to escaping at the top of the canyon and yet also so far away.  The tears trickled through his dust-encrusted face making him look like a sad clown from a living room painting from the nineteen seventies.  He grabbed at his leg to try and tear the smashed foot free, as he did he felt the bones mashed against broken nerve endings shooting razor-like pain signals through to his brain.

  ‘NNNNNGGGGHHHHHH!” Pete spat, through pain-laced tears.  He attempted to pull the rock but the bottom was lodged firmly into the foot-shaped gap.  Having lost a finger already on the climb the thought of losing his foot as well was almost unbearable.  He knew it was always a risk doing what he did but an entire appendage?  He looked up at the ever-growing shadow above him as the sun made its constant journey around the Earth (well, that’s what it was doing from his perspective.)  He knew his foot was damaged beyond repair and realistically there was only one thing to do, but he also knew that this time, he would need a little help.

  He spun his backpack around and removed the medical kit.  In the top lid of the kit were 10 small needles all loaded with 10 little assistants.

  “Say hello to my little friends,” said Pete doing the worst Tony Montana impersonation ever.  He removed one of the needles and squirted out just a smidgen of liquid.  Right now it was important not to waste any.  He was 1300 metres up and the thought of having to climb a further 700 metres while his system while digesting morphine was both exhilarating and terrifying, but with all the pain he was in with his finger and now his foot, what choice did he have?  He injected the sweet warm liquid and waited for it take effect.  

  He removed the knife and tried to pries the rock away bit it was not for moving.  He placed blade against his ankle, going as near to the broken foot as much as he could.  The skin again seemed to part in fear at the sharpness of the blade as it pressed even gently against it.

  “Okay then, now time to cut away!” said the blade.

  “All right, then.” replied Pete to the knife and began to slice through his leg.  The morphine took the edge off the pain (like wearing ear-muffs) and he couldn’t hear his own screams as the blade made hard work of his tendons, muscle and bone.  Eventually the blade bit through and the rock and his foot tumbled 300 metres down the crevasse, his foot wobbling from side to side like it was waving him goodbye.

  “OH NOW YOU CAN FUCKING MOVE, CAN’T YOU?” Pete shouted as the errant foot tumbled away.  He had to work fast again as he was losing a lot of blood, time however was more on his side as he’d already removed the dressings first.  He applied them quickly through short breaths as the pain strayed into his vision, creating an unwanted moment of dizziness.  He wanted to wait after the dressing was applied, that was what the morphine was telling him.

  “Wait, relax, get your strength back, you’ve got time,” it said in his own voice.  But he knew it wasn’t him saying that.  He knew that upward was outward and down here was death.  He headed up but now the climb was made treacherous due to the loss of a digit and an entire appendage.  He pummeled the rocks on either side, dragging his broken body up the two rock planes, as he did the sweat oozed down him, sliding into the bandages stinging the wounds as it soaked in.  He was tempted to stop and shoot up some more but the major with-drawl symptoms wouldn’t begin to send him insane for another 3 hours.  He made another 100 metres and went on, even though he should’ve probably stopped for something to eat.  He reached the 1500 metre mark and the top above started to look even more tempting.  His breath had started to become really short and strained and he was starting to see double, but he kept repeating “move and live, stop and die, move and live, stop and die,” over and over again like a mantra.  The morphine at the moment was still just about helping, keeping him company and keeping the worst part of the pain away.  Another 50 metres surged beneath him as he propelled continuously up there.  The end was now in sight, just a little over a four hundred metre track circuit and that was a as easy as falling off a ...Well, best not think about falling, not just at the

 moment anyway.  He placed his left hand on a ledge and pulled himself up, as he did so the ledge gave way.  Pete bounced from side to side as the rock face turned a blind eye to his plight, eventually he slowed his fall a fraction as his right arm smashed against an outcrop, shattering the bones.

  “NNNGGGHH!” exclaimed Pete at the roughness of the landing.  The fallen ledge then landed on the same arm from the elbow down.

  “AAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRGGGGGGGHHHHHH!” he screamed.  Yet again he found himself pinned in, he looked up again and the opening seemed to move even further away.  Just over a track circuit away felt like a marathon.  Pete pushed at the rock.  With all his limbs and digits attached he might have had a chance of moving it in the past but today?  It felt like fate really wanted him to die on this mountain but Pete was not for believing in fate.  He reached round with his free hand and unfastened the back pack on the right and slung it off his left shoulder.  He could hear his old friends the morphine needles almost dancing with joy as he removed the medical kit from the pack.

