Mandate

As you know I’m petrified of being in the proximity of ‘uncharted’ people but I flounder even more when the legend below reads "Here there be males!"

There no other way to describe it - I am an 'Anti-Lad'. The closest I get to being a man’s man is doing a spot of decorating while simultaneously watching a John Wayne film on TCM. For a while my kind were classed as the New Age Man, a name which summons up odd images. I see an ape-creature, standing before a black monolith, raising a newly discovered implement above his head before bringing it down firmly, but with equal care, as he irons his best animal skin on a nice flat rock!

If ever I am stranded in the company of lads I am totally out of my depth. I know nothing of football, I dipped my toe in the waters of DIY but power tools are a mystery and a car is just something to get me to work (what the hell is torc anyway?). Even meeting other Ant-Lads doesn’t help as we just sort of cancel each other out and stare into our own private worlds thinking of what we'll cook for dinner. The only blokes I do know tend to come as part of a family package where their son or daughter knows my son or daughter which at least gives me the opener of "How is (insert-name-of-child-here)?" but that will only get you so far. Not that I mind too much as I loath small talk. What I do mind is that I haven’t had what I would call a best ‘male’ friend since I was about twelve.

At that time my shyness was at full power but I did have friends at school if only by dint of the fact that I saw them nearly everyday. However, as I moved into the realms of acting (Jazz-hands ahoy) I underwent an unusual reversal. Suddenly I could speak to girls, make friends with girls and even spend time with girls while at the same time understanding lads less and less. The irony is it still took me forever to find the guts to actually date a girl but that just highlighted the 'brotherly' friendship I had with them. Again, there were blokes on my courses and in subsequent jobs and I do still count many of these as friends but never a best friend. A best friend is not only some who will be there for you and to who you will do the same but also needs to be someone who gets you. Someone who speaks on your frequency. And not having that tends to leave a hole in your life.

A prime example was my wedding. When the time came to pick a best man there was no one who came to mind to fill the role. I have no brothers and nor does my wife and my closest male cousin old enough to do the job was at that time living in New Zealand! In the end I made the unconventional decision to choose the person who was my best friend at the time as so had a Best Woman (Cheers D, it was a pleasure to have you with me that day). Of course my wife now fits the best 'female' friend role and as such spotted that man shaped hole in me.

Unfortunately on one occasion she tried to fill it in a most unusual way by setting me up with what can best be described as a 'play-date'. She was so used to doing it for the kids I guess she just saw it as an extension of the same idea. He was the father of one of my son's friends who I'd previously met at birthday parties and at the school gates (so shyness shouldn't be an issue). He was more Anti-Lad than Lad but not as extreme as me (so I might learn something new from him but wouldn't pick up any nasty habits or get into too many scrapes). He lived not far from us (so not too many roads to cross). And his wife thought he to should socialise more (so basically our wives told us to go out for a drink together). Man-date!

On the evening in question my 'Date-Mate' called on me, as my house was on the way to the pub. My wife tucked my scarf into my trousers, put on my stringed-mittens and told us not to stay out too late. Together we stumped off down the road. I'd like to say the evening went well and that he and I have been best buddies ever since but then that would be a big steaming pile of 'not-true-poo'. In reality we spent five minutes using up our openers and discovering how the other's kids were. Moved on to latest DIY projects, then quickly through my lack of interest in sport before settled down to an evening of beer supping and lengthening silences. And all the while my inner man was struggling to take control. If only he had... 

*The Anti-Lad kicks back his stool and stands, staring down the Date-Mate from beneath the brim of his Ten Gallon hat*

"Now listen here Pilgrim, if you're looking looking for best friendship then I aint willing to accommodate ya. We both see this man-date aint going nowhere. And if'n I hear you use language like 'league champions' or 'traction control' once more, so help me I'll not understand ya. Now you just sit peaceful and finish your drink and I'll be on my way. I got broccoli to steam and a pelmet to fix. Adiós Compadre."

*With that the Anti-Lad moseys out the saloon doors, stopping momentarily to look back, his left hand clutching his right arm as he considers whether to put his scarf back on, before heading towards the sunset and New Aged adventures...*

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Heads

Movie Quiz Time!

