I have a morbid, but perfectly reasonable fear of dentists.

I’m starting with a new dentist tomorrow. I loathe dentists. Nothing personal - I’ve just had a lot of very bad experiences with them. This one was recommended by a friend; her son is also a patient, and she was very complimentary (she has good teeth). Apparently they go to a lot of trouble to ‘keep’ their patients. I studied their website in microscopic detail. I feel moderately comfortable with the whole thing. I still won’t sleep tonight.

It’s no wonder I have ‘issues’ with dentists. When I was a child in the North West - the ‘professions’, dentistry and doctoring- were treated as Gods. I was never allowed to eat sweets when I was a kid and have never developed a sweet tooth, but all my friends ate everything offered (or pinched from the corner shop) - it was all Lucky bags, Sherbert dib-dabs, Orange squash and 4 sugars in your tea when I was a kid. Every year we were all marched into the school gym where a dentist would check us all one at a time, and everyone - EVERYONE, was given exactly the same prognosis - 2 extractions and 2 fillings. Regardless of how your teeth actually looked (I later learned it was something to do with money). I’d have to go through the same process as the kids who ate sugar all day and whose blackened teeth were rotting in their mouths. My mother had a dental plate (top), but she was born in the 1930s, and I suspect it was done for cosmetic rather than health reasons. She never once questioned their prognosis and always made it clear it must be my fault, somehow. My folks spent more time worshipping at the church of mediocre professionals than at the one we went to on Sundays.

One day - when I was about 11 or 12, my dad (who I never got on with ) took me to the dentist for an ‘extra’ appointment - and stood by as I was sat in the chair - assuming it would be the regular poke about and ‘tut tut’. Instead, on this occasion, the dentist and assistant started fitting metal wires into my mouth for a brace. If they had thought of telling me what was going to happen, it might have helped - but I had a terror of dental braces, deeply scarred by seeing food and other debris hanging from the metal mouths of my friends, and having an unexpectedly strong gag reflex anyway - I was - to put it mildly, a bit upset (reader, I was hysterical). The dentist and the assistant nurse had to forcibly hold me down in the chair and started shouting at me - my dad just stood there, embarrassed and annoyed at me (he NEVER took my side), and in the end I became so distressed they had to give up. Everyone (including my dad) was furious. In the end, I never even needed a dental brace; my teeth are quite straight.

Over the years I’ve attempted to overcome my fear of dentists; I had my two childhood fillings taken out and replaced with white amalgam in my 30’s by a very nice French dentist in Brighton, but it was impossible to get an NHS dentist when I was in Liverpool - and the papers were full of horror stories of folk pulling their own teeth out with pliers. I was able to get back into the NHS fold when I moved to Hastings, and for about 10 years everything was fine. I would go to my appointment, the dentist would complain that I still drank coffee (I have never smoked, barely drink, don’t eat meat or dairy and clean my teeth 2 or 3 times a day - coffee is literally my only vice). I also get told off for the way I brush my teeth or floss, because that’s ‘the wrong way’ - despite it being the way they told me to do it last time. I used to see a hygienist, but I strongly suspect she was on the make - I could have gone EVERY DAY OF THE WEEK and she still would tell me it wasn’t often enough.

About 12 years ago my gums started getting very sore, and my back teeth all felt loose and strange - the dentist recoiled in horror and asked me if I was a diabetic; he said that he suspected I had an autoimmune condition that was damaging my gums. I did, as he insisted, go straight to my doctor and explained what he had told me, but she wasn’t interested, called me a time-waster and suggested I was actually just depressed and should be referred to the mental health team. She was clearly very hungover (I spent years working in bars, my parents both drank - trust me, I know) and she decided to take her shit out on me.

The dentist insisted on seeing me once a week for review - cleaning my teeth and shaking his head (at this point in time, I have not needed a filling in over 30 years) and then one day, he was gone. The head of practice was waiting for me, and I just knew something was afoot - the way they talked about him suggested some drama, and to make things worse, the new guy was very, very offhand with me and didn’t even look in my mouth. “Oh, of course - you’re going to lose all your teeth and need dentures’’- I had a strong sense of something being covered up and was, to say the least, a bit upset. At this point I felt I had no choice but to go private - I was lucky enough to know someone (at a distance) who was a dentist and had some work done by him in London, and some more at King’s College, and my teeth and gums were restored to health quite quickly. This didn’t go down very well with my own dentist. There was a certain amount of chill in the air at my next visit.