  “Hey, Pete!  Long time no see,” said the syringes merrily.  

  “Those crazy morphine guys,” thought Pete as he withdrew another syringe.  The warm liquid tickling his innards as it entered his bloodstream.  This time as he withdrew his blade from his sheath he felt a small giggle escape.  He pressed the blade against the elbow joint.

  “YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!”

The girls had enjoyed camp Zabeldorf.  They had spent the day by the lake skinny dipping and getting stoned.  It gave then a thrill the fear that Jason Vorhees may show up at any minute and do them in.  True, they were a little put out earlier when the cute guy wouldn’t put out, but hey, that was his loss.  He was forgotten now and they were just looking forward to getting back to the Motel and getting wasted as the light started to become extinguished behind the mountains.  As they drove over desert roads that played havoc with the jeep’s solid suspension the headlights flicked across an animal moving 

Hey kids don’t do drugs ...CAUSE YOU’RE PISSING ME OFF!

  If there’s one question I get asked more than other it’s “Mike, will you just shut up?” but as well as that one there’s another one and that is “How come you’ve never been drunk/done drugs?” and the answer is twofold.  One, I’ve never been interested, and two, because I’m the guy who’s always been there fixing other people’s problems when they’re in their drunken or drugged up states and have caused themselves no end of trouble.

  Thankfully no longer being a teen/tweenager and moving in such crowds and also being a parent of children who are not yet at the getting shit-faced and stoned stage I haven’t encountered such problems like that for many years...UNTIL TODAY!

  Having booked the afternoon off from work and then realising I didn’t need the time off I did what anybody would do in that situation and had the time off anyway.  Actually that’s a bit of an overstatement.  I knew that if I went an hour early with the time I’d worked during the rest of the day I could effectively have half an hour off but get home an hour earlier (Trust me it does work but just not in English).  Anyway, I was on the bus coming back and for an hour of the journey no big deal, until this heavy-set guy gets on board at Chorley.  He’s carrying what looks like a bottle of beer and toddles off to the back seat.  The bus continues on its journey but then, on the dual carriage way pulls into a lay-by.  Now at this stage its fair to say that there was a funny smell upstairs, not having been around cannabis for quite some time I didn’t recognise the smell straight away.  The driver however clearly did and came upstairs.

  “HAVE YOU BEEN SMOKING DRUGS ON MY BUS?” he barked at the guy.

  “I’ve put it out now,” Tubby replied.

  “OFF MY BUS!” the driver continued.

  “But I’ve put it out now,” replied Cheech McChong.

  “I SAID OFF MY BUS, NOW!” the driver went on.

  “But I’ve put it out now,” Vincent Vega replied timidly.

  “HAVE YOU GOT DRUGS ON YOUR PERSON, DO YOU WANT ME TO CALL THE POLICE OR ARE YOU GONNA GET OFF THE BUS?” asked the driver.

  “Where am I gonna go from here?” replied El Stoner.

  “THAT’S NOT MY PROBLEM!” the driver responded before heading back downstairs.  Blotto Otto then weighed up his options and decided walking stoned into town down a dual carriageway was better than going in a police van and missing his appointment at the job centre and so he left and we set off again ...BUT, now late.

  As the bus pulled close to the stop I could see my connecting bus sailing past.  The next bus however wouldn’t be long and so I waited, and waited, and waited, then four busses went past the other way.  I knew that to walk home would take about 20 minutes but in terms of choices I was limited.  I headed back up the hill and back home and the hour I wanted to gain had been whittled back down to 25 minutes, my life yet again ruined by drug-use.

