Mistake

Never try...
I mean... always try
and see... hear... (touch?)...
listen to what his... their...
your Sister... Brother... Father... (Christmas!)...
Mother tells you after...
before it was... twas... tis...
is five... three...
too latte... frothy... foamy...
far gone and
alas... alack... yackerty-yack... (ah, you're back!)
because maybe won... two... He! He!...
she can help... can't help... could help... should help... (shell-fish and kelp?)...
ease... ooze... snooze...
give clues to
that witch... that watch... (that bitch!)...
any hitch hatched
by an udder... by an order...
by any other
who would sew a ewe... turn the screw... (Barney McGrew!!!)...
do harm to you.

Because Mother knows (the) be(a)st...

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Rendition

It's true, I can't carry a tune in a bag! Which is such a shame as I'd love to join a choir and go all Glee-ful for an hour or two. Or alternatively stand screaming into a mike prior to body-surfing a crowd at Glastonbury! That's not to say that I can't sing, it's just that I have a very unusual vocal range - somewhere between a bear growl and rusty shackles slowly dragged across a slate roof in November.

I have sung in public before and with some work I can just about pull it off - but to anyone who has witnessed one of these events I do apologise most sincerely. Instead I've perfected the 'mouthing-along-to-the-words' technique (as popularised by Milli Vanilli) for use at weddings, carol services and school gatherings. I even go so far as to do the pretend 'breathing' bit which most people forget but is important if wanting to truly fake it in style.

To be honest I can do without the singing but I do regret missing out on the teenage band bit. My instrument of choice as a child was the violin (due to my love at the time of 'The Devil Went Down to Georgia' by the Charlie Daniels Band). But I gave up four scratchy years later when the demon fiddler in me had yet to emerge. Next I tried piano, which seemed a good, solid, versitile instument. But my hands refused to work toeghther on the keys with the right always doing the lion share. It's the same with my typing. As I watch my fingers tip-tapping away I can see the division of the keyboard is 20% left and 80% right - which in piano terms would have been tricky even for Mozart.

I'm glad to say that my kids have inherited their vocal talents from their mother, who has an excellent voice, and are now singing in choirs, shows or just for the hell of it. I still join in when they practice by doing the old Svengali bit (imaginary hat and cloak swirling around me), crying out,
"It's Piano! Piano!!"
"Breath from the diaphragm!"
"Where's the crescendo?!?"
Like the good kids they are, they humour my criticism with grace and then do it correctly all by themselves. But when my kids also begun picking up instruments the devil forgot Georgia and started visiting me once more.

My son has unknowingly followed my violin route (and I'm finding it easier to play the thing now than I did aged ten). For my daughter it's guitar - acoustic for the moment with the hope to moving to electric (hard for me though as hers is a quarter size and not suited to big, Daddy fingers). It finally all became too much for me last year and for my fortieth birthday I took possession of my very own mid-life crisis dampener - a four-string eclectic bass!

I'm still growling like a bear and scarping rusted metal - but now it's amplified with enough re-verb to rattle the bowels of a bull elephant!

Rock on!!!

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Bond

Is there anything better than hearing someone laugh? Okay, so there might be occasions when you don't want them laughing at you - even clowns find that hard sometimes. And, donning the hat of political correctness, we should be sure we don't laugh at the inappropriate. But "the laugh's the thing, with which to spit the sides of any king!". And I have always found that to make someone laugh gives me the greatest buzz in the world!

I have my father to thank for this love of comedy. He introduced me from an early age to radio shows such as 'The Goons', 'Hancock' and 'I'm Sorry I'll Read That Again', which I would learn off by heart. As a family we watched TV comic heroes like Eric Sykes and Tommy Cooper and classic movies from the Ealing comedies to Mel Brooks. I remember with pride the day Dad took my sister and I to a double bill of 'Blazing Saddles' and 'Monty Python and the Holy Grail' and lied about my age to get me in! My farther and I constantly chuck each other lines from comedies, both knowing the full routine that follows, and both giggle like kids to the bewilderment of others.

The love of laughter continues today with my own family. My wife and I can both say that our mutual attraction has a lot to do with our ability to make each other laugh. (You just can't beat a good snigger!) And now my kids are following on the tradition. During my years away from acting I have been able to supplement my need to perform by entering the role of "World's Silliest Dad". My life has been a stream of walking into trees, taking pratfalls, using silly voices and telling stolen jokes. All of which they have digested and now perform back to me daily.

And again there is the baton of classic comedy to be passed on. We have already presented them with Spike Milligan, Laurel and Hardy, Morecambe and Wise to name but a few. The latest being a family viewing of 'Young Frankenstein' - so not surprisingly there are now two more Marty Feldman wannabes strolling the planet, talking about "Nasty switches" and "Abbey Normal". And finally my daughter, at the age of 8, has memorised the whole of Bob Newhart's 'The Driving Instructor'.

I'd like to say "My work here is done" but there is so much more to show them and to laugh at with them - and I can't wait!

The family that LOL, is H2S...

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Tower

How the world
Is so much smaller
To that person aged and worn,
Than the one
Which we saw daily
When a year went on and on.

Gone the time of
Giant from fable.
Out-sized people far above.
Booming voices,
Epic striding,
Downward glances full of love

Every place found
Shone wide wonder,
As a grand, palatial space;
Wood to forest,
Hill to mountain.
Etching awe upon your face.

Time shifts forward.
Parents shrinking,
Abdicating from their height,
Smiling warmly
Come to greet you
And on passing drop from sight.

Scale to normal,
Time moves faster.
Glimpse the end at last and wait.
The future now is
Far below you
In its land of towering fate.