Ironically - or tragically, however you want to describe it- a few months later I was knocked off my bike, and the resulting head and facial injuries included getting part of my lip torn off and needing to be repaired, and several of the teeth I’d tried so hard to save being knocked out (but they were the few with childhood fillings… silver linings etc). I had another now loose tooth removed by the emergency dentist, who also removed all the stitches from inside my mouth (side note - when you have that kind of facial repair, you sometimes end up with hair from your beard growing ‘inside’ your mouth. It isn’t very nice). I also picked up an antibiotic infection around the stitches that didn’t do my gums any favours, and I ended up being off work for months. For a lot of that time I was out of it, and cancelled two dental appointments (which is reasonable) - however, my dentist took the opportunity to remove me from the list as a result. I knew he was a spiteful bastard.

Ever since then, I’ve been pathological about brushing my teeth several times a day - I have a horror of seeing people with bad teeth or gaps in their smile - I see it as a kind of personal failure, like I’d given up on life. I brush my teeth as if my life depended on it. I’ve probably inherited my parents sniveling subserviance to ‘professional classes’ and resent it so much I see every engagement with authority as a conflict. So, things can only get worse.

About a week ago I got something hard and unyielding from my muesli stuck between two of my small, lower front teeth - it jammed so hard between them that I felt them tear out of the sockets and ever since then they have been getting looser and looser. I’m 60 now and understand the challenges of age-related bone recession and gum loss - I’m also too financially challenged to afford the kind of cosmetic treatments that might make this bearable or repairable. Tomorrow I’ll have a heart-to-heart with my new dentist, look at the options available and put more effort into selling my house. I may end up living under a railway arch with a dog on a string, but at least I’ll have teeth. Look out for me as you wander past, rattling my paper cup of coins.

Yep - everyone thought it was curtains for Newt

It was a phenomenal experience - I’m not a big fan of crowded places, but the entire audience was ‘in’ the film throughout - the excitement, tension and thrill shared by all of us as if we were just one huge entity. I don’t need to go on about how good the film was - and still is. It’s peerless, as was Alien that came before it. Two films by different directors that take the same source and create two very different experiences - neither is better than the other - they live in their own special places within culture.

Earlier today I started reading an article that called Ridley Scott ‘flawed’, but I didn’t dignify it with more than a few moments of my time.

I was only just 20 years old - I went to the cinema a lot back then - always in the afternoons and always on my own. I was often the only person at a screening. I sat in empty theatres watching The Fourth Man (1983), Henry Portrait of a Serial Killer (1986) and many others - sometimes I’d go to the BFI on the South Bank - there were about 7 or 8 of us one day watching Lawrence of Arabia.

The 4th Man - early Paul Veerhoven, cracking little movie

I used to be very good at ‘finding’ interesting films on TV - it was just terrestrial at the time, and you’d often get seasons of oddities in the afternoon or late nights on C4 (or BBC2), and I worked my schedule around them. I still prefer watching films on my own.

Michael Gough being himself in Crucible of Horror (1971) - he’s absolutely vile in this film - fantastic performance. His son is played by his real-life son (Simon), and is just as vile as his dad.

I’ve had a lot on this week but still managed to squeeze a few in. I particularly enjoyed Crucible of Horror (1971 - and NOT Crucible of Terror - that’s a different film)- a lost and almost forgotten retro phsycho/horror starting Micheal Gough and Yvonne Mitchell. Owing far more than it wants to admit to Les Diaboliques, it’s a cruel, cold, ugly little film (which is probably why it has been forgotten) but still fascinating. I also rewatched ‘Madhouse’ (1974) - which should have been the perfect complement to Dr Phibes and Theatre of Blood, but trying the same thing with a contemporary setting and not allowing Vincent Price to relish the gothic elements of his character made it seem shallow and pointless.

Vincent Price attemoting to make Madhouse work - we have all seen this picture of him, but few of us have seen the movie it came from

I read the synopsis for ‘It Ends’, which sounded really good until I remembered that I used to have a recurring dream where I’d somehow learned to drive and was making my way down the motorway at night; I was the only car on the road and saw one of those motorway stations that has a bridge over the road connecting two retail hubs and car parks. I parked there, only to see a sign saying that the cafe is on the ‘other’ side and you need to cross by the bridge - and when I did that, there was a similar sign sending me back. The twist here was that every time I crossed the road, the cafe and my car were on the other side. I was trapped there forever.

Imagine this, at night, in the rain, trapped forever runing from one side to the other

I’ve just managed to complete a load of work, and it’s all out to print, and am about to prepare for the Hastings Book Fair in 2 weeks. I’ll be looking at this one more as a networking push to bring in more clients. Also this week I urgently need to find a new dentist, get a load of blood tests first thing in the morning to see if my prostate has finally decided to kill me, and work out where I am with money and my house. I’m mostly spending the evening not having a panic attack. I was supposed to go out for a drink tonight, but I came to my senses when I remembered I’m having blood drawn at 8.30 am tomorrow and I don’t want to give them the wrong idea.

