Alternative view...

I am writing this in someone else's house and I am looking out of their window at a view that is not my own. Actually, when I write at home there isn't a view at as I face a wall these days and natural light, what there is of it, is right down the other end of the room. So it's nice to work under natural light, rather than those Compact Fluorescent bulbs of shitness that the powers that be have us working beneath in the futuristic times that we live in, and actually have a view to look at. Their dininig room table is also at a nicer height than the table that I work at. If it wasn't for all the noise, why, I'd've found the perfect working environment. Pinged off some stuff to the theatre, spoke to someone about potential workshops, checked my various email accounts repeatedly. This is work. Or, perhaps, this is work?

I will be clearing my blog roll out at some point soon. Quite a few bloggers have fallen of late, no doubt due to that 140 character social media tool that Stephen Fry used to like but now doesn't because someone told him he was boring. Yes, blogging is so, well, last year. I shall keep it up. I like it. And it will last longer than newspapers, you mark my words. I will attempt to use the blog again as a warm-up exercise before the working day begins, a la Herring. Those Tories are big on blogging these days. I might rid the roll of everbody but Tories, although their writing style is a bit, well, S Fry. I jest, of course, because Tories are c**ts and I hate them. But I do have a strange, perverted fascination in their utterances which, generally, are complete lies presented as fact. Politics, eh? At least I popped myself on the electoral register today. The extreme left will get my vote if I can find them.

Watch this, literally...

Finn, as you'd expect of an almost two-year-old, takes things literally. So it was this morning when, as we were about to embark on a mammoth Play Dough modelling session, I momentarily placed my mug of tea on the floor. "Watch that mug," I said, with health and safety my major concern. Finn did indeed watch that mug - he knelt down beside it and stared at it for about two minutes. Disappointed that the mug didn't do anything in response to all this attention, he turned his back and picked up a lump of his brightly coloured modelling clay. The other day M asked Finn to stop playing with a toy dog and put his shoes on - he placed his shoes on top of the dog.

Glimmear twins...

I was sat watching Merlin tonight - part two of a two-part episode involving a dreadfully smelly troll - when Merlin's ears started to annoy me. I couldn't stop looking at them. Then I realised that I have seen them before - in fact, I once stood within 12ft of the biggest lugs in rock 'n' roll. For Merlin actor Colin Morgan is, without doubt, a young Keith Richards:

Tiger days...

Nothing else going on in Hull aside from grown men jumping up and down regarding the future of Hull City manager Phil Brown and chairman Paul Duffen. The latter has at least fallen on his sword and buggered off, the former is quite obviously having nervous breakdowns in public repeatedly. Following twitter feeds has never been such fun while those sports journalists - who rank alongside music journos for beer-swigging ineptness - are demonstrating their creativity and ability to speculate wildly amid a real absence of facts. The Tigers will survive, no matter what warnings their auditors may feel obliged to issue.

Cut your cloth accordingly...

Also at Hull's Ferens Art Gallery right now is an exhibition of mind-bending proportions - Shirley Craven's iconic 1960s fabric designs for Hull Traders (based not in Hull but over the Pennines). There around over 30 fabrics by Craven hanging on the wall, all of which make you want to start humming A Whiter Shade of Pale and/or purchase a wah wah pedal. I didn't know this before but, apparently, Craven revolutionised post-war fabrics with her weird and wonderful designs. Also tempting the gallery visitor is a lot of 1960s tomatom furniture and its accompanying literature, some of which contains George Best - as if it could be anyone else - draped over very curvy chairs.

Dung...

Went to Write To Speak last night - Hull's (and the region's!) monthly spoken word extravanganza organised by local legends Joe Hakim and Mike Watts. A good night, as they have all been to date, but a sense that I was watching someone really important in Kate Tempest, a scribe in the ancient tradition and, despite her sweet young girl looks, as punk and revolutionary as they come. The night was rounded off by Matt Panesh, who also goes by the moniker Monkey Poet, who gave us his Welcome To The Uk show. He was pleasantly filthy, although to compare him, "amongst others, to Lenny Bruce and Bill Hicks," is surely lazy reviewers at their worst. Anyway, towards the end he did a good little ditty about the art of Tracey Emin, Damien Hirst and the cow dung-happy work of Chris Ofili. Which, when Sam and myself headed to Hull's municipal arts gallery after seeing Up at the cinema today, made seeing Chris Ofili's Popcorn Shells all the more interesting. "It's about celebrity and musical heroes," I told Sam, as he tried to find the image of Michael Jackson tucked behind one of the big lumps of shit. "I still don't get the cow dung," he complained.

A career???

I was asked to speak at Hull Truck's Careers Day today. Which is either a sign of how far I've come since this blog began when I was attempting to work out myself how to make a career out of writing. Or everyone else was busy. There were other speakers too, who, and I'm sure the participants were pleased by this, have forged very good careers for themselves - actors, directors, technical folk, a very, very interesting man from Equity. After we spoke, by which time we'd all whittered on so much that the whole shebang was running late, I was involved in the delivery of a writing workshop which, amongst other exciting moments, involved me emptying a bag onto the floor in a dramatic fashion. I think they all enjoyed it!