  I know that those left-wing liberals in the Guardian think that drug-use is fine, bur clearly my experiences show the dangers inherent in illegal drug-taking.  One can only hope that those fat cat’s in city hall read my blog and learn from my experiences.

http://static5.depositphotos.com/1037987/479/i/450/dep_4796781-Young-Man-Sitting-In-Playground-Smoking-Joint.jpg

THE SECOND IN AN OCCASIONAL SERIES

FORGOTTEN FILMS THAT SHOULD BE REMEMBERED

  Well here we are again remembering more forgotten films and today’s choice is a slightly unusual one as I’m sure it’s on that everyone will have heard of but I imagine a few people reading will not have seen.  It’s from the eighties. the decade that cinema largely forgot, with abysmal styles, terrible music (well definitely in the latter half) and AIDS, the disease that made everyone scared of sex (Just what you want when you’re a horny teenager, thank you, Universe!)  But within that decade there still managed to be some cracking films made, but, many of them have been forgotten and now occupy bargain bins in supermarkets everywhere for only £2.  The film I am looking at today is one of those films, made in 1989 it is an intimate portrayal of the breakdown of a relationship and the commencement of another one, or two in a way.  It is a masterful debut film by a 26 year old who would eventually become an oscar-winner for a remake of a television series, and it’s main star would sadly never really reach the heights he showed with this incredible performance.  Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Sex, Lies and Videotape.

SEX, LIES AND VIDEOTAPE (1989)

  So, imagine if you will, me and some friends trying to choose a film at the local video store as our dismal social lives led us once again to this predictable place.  On this night the general consensus among my friends was “Oh yeah, let’s get this one, YEAH!”  Now, although it’s hard to believe and to be honest I still don’t have any idea why, I didn’t want to see Sex, Lies and Videotape as a watch.  I don’t want to make out I was Mr Puritanical when it came to choosing a film because I wasn’t, but I just didn’t fancy it.  So we took it back, watched it, they hated it, I loved it.  I still love it, because like Tarantino years later, Soderbergh realised that sometimes it’s worth pursuing the exploitation angle to get bums on seats, even if your film isn’t anything like what it says on the tin.

  If you haven’t seen the film then the story is quite simple to relate.  It is the story of four people in a little American suburban town.  Annie is married to John but is sexually repressed, Cynthia, Anne’s sister, is anything but repressed and is sleeping with John, who is a scumbag lawyer.  Into these three people’s lives walks Graham, played amazingly by James Spader, a man who is independently wealthy (although we never find out how ...Heathcliff anybody?) and who is in town to seek some sort of relationship or sense of closure with a woman he used to know whom he pushed away and hurt.  And that’s it.  No really, that is it, that’s all there is to it.  There’s no gunfights, explosions, dramatic cross edits, playing around with the timeline or anything fancy like that.  It’s just a bloody good film that covers a whole range of issues, from betrayal, lies (both John’s and Anne’s) emotional stuntedness, repression, attention seeking and unfulfilled longing and the value of absolute truth.  There’s no nudity in the film (well female nudity anyway) there’s no drug use and it probably doesn’t deserve it’s 18 rating.  The performances are fantastic, with Andie MacDowell, Peter Gallagher and Laura San Giacomo all embodying their roles as Anne, John and Cynthia respectively with distinction but it is James Spader as the quietly disastrous Graham who is mesmerizing in this, I want to say Kitchen sink, but it’s more like, dining table drama.  The dialogue is notable in it’s ordinariness, again something that Tarantino certainly picked up on, and the direction always feels like we’re catching everyone out.  The music isn’t really music and is more like a collection of sounds thrown together to go with a scene but it all works superbly, although as it comes to an end you’re not really sure why.

In short Sex, Lies and Videotape is a film like no other that holds a power long after the final credits have gone.  Unfortunately though as the trailer is trash I have instead got these two early scenes which hopefully will convey some of the mood of the film.  E la.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XdFjxhDOKNQ&playnext=1&list=PLE85090625FE79C83
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=djEBjPu0CQE&feature=related

FOR THE ARSEHOLES THAT KEEP BRITAIN FLOWING!

"Are we on the road, Mobbsy?"


"Yeah I fink so, scraggsy!"

  We all know them; they are the people who see level crossings as challenges, they 


see red lights as obstacles when you’ve already set off, driveways and 


pavements as universal parking spots and zebra crossings are optional.  Yes my 


friends, we’re talking about Britain’s shitty delivery drivers, the ones that create the 


cliche that all delivery drivers are wankers.

  Now usually I would not stoop so low as to target one group of individuals BUT it 


just so happens that me and my loved ones on one particular day suffered 


considerable short-shrift at the hands of these reprobates who drive round hating 


members of one race in particular ...the human race!  Which is why today they get 


this heart-felt tribute.