At some point this week I need to move all my banking from The Halifax (after 30 years) to Lloyds, after the takeover. I have a really bad feeling about this one - with accounts, subscriptions, invoices, payment plans and all manner of shit to deal with along the way. I can 100% guarantee it will all go wrong. In the back of my mind, a little voice keeps whispering that Lloyds will decide they don’t actually want me.

Mills as Bernard Quatermass - one of the reasons this works so well, is because Mills seems genuinely lost throughout every scene

A few weeks ago, I wrote on here about the large screen I use for work ‘dying’ - it was a big 36-inch Benq graphics display and only 4 years old. I have 3 large Apple Cinema Displays, but they are no longer connectable to newer Mac computers (which makes me incandescent with rage - they call it ‘unsupported’). It just died on me at the worst possible moment, lights out. Nothing. I assumed it was electrical - which was the closest I could find to any solution online. - and because I had a work deadline and none of my other screens would ‘speak’ to the hard drive I was using - I had to fork out £500 on a new one with next-day delivery—money I didn’t have.

I tried everything, but all the computer people I know are Mac-based and wouldn’t touch it. I tried online, called all sorts of engineers and suppliers - nothing. Tech is now disposable. In the end I boxed it up, assuming I’d have someone take it on Freecycle. Yesterday I was looking for a copy of the manual online so I could include it with the dead screen when I gave it away ‘for spares’ (the stand is worth £50 alone), and I stumbled across a single line in a forum

“The best thing about these displays is that you can return to factory settings and a full reset by pressing the ON button for 5 seconds”

This does not appear anywhere online, in the manuals, their website or any forum I found.

Reader. It worked. I am furious.

I have ‘Everest’ (2015) on in the background while I work. I like this film; it has just the right pacing to be white noise (I’ve seen it so many times I can just let it run in the background without being distracting. Watching the video of the events in Nepal is harrowing. I’ve watched a lot of disaster movies over the years - when practical effects gave way to digital, disaster became less spectacle and more wallpaper - we become inert and unmoved. Seeing how brutal nature is, the scale and inevitability of destruction is overwhelming.

I somehow read a news article about the leaks from a new version of the video game Grand Theft Auto. I have no interest in video games, or gaming in general. My parents bought a very early 2nd-hand copy of the basic tennis game when I was about 12, and my brother and I played it for 10 minutes, then went outside to play real tennis. The clip I saw was a hyper-realistic film of a man throwing a woman against a wall, leaving a smear of blood where her head hit the plaster - then throwing her down some concrete steps. This was on the BBC; the comments were mostly very excited reactions to the realism: ‘you can actually feel the weight of the body hit the ground’. When did beating up women become fun for the family?

‘Cry of the Banshee’ (1970) is now on Amazon Prime in fully restored splendour. It’s great to catch a bit of vintage horror for the first time.

Shit happens.

I have a lot going on at the moment. I just finished loads of very difficult work that overran all its budgets and timescales and had to deal with a printer who treated me and my client badly. It’s exhausting. I’m showing at the Hastings Book Fair in 2 weeks; I was interviewed by them for the festival podcast but have refused to listen to the broadcast. I hate the sound of my own voice and have only just recovered from an incident a few weeks ago when a group of staggeringly drunk (and apparently coked-up) pensioners in the pub tried to goad me with their Harry Enfield ‘comedy scouser’ impressions.

All of this waiting for my ‘bad’ eye to recover and gearing up for my next appointment at Urology - I am having my blood tests on Tuesday. If my PSA continues on its upward trajectory at the same rate, it will be about 14.

Also

I find myself in an unenviable position where I sold my house at far, far less than the asking price to buy a flat that needed a lot of work - which made it affordable - only for the owner of the flat to decide not to sell to me because she found out who was buying my place and she had a dispute with them from a few years ago. So now I’m stuck with a house sale I’m going to have to struggle to get out of if I can’t find anywhere to live that I can afford. The local property market has collapsed, and everything is a mess. I am in limbo. I can’t afford to keep spending money on this house, and I need somewhere that I can work in. Obviously someone will say I’m very privileged to be a property owner, but it doesn’t actually work like that. I’ve not been sleeping much this month, and a few times I had to get up in the night to throw up. I need to pay off the debt I’m carrying, use the money I spend on my mortgage to invest in my business, have a better workspace and set something aside for some very expensive but necessary dental work. I’m never going to win the lottery - I realised that on week 3.

John Mills struggling to understand his own species, let alone an alien force

I sat down and rewatched The Quatermass Conclusion (1979) last night. I watched the original broadcast, episode by episode, and thought it was thrilling, inventive, scary and exciting. I’d already seen the original Quatermass movies (and later the TV screencasts) and was a huge fan of the Nigel Kneale creation.