This time a 'heady' mix of decapitation and shoulder shrugging the hard way!

... in an apartment above a post-apocalyptic butcher shop a head sits on a table with a cleaver through it, but all is not what its seems...

... in a palace on the moon a Germanic yarn-spinner meets a monarchy who remove their own heads rather than other peoples...

... on the red planet a scuffle breaks out at passport control which results in someone loosing a spare head and the room going boom...

... in a castle in Transylvania an oddly pronounced, 'freshly dead' head has a hunch *ba-rum-ting*...

... on a swampy planet (a long time ago, far far away, yadda yadda yadda) our hero decapitates the big baddie only to get a confusing metaphor from beneath his mask...

... on a street in Israel a photographer finds that rapid glass delivery can be a right pain in the neck...

... on a spaceship in deep space (where else!) a severed head looks to be sufferring from a lactose problem after a fight with other crew members over an uninvited guest...

...south of the border an American bartender takes a road trip to retrieve a head but gets a little gun crazy instead...

... on a moon of a planet in our solar system, which runs 'rings' around the rest, a robot takes it upon himself to decorate his angle-pious neck with a human head...

... in an 18th Century American hamlet an incomplete horseman gets head envy and starts to even things up a bit by bringing people down to his size...

**** Bonus Question ****

No decapitation here but what is the movie which contains an odd mix of songs and sketches from four actors who can sing and was co-wirtten by another actor who had in a previous film freely admitted that his writing was a bit "dull"?

Answers

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Cavort

I wish I could dance. Actually, scratch that! I can dance and in fact I do at the slightest provocation!

My mother was a dancer in her youth and loved watching all the MGM musicals. So naturally I grew up watching them as well. 'On the Town', 'Kiss Me Kate', 'Seven Brides for Seven Brothers' - you name it we'd watch it.  Not surprisingly I loved the comedic dancers best with the top position going to Donald O'Connor in 'Singin' in the Rain'. I would watch him perform 'Make Them Laugh' over and over again and emulate his every move (with exception of the final back flips!)

Drama school finally gave me an opportunity to truly try my hand (or should that be foot) at various forms of dancing led by our marvellous tutors Leslie and Norm. It was also Norm's dance classes which first introduced me properly to MW(TG) as we teamed up for ballroom dancing and pumped up the Polka to 10. As with most things I found that my memory was part of the key to my success. Just as I could easily memorise lines I was also very quick to pick up and remember routines. I may never have had the body of a true dancer, even in my slimmer youth, but the mind was on the ball and the feet wished to follow.

The one style I really wanted to get to grips with was tap but although I had a fair stab at it I was no Fred Astaire. In our first term we had to do a group dance to Kenny Ball's 'Midnight in Moscow', a tune which still rattles round in my head to this day. I can remember trying to lead the rest of my group in some additional rehearsals and getting very 'Miss Grant' from Fame on the asses - "Pay me some sweat people!". Alas I never took dancing any further, but in quiet moments alone I still try to perfect a simple time-step...

Shuffle-Hop-Spring-Tap-Step-Step

Shuffle-Hop-Spring-Tap-Step-Step

Today I'm getting to show off and pass on the odd trick I do remember to my kids, both of whom have the dancing bug but prefer a little 'popping and locking' to 'tapping and stepping'. I also get to introduce them to all the musicals I enjoyed with their Hollywood Hoofers. Only last week I had them sitting round watching Gene Kelly do the sublimely impossible dance on roller-skates (and in case you're wondering I refer to 'It's Always Fair Weather' as opposed to 'Xanadu').

But I also still cut my own rug! Either to the radio in the kitchen or more often to the personal soundtrack in my head. Anything from simple steps to something a little more adventurous - such as trying to pull off a barrel-roll down an empty corridor at work. "Dance and the world dances with you" and if that's not true then it certainly should be. So go on! Get up right now and boogie! It the best of times even if it's the worst of time-steps...

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Five top dance routines

1. Make Them Laugh
2. Gene Kelly on skates
3. Fred and Ginger
4. 'Seven Brothers' Barn Dance
5. Laurel and Hardy

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Fibs

Am I a fraud and liar? Not sure. I try to be honest in everything thing that I do and 'try' is the key word there. Could anyone say that they are always one hundred percent honest? Case in point, my son had to take on a big responsibility this time last year when I broken the bad news to him that (*** and anyone under the age of eleven should stop reading right now before I ruin your childhood for you ***) there is no Father Christmas!