  My day starts waiting for a bus, well actually it ends that way, for this happened while 


I was waiting to make my journey home.  When this bloody big lorry decides to drive 


to his delivery destination and in spite of the massive white lettering across the road 


saying 

KEEP CLEAR

...This obviously did not apply to this lorry driver.  He was special!  And so the drive-


way was just driven across, and this miserable fifty something scrag appeared from 


the cab and just left his massive machine parked in front of this entrance and exit with


less thought than he would give to scratching his arse.  Now you may think this is no-


thing special, surely this happens all the time, but there is something that makes this 


even more ridiculous, and that is where he parked, there was a space behind (as you 


can see from the pictures) and if he’d reversed about ten feet back he would’ve left 


plenty of room for people to get both in and out.  But for Mr I’ll-only-be-ten-minutes, 


even that effort is too much a waste of his time.  Mr Jewson lorry parker, I salute you!

  Now, as I was saying at the beginning of this little tribute, this was not one incident 


on this day, oh no.  Britain’s delivery drivers on this day seemed to be going through 


some kind of existential crisis, for which the rest of humanity must suffer!  Back in 


Preston my wife went through a similar escapade while walking Riley to school.  


They were walking along when they encountered a massive wanker who’d parked 


across the entire footpath forcing everyone to go into the road.  My wife, being a 


shrinking-violet type (just like me of course!) asked him, in language direct, but not 


colourful enough to ...well here's what she said.

Zoe: Excuse me, can you move your van please!

Now if this was just a case of him saying no, it would not have made it on this blog, 


ladies and gentleman, this is the gigantic fuckwit's reply.


Driver:  How big do you think you are, love?


"No way!" you're probably thinking.  Nobody could be that much of an arsehole, but 


undeterred my wife carried on.


Zoe:  I don't see why me and my son should have to walk in the road for you now


shift it!


  Unfortunately she did have to walk in the road on that journey but later on the 


cock-knocker had moved his vehicle.  But like I said on this day, the drivers in Britain 


were truly in a pissed off mood, as I found out when I got off the bus and was walking 


home.  Making my way to the zebra crossing in Bamber Bridge is perhaps not the 


most thrilling of journeys but none-the-less it was one I had to make this night, and 


seeing that it was clear I made my way across


  So far, so boring.

  Until there appeared about 50 metres a way a van racing at about 40/45 in a 30 zone


with no noticeable sign that the brakes were working on his vehicle.  Because of this I 


was cautious, and rather than stomp across as I usually would I eased myself over.  


Only 10 metres away the driver decided that braking may in fact be a good thing with 


a pedestrian already on the zebra crossing and so he came to a stop and I was able to 


cross safely, but as I glanced over at the driver as he passed I was met with a look of 


rage that was not dissimilar to this.

  What did I do?


  What did I do?


  Did my crossing at the zebra cause him to miss a meeting?


  Did he have to buy his lottery tickets at a specific time to maximise his chances of 


winning?


  I don't know.  But what I can say is that on this day, this day that will live in infamy, 


this day when the van drivers of Britain were let slip, like the dogs of war, something


dark was flashing red through their veins, and so to any driver who was acting like a 


massive COCK on this day.  This page is for you.


  SALUTE.




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EMMA THOMPSON WAS YOUR EX-WIFE?

Well, yes and no.

  In reality ...No, I’ve never been married to Emma Thompson, but now, thanks to my stupid brain, I can’t help but feel that I have.  Confused?  You will be.

  You see today’s blog is about dreams, not the cool dreams where you have long lustrous hair, or you can fly, or you’re in your dream job.  No.  These are dreams that no-one wants to have, the dreams that fuck you up.  Yes, we’re talking about nightmares, and the weird thing is that they are the only dreams that truly have an impact on us.  Let’s face facts here how many of us wake up from a good dream and remember it?  We don’t tend to do that because good dreams are instantly forgettable, but nightmare’s, well, they can piss on your entire day!