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Spin

The five steps to happiness:

Step 1 - Find a large, open space. (Ideally a lush green meadow, awash with buttercups and daisies, on a warm summers day)

Step 2 - Extend arms level with shoulders and parallel to ground. (Protractors, set-squares and so forth are permitted, but remove to a safe distance after use)

Step 3 - Rotate entire body upon the vertical axis (head to toe), gradually increasing speed, facing straight ahead at all times. (For best results keep eyes open and enjoy the accelerating panorama before you)

Step 4 - Continue for as long as feels comfortable. (Signs of reaching completion include tingling in finger tips and ringing in ears) 

Step 5 - Come to a complete stop and let nature take its course. (This should involve the world turning in unusual ways, gravity violently garbing you and, once inevitably prostrate upon the floor, the feeling that your body is falling through space while in fact totally motionless)

Repeat as necessary...

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Examiner

There was always a thin crack between the curtains in the living room of my childhood home. On really sunny days, when we weren't all in there, my mum kept the curtains closed so as not to fade the furniture and carpet. On such days I can remember standing for what seemed like hours staring at this slice of golden light and in particular the dust particles that danced there.

I would pick out one mote and follow its progress for as long as it stayed within the beam, breath held for fear of disturbing it's flight. I imagined it to be a spaceship, navigating an asteroid field. Or a microscopic superhero, flying to the rescue. Or simply saw it for what it was, a miniature piece of natural wonder. It would swoop and shift and spin on eddies too small to be felt.  Eventually it would vanish as it flew back into the darkness of the room and I would move onto the next glowing subject.

It was at about this time in my life that we discovered I had poor eyesight and I can now see (if you'll pardon the pun) that this may be the reason for my episodes of Dust-watch. I'm short-slighted, so only those things close to my face are clearly defined, and the give-away to my parents was how I'd watch television.  I would lay on the floor in front of the TV, half underneath it, with my knees hooked over the cross-bar of the set's legs. I thought nothing of it other than I could clearly see 'Top Cat' from there. But a visit to the opticians was to prove otherwise.  

Although it was hard to be a small child wearing glasses I did enjoy those visits to the optician; the dark room, the trays of lens, odd machines, mirrors and lights. The whole place was a cross between a magician's cave and a mad-scientist's laboratory. My optician even looked the part. He was short and wore what I seem to recall as a three-quarter length grey-brown, lab-coat. He was bald on top with a half-crown of hair (like Lobot's headgear in 'The Empire Strikes Back') and was immensely calming, due to a soft, sing-songy voice that could relax away a years worth of 'Four-eyes' based abuse.

All my family attended that optician at one time or another and his catchphrases became part of our lives:
"Is better 1... or 2... 1... or 2... or not much difference"
"Look at my shoulder... now look away... now look at my other shoulder... now look away"
Today a visit to a small, impersonal booth in Boots or Specsavers just doesn't have the same magic.

I am now a full time, card carrying specks wearer (and proud of it) and ironically I also spend pretty much all day with my face staring at a screen much closer than my old TV set. My life is far too hectic for hours of idle contemplation (although some might say otherwise) and I'm currently at a disadvantage when it comes to sunlight, as my office has no external windows. Instead I will have to hope that, even without my vigilance, somewhere the light still shines so the dust may dance...

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Intervention

Fate often tries to step in - but once in a while it does you good to tread on it's toes! MW and I are currently sitting in limbo waiting to hear which school our son will be attending next year. Having done all the Fate-bashing we can on his behalf I'm put in mind of my own transition from primary to secondary school.

At the time my home was in Benfleet, Essex at the bottom of the famous Bread and Cheese Hill (not my claim but that of a group I once saw on Facebook). The slopes of the hill are covered by a cemetery, which is apparently slipping slowing down the slope (not so much your walking as 'luge-ing' dead) and a large wooded area called Coombe Wood. I attended a primary school in Benfleet and the base of the hill was the playground of my youth: Rhoda Road North where we raced (and crashed) go-carts, the waste-ground just before the cemetery and among the graves themselves (it amazing what a lack of game consoles and nine million cartoon channels reduced us to back then). Occasionally we would travel further to seek out the pond at the heart of Coombe Wood...

About a year before leaving primary school my family moved - a short hop up the hill to Thundersly (now that is famous - check the lyrics to Billy Bragg's 'A13, Trunk Road to the Sea' if you don't believe me). When the time came for secondary school my parents thought I should attend Thundersly's King John but I was adamant about going to Appleton back down in Benfleet. My sister was at Appleton already and the majority of people from my primary school would be going there as well. The distance to both schools was roughly the same, however to attend Appleton would mean coming back up Bread and Cheese Hill each day. But I dug my heel into Fate's plates and got my way!

Thing was I never really enjoyed it once I got there. Whether this would have been my reaction to any school or just this one I'll never know. My arguments for attending fell apart quite quickly. My sister, being that much older than myself, left almost as soon as I arrived. As to my old friends I lost track with most of them partly because even if I saw them at school the hill got in the way at night, cutting me off from 'Playing Out'. The hill became a barrier between me and my old life (and Fate sniggered all the the way to the podiatrist!)

Thankfully It wasn't all bad. I came away from secondary school with good grades and an interest in acting (which would shape my future). And I can't feel any animosity towards the hill, which was one of the great stomping grounds for my dog and I. In fact Bread and Cheese Hill became quite lucrative as I would invariably pocket the bus fare home and walk back though Coombe Wood.

Moral? Can't think of one. But if you find yourself stuck up a hill, don't bitch - just enjoy the view...

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