I don't remember when I first found out this fact myself. Maybe it was so traumatic that I completely blocked it from my memory. More likely being the younger of two children I just started picking up on the fact from things my sister said. And there in lines the crux of my son's problem.

It was a big enough blow having to be told that I was Father Christmas, and by that I don't me I do the whole red suit, white beard and levitating reindeer bit. It was a shock to him I know, probably not helped by the fact that I threw in the truth about the Easter Bunny and the Tooth Fairy at the same time - it may seem cruel but I was working on the 'sticky plaster' theory of ripping off in one quick go rather than dragging out the pain. It was hard for him but he quickly came to terms with the fact. But what he finds hardest is that he knows the truth and yet his sister doesn't.

Some siblings would love to have such a feeling of power and one-upmanship over a sister or brother. But for my boy it was more the fact that his sister can still feel the magic while he has to stand by and pretend. He therefore keeps asking when I'll be breaking the news to her, hoping for sooner rather than later. Possibly so that he has someone with whom to share the pain and maybe because he can't face another Christmas pretending or as he put it "lying".

And he's right, these are lies! How can you be telling your kids to to be honest and truthful one minute then spinning a yarn about a rotund, sack wielding housebreaker the next? It's the same problem you face when telling them not to be cruel to animals and then handing them a stick and a piñata! Okay bad example, after all the piñata had it coming for scoffing all the sweets in the first place!

Actually when you think about it the whole Father Christmas business sits at odds with the Ten Commandments thing. Come Christmas there are no end of false idols, not to mention coveting your neighbour's ass, or more likely their Nintendo 3DS. God and the little baby Jesus have to fight for centre stage with St Nick. And the no stealing or killing is tough to keep away from when you're a parent hunting the length and breadth of the country for the last available 'must have' toy of the year! And the little darlings will only honour their father and mother until they discover that you are the real stocking-stuffers!

No, I'm afraid my son will have to tow the line for at least a few more Christmases before his sister gets the bad news. But knowing my daughter, who is currently nine going on nineteen, she'll suss it out before we tell her. In fact she may well be pulling a reverse sibling-sting on her brother right now. She probably knows it's all a lie but won't let us know that she knows so as to make her poor brother squirm just that little bit longer!

It's enough to make your head ache. Ah well! It'll all be over by Hogmanay and until then just keep taking the tablets...

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Bricks

My time as an actor was not what you might call the most glittering of careers. Instead I moved from one fringe production to another and in between tended towards children's variety more than anything else. In fact, given how much fun I now have making my kids laugh I probably missed a trick there.

My biggest entertainer stint came when I worked for two years as a actor / performer at the then quite tacky Thorpe Park in Staines (a story for another day). After that I vowed never to work in a theme park again but hold out for only 'proper' acting roles. So I was more than a little surprised to find that out of the blue I suddenly had an audition for a new theme park which to be opening up - Legoland Windsor. To this day I can't remember if I applied for the job and then blotted out the memory or whether my name was simply given to them because of my record of park work. Either way I wasn't ready to pass up an audition (just getting one was at that stage was proving harder than the audition itself).

So on a cold and foggy day I turned up at the newly built visitors centre at Legoland Windsor and immediately felt I'd stepped into an episode of Dr Who. Everyone already working there wore a coloured blazer on the lapel of which was a small Lego Mini Figure holding a name tag. I assumed it was the name of the person wearing the blazer but it could just as easily been the name of the Lego person being transported around by their human servant! (*Multiplex voice-over*) "Taking over the world - brick by brick..."

Myself and my fellow auditionees were herded into one room where the most senior Lego / human hybrid, who shared the name Brian, explained how the day would proceed. The Brians were the entertainment manager and gave a brief outline of the sort of actors and performers they would be looking for. The moment they started speaking I began to get an odd sort of tapping at the back of my head which threatened to put me off my stride. Whether it was nerves or just my subconscious trying to remind me of my pledge to avoid any role that used the line "Behind you!" I wasn't sure, but I fought it down.