  Now, before I get to the title of today’s blog it’s important we discuss the different types of nightmares that they’re are.  There’s more than one? I hear you ask, and the answer is yes and I’ve split them into three types.  The first is the standard nightmare scenario, where something terrible or seemingly unimaginable happens and there’s a genuine physical threat, i.e. you wake up and a guy with a knife is stood over you, your family are victims of a dirty bomb and you all get radiation sickness, or you’re heading in the dark in Arabella’s nightclub from one of the Aliens from Alien and your knocking knees alert them to your presence; standard nightmare scenarios I’m sure we’ve all encountered.  The second type is what I would call the maze and has probably been made more familiar by the film INCEPTION.  This is where you keep waking up over and over again and you just can’t seem to get back to reality and you don’t know what’s real until something unreal happens, and it just so happens I have a great example of that right 

  Ha ha!  Excellent.  Anyway, then we come to third type which is arguably the weirdest of the lot, it is the one that we hardly look at, discuss or acknowledge, it’s the one that asks us “Who are you?”  “What do you believe in?” and “Who do you want to be?”  These are the ones that challenge what we are, like a vegetarian dreaming of eating a nice juicy steak, a teetotaler dreaming of going out on the lash or a big-brother contestant dreaming of being talented.  Here are the questions that my brain asked of me, and the answers I’m glad I found.

  I am asleep.  Well, obviously, that’s the nature of the story today.  And I wake up and my wife and I are talking to a young Asian couple who have an arranged marriage who are blissfully happy.  I’m sat on the arm of a sofa and am obviously curious as to who my wife (Of choice) is.  And it’s Emma Thompson.  

  “Oh great!  I’m married to Emma Thompson!” I think, sarcastically.  This is a disaster.  Why it’s a disaster is still unclear but it is.  In my head at this moment she is the last person that I ever want to be married to.  Emma and I continue to talk to this Asian couple and every word that they say seems to act like a stab in my heart, about how happy they are and how in love they are and they had little choice in the matter, whereas I chose to be with Emma.  That’s the choice I made and it was just a choice for the sake of being with someone.  I’m not happy.  I had waited for a long time to make the right choice of who to be with and here was I with ...Ugh!

  The next moment I’m in the kitchen stirring a big pan of beans (what was the relevancy here?  Guesses anybody?) feeling royally pissed off.  My day just couldn’t get any worse.  So then the woman from the oh-so-happy couple walks in and I inadvertently mention that I don’t really care about Emma and she doesn’t mean owt to me.  Now this offends this woman’s sensibilities and when Emma and her husband comes in she mentions this to the two of them (What a snitch!)  Now obviously Emma looks stunned at this revelation because, clearly, she is in love with me and asks me to my face.

  “Mike, is this true?”

  My brain says to me that I have to be honest here, there’s no point lying and so I say...

  “No, it’s not true,” I reply shaking my head and seeming supremely smug.  My brain asks me, “What the fuck are you doing, BE HONEST!”  But I don’t be.  I display a staggering amount of selfish arrogance.

  “So you do love me?” she asks, looking at me with such innocence.  My reply?

  “Yeah, course I do,” I say, glibly.  At this point my brain wants to slam the door and leave, it’s so disgusted but of course it can’t and so all I can do is watch in wonder at my own blinding, unfeeling ignorance.  However after the Asian couple leave I do realise I have to tell her that I don’t love her and when I do, well as you can imagine she gets very upset (Yeah, cause I’m such a prize pig!) and we decide to call it a day.

  At this point I really wake up and wonder what the hell just happened?  I had witnessed my life if I decided to be with someone I didn’t love and it was awful, why would my brain do this to me?  It was almost like my mind had been infected by Clarence and had showed me a world that could be if I decided that feelings were irrelevant.

  “TAKE ME BACK, CLARENCE!  I WANNA LIVE AGAIN!  I WANNA LIVE AGAIN!”

  And so I did.  That dream haunted me and my decision making in regards to relationships for years, making me all the more conscious of what it was I was looking for and why I wanted it and, when I think of what I have with my wife I’m glad I did wait.  Since then of course I have seen Emma on various TV shows like QI and she does seem like a genuinely nice person but, sorry, Emma, it just wasn’t meant to be.

  However what I will say is if you have ever had an experience like this, please feel free to share in the comments box.  After all, it’s cheaper than therapy.

Adios!

http://static5.depositphotos.com/1003556/499/i/450/dep_4998485-Sad-bride.jpg
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B6ajN8asJGs&playnext=1&list=PLA7A1C124B1B4FAC8

THE FIRST IN AN OCCASIONAL SERIES

FORGOTTEN FILMS THAT SHOULD BE REMEMBERED

  We live in an age were everything is immediate and most things disposal; Income, music , TV shows, literature, photography and film.  If you go back 10 years and pick up an old “NOW THAT’S WHAT I CALLED MUSIC THEN” CD, what you’ll be struck by is how few of the tracks are memorable.  Oh sure you might see six or seven identifiable songs on disc 1, but on Disc 2 ...Who the hell were Sunset Strippers and Thirteen Senses???  

  The good news is that because of this the shit very soon gets cast to the scrapheap (So long, Pit-bull!)  But in this world of increasing noise much of the great stuff, particularly in the world of film, from our not so recent past is being drowned out in a maelstrom of Bad CGI, endless movie franchises and dismal “Let’s improvise every fucking scene” lazy-ass directing.  So in this occasional series I’m going to be looking at films that have either being forgotten (“Stalag 17”, “The Sunshine Boys”, “Dave”, “Crimes and Misdemeanors”), or films that need a champion (“Meet Dave”, “Her Alibi”, “Clue”, “Living in Oblivion”) or films that are just too damn good to let go of (“Enemy of the State”, “Jackie Brown”).  But first is a film that in it’s day 30 years ago was revered in cinemas as a massive achievement, grandiose in scale and probably one of the best films of the Seventies.  Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the case for ...Manhattan.

1.  Manhattan (1979)

  Chapter One:  In the seventies Woody Allen could do no wrong.  He had had a string of successful comedies, his film Annie Hall had beaten Star Wars to both the best picture and  best director gongs at the Oscars and ...he didn’t even care.  He didn’t show.  He didn’t believe in awards ceremonies, but in spite of all these glorious moments he had one final trick up his sleeve, his own “Star Wars”-ian style spectacular and that was Manhattan.

  Beginning with George Gershwin’s “Rhapsody in Blue” “Manhattan” starts in impressive style with a writer trying to find the perfect blend of intellect and swagger.  The writer himself is Isaac, who has quit his steady job as a TV writer in the hope that he’d have something to say for himself on a broader canvas.  His best friend is Yale (played by Michael Murphy) a successful academic caught up in a huge mid-life crisis and having an affair with Mary (Diane Keaton) who is more neurotic and stretched out than any of the male characters, caught in the headlights of wanting something for herself and yet terrified about it not working out, and lastly there’s Tracy (Mariel Hemingway), Isaac’s young girlfriend, who is idealistic, not screwed up by the world, but who Isaac is constantly thinking about ditching due to the age gap.

  Manhattan is the simple tale of a crossroads in all of the characters lives and how they deal with these challenges and dilemma’s while also suffering the fallout for everyone else’s decisions.  Filmed in black and white it probably doesn’t get the network showings it should because of this, and Woody Allen’s films have become kind of Taboo after, well everything that happened (You know what I mean!) which is kind of sad because we have effectively lost one of the last twenty years best film-makers vast and impressive bodies of work.

  As with all of Woody’s work the word is king and in common with all the best films where the script is boss it almost develops it’s own rhythm, it is especially true in Manhattan from the first scene.  

  This film was undoubtedly the beginning of his films where drama and comedy collide and while Manhattan isn’t as out-and-out funny as Annie Hall when it is funny it is hilarious.  The decision to film in black and white also reflects the script perfectly which was arguably Woody’s most moral film up to this stage.  The direction is exquisite and the use of Gershwin’s music, which seems so obvious now, was a master-stroke.  The cast all do a terrific job, Michael Murphy terrific as the awful Yale, Diane Keaton great as the woman messed up after a disastrous relationship with a father figure and both Mariel Hemingway and Meryl Streep rounding off a fantastic crew.  However there is another star of this film and that’s New York itself.  

  In this film New York is a heartbeat, a pulse, and it acts like a dramatic opera setting with all the city’s inhabitants seeming to act like extras to Woody and Gershwin’s tune.  It is a majestic transcendent piece of film-making and like the city itself (according to my wife) well worth spending sometime getting to know.

CHINESE ORDER TORTURE

“It was the best of time, it was the worst of times.  Message, Spock?”

If you’re married with kids then nights out are special.  They take organisation, they take strategy, they take an arse-numbing amount of effort, and, as such, you can’t risk them on ...well risks.  When you’re young and all the world lies in front of you risking seeing a bad film is fine because the next one will be next week or so.  If the next film you see however is 3 or 4 months away, you have to be damned sure that you’re gonna like it.  