The main part of the audition was of course a prepared speech but unusually we didn't go one at a time into the a room to perform these. Instead we sat in a row of chairs along one wall in a large room while the blazer wearing panel of five, and their symbiotic plastic figures, sat behind a long table in front of us with the Brians in the middle. My turn came and with it the return of the brain tap. I pushed it back once more and did my piece, then answered whatever questions about my previous experience were asked and finally sat back down. As the next person carried on my eyes were drawn to the Brians and again the tapping began but this time finished with the mental equivalent of a soft "Ping".

My eyes widened in wonder as suddenly visions of teddy bears, silly songs and Saturday afternoons swam before my eyes! Not being able to contain myself I lent over to the person next to me and whispered,

"That's Brian Cant!"

Ah yes dear reader - Brian Cant. To those of a certain age he is an unquestionable god! Readers of my previous post 'Glimpse' will know of another day when I met a TV hero of my childhood and here, twenty years later, I was face to face with the Supreme Leader of all Playaway presenters. The man who could turn a cardboard box into a rocket ship! The man who knew Jeremy Irons before he revisited Brideshead or the Borgias and Tony Robinson before he joined 'Time Team!' The man who could really dish the dirt on Big Ted, Humpty and Hamble! And I was performing for him!

Needless to say I was rather quickly brought back to Earth when the person I'd whispered to said, "Who's Brian Cant?". The penny dropped then that I was probably one of the oldest people at the audition, everyone else being fresh out of one drama school or another and therefore too young to remember the Golden Age of 'Play School' and 'Playaway'. Not to be put off I threw myself into the rest of the day with gusto, including an over energetic and possibly highly embarrassing dance we had to learn to a Janet Jackson song. Nothing mattered now. Brian was watching and I was going to show him just what I could do!

At the close of the day, when the entertainment staff said their thank yous and told us we'd be informed in due time as to the results, Brian walked among us once more. I also got to speak to him briefly, although I did refrain from saying how much I'd adored watching him as a child or how many jokes, gags and silly voices I'd copied off him or how many songs and sketches I had learnt off by heart as a kid from Playaway albums. Somehow I didn't really see that over enthusiastic hero worship from a twenty-five year old man would help me get a job.

Either way a few days later I received a call to congratulate me and to offer me a role at Legoland Windsor for the Summer. However, in the time following the audition the stars had fallen once more from my eyes. I'd thought again about how I didn't want to be typecast as kiddies entertainer, still feeling that my real break was somewhere round that impossible big corner. I therefore politely turned the job down, possibly leaving a Lego man with my name on it out in the cold.

And so I moved away from what I said at the beginning could have been my true purpose in life. Not only that but from the opportunity to have learnt at the feet of the true master...

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Roll

Five more steps to happiness:

Step 1 - Find a large sloping area. (Preferably a grass covered bank or hillside not during the rainy season but close enough to have kept the ground soft)

Step 2 - Lay down parallel to the apex of the slope. (Protractors, set-squares are again permitted, but do not keep in pockets)

Step 3 - Gently tip bodyweight in the direction of the downward gradient. (Positioning of arms can be a problem at first but quickly becomes irrelevant (see step 4). Same also applies to breasts and genitalia for older participants)

Step 4 - Allow momentum to build naturally towards optimum speed. (Signs that this is achieved will include failing limbs, involuntary screaming and both ground and life flashing before eyes) 

Step 5 - Let the flattening out of the landscape gradually bring your body to a state of rest. (Please try to avoid ditches, cliffs, ravines and the legs of passing strangers)

Repeat as necessary...

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Impossible

Seven Impossible things to consider before breakfast:

...It is impossible to find something you've lost around the house when the one place you're sure it is isn't...

...It is impossible to resist joining in when someone else sings the first the first five cords of "Also Sprach Zarthustra"... 

...It is impossible to post anything through a letterbox that has brushes without bending it...

...It is impossible to watch a film which you know has a 'great twist' without constantly trying to guess it...

...It is impossible to tap the side of a beer can with a pen without thinking of the old cricketing theme tune...

...It is impossible to play Monopoly without one player sulking and another becoming a money hungry despot...

...It is impossible to remove a bogey from your fingertip in less than three attempts...

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