As such when good friends invite you out for a meal, friends you always have a good time with, it is an event not to be sniffed at, and so when Derek and Andrea invited us to be part of Andrea’s birthday meal with a few other friends and going to an ALL YOU CAN ENJOY Chinese buffet, it seemed like fate had just handed us a guaranteed good night on a plate, and for a set fee.  Top!

We get to the restaurant after drinks elsewhere and all 11 of us settle down for a good night.  The waitress comes over and for some reason our boisterousness seems to offend her.  Now, as anyone will tell you, I don’t like drunken rowdiness but we’re pretty fucking far from that.  Anyway we ask about the food and how the buffet here works and she informs us, curtly that...

“Any food you don’t eat you must pay for!”

“Okay” we say, but now we feel tense and that makes her tense.  As we ask further questions it becomes clear that she speaks very little English (and even less Chinese!) but we persevere and after a brief chat decide to order one of each starter.  There are 18 starters on the menu and if anyone wants to order more of a particular one then they can do just that.  So we place our order...

“Any food you don’t eat you must pay for!” 

She barks before leaving the table.  Now upon hearing that comment smarter people might have checked with her that she understood the order, but of course this isn’t some crap Dane Cook film, this is reality.  Stupid stuff like that doesn’t happen in reality.

And then the food starts arriving.

And there is plate after plate of it.  They keep bringing plates out, and it gets to a point where we think surely that is it.  There’s no more room on the table, it’s got to be it.  But it’s not.  The last thing to arrive are two small baskets of pancakes.  Yes, she interpreted the order as 18 of each starter ...each!  The faces of the people at the table are a picture.  We look like we are on stage at an eating contest we were unaware we were entered into, and the worst thing is whatever we leave we have to pay for!  We are gobsmacked that such a disaster should befall us to spoil the evening.

But then something else happened.

We all suddenly became very British. Winston Churchill didn’t give up, David Beckham and Steven Gerrard didn’t give up in those Champions League finals and did Darius give up during Pop Idol ...No! (And now he’s married to Natasha Henstridge.  If life is saying anything there it’s that life LOVES a trier!)  And so we set out on a Herculean task to demolish the food, and at first we’re mad, we’re mad as hell.  We are officially eating ANGRY!  

“Can’t believe they’ve done this” “Cheeky Bastards!”    “Are you leaving a tip?”

“I’m not leaving a tip!” “They can fuck off!” “Unbelievable!”

“Yeah, I’ll leave them a tip, don’t bring out 198 fucking starters!”

And as 1 plate goes and then another and we realise that there are still a ton of plates left the entire situation becomes ridiculous!  One of the 11 drops out early as he claims he doesn’t like spicy food leaving the rest of us to attempt to eat more, which we valiantly do (Once more unto the plate, dear friends!)  The food is going down but after about five plates we are already starting to feel bloated and at this point it gets funny.  The ridiculousness of the situation really hits home and as much as we are trying to eat we also increasingly laughing.  We get to about ten plates down and there’s still eight plates left but we’re halfway in.  WE CAN DO THIS NOW!

We keep on chomping down and somehow another four plates eventually go.  Now it’s the last four, and, as funny as we’ve found it so far, it now gets really stupid.  Basically we’re full to fucking bursting but we don’t want to pay for the extra food.  So where we have thigh bones and ribs we stars hiding food underneath.  Yes, it wasn’t big and it wasn’t clever but   we did.  Eventually, due to what look like huge stacks of bones the plates look less like plates and more like the Wampa cave in The Empire Strikes Back.  Somehow the final plate falls, well, becomes empty, you get the idea, and we sit back, not so much out of relaxing but because we’re simply unable to sit forwards anymore.

At this stage the night had descended into an absolute riot, I cannot remember a time during a meal when I have laughed more.  It was a terrible situation to get in but, not just by pitching in together, but also by the strength of the company we had, it turned into a great night.

At the end of the evening, in spite of everything we did leave a tip (Mr “I Don’t like spicy food” then ordered a curry which pissed me off but there you go) and that was that.  

And the moral of the story?  None that I am conscious of, except of course happy birthday ...surely the best of times.