Conclusion still stands up - it’s an intelligent, suspenseful exploration of fear of the unknown, and fear of who we are and what we’ve become. I recently watched a documentary that includes a section on Kneale’s unhappy work life and the frustrations and resentments he felt towards the end of his life - and you can see them all here. Society has crumbled into a self-destructive mess - the old envy the young who they cannot understand or control - the young hate the old because of the mess they made of the world and themselves. It manages to do so much without revealing anything. We walk away not really understanding what happened, but not needing to know. The days of endless online discourse and still dissection are far off. It’s also about love, redemption and sacrifice. It’s a fucking masterpiece. It’s all we talked about in school for days after each episode. (I was 13).

He can’t save this mess, no matter how hard he tries. (he has lovely teeth)

That’s it, in a nutshell. It’s also how I feel about most MNS films. Trap is a good enough idea, just not particularly inventive or original. Nothing in the film feels fresh or new; I’m not expected to have to think my way through the plot, nor do I anticipate being surprised or caught off guard by an original twist or revelation. There is no excitement here. I’m not drawn in; I don’t engage. Every scene feels like it starts with a set of multiple-choice questions like a video game that let me lead the narrative through obvious, derivative twists and turns, depending on how lazy or disengaged I am.

At several points I zoned out - and at one point took a long phone call. I just didn’t care. I’ll be honest, Josh Hartnett is good - he makes the best of whatever there is for him to do, but everyone else feels artificial and flat - it’s so hollow it could have been the first 100% AI-written and generated movie. I have absolutely no idea what Hayley Mills is doing in this film; it feels as if they wanted to cast Sigourney Weaver in Copycat but couldn’t write a part to go with it, so went with weird, discordant stunt casting - and then gave her nothing to do. Seeing her here gives me the same feeling I get when I see Judy Geeson in Rob Zombie films. It’s kinda disrespectful to Hayley.

The biggest problem for me is the absolute total lack of atmosphere - even in the concert, it’s so… DEAD. Every scene feels understated, detached from reality, stitched together and sterile - the whole film is a moodboard of scenes from other films. I didn’t care about anyone; I didn’t care what was happening, if anyone was going to live or die, and I was just waiting for the inevitable MNS twist (and it’s SO FUCKING OBVIOUS, I’m sure MNS loves Silence of the Lambs, we all do - no need to force the point home so hard)

Trap is passive entertainment for passive audiences who have no interest in engaging with what’s in front of them, no sense of enquiry or need to be challenged. Don’t get me started on the casting ‘issues’ that a lot of people questioned at the time - I mean - she’s competent enough but can’t carry the weight of the film without a decent plot.

There is a really stupid plot device with the mother of one of Hartnett’s friends who goes into unrealistic and pointless ‘Karen’ mode for no reason - it’s like a bad, improvised comedy sketch and just left me scratching my head. “Where the fuck did that come from, and why?”

Imagine what Hitchcock would have been able to achieve here, because - I strongly suspect - that’s what MNS did.

The worst concert footage EVER

Last night I managed to tear myself away from hysterical, drunk women being arrested for crashing cars into fences (police bodycam videos) and watched my absolute favourite episode of Tales of the Unexpected. The one where Joan Collins gets her head stuck in a so-so Henry Moore look-alike, and needs ‘extricating’. It’s an absolute masterpiece. Collins plays a slutty, man-hungry rich bitch who has dumbed down her docile, titled husband’s newspaper empire to little more than a stable of porn magazines - and as we’re talking stables, she rides as many horses as men. Despite already being serviced by rich but stupid Peter Bowles, she makes a move on her husband’s art historian friend. Sir John Guildgood plays the butler who we all realise is running the house for his own satisfaction. Carmen Silvera plays the spectacularly posh but stupid horsey friend who wafts about aimlessly in the background. It all ends badly for Joan, who chews more than the scenery and is clearly having the time of her fucking life with this role. I vaguely remember seeing this when it was first broadcast (I was 13) and suspecting that Joan’s hubby and the art chap were secret gay lovers. You can watch it here - it’s less than half an hour long and you’ll woop for joy at the inevitable climax!

I worked out that it’s exactly 30 years this week since I saw ‘The Usual Suspects’ at the cinema. Back then, I would hear about a film or listen to Barry Norman’s review - and just pop along and watch it. Afterwards I might tell a few friends. Now I know a film is coming 18 months in advance, read the detailed pre-release gossip, leaks and reviews - and before I get the chance to see it myself there will be more leaks and spoilers. By the time I get home, there will be a dozen detailed think pieces, videos and podcasts explaining why this is both the best and worst film ever made - all of which I will watch and read. Then a couple of days later, it will be on YouTube. The next week, I will sit through the entire film multiple times in watch-along video reactions online. I have no idea why I do this. It isn’t good.

Only a few days after his death, and I’ve already read several long opinion pieces from ‘name’ journalists explaining why they are not to blame for what happened to Jason Arday - and why he had it coming - but of course... they say that with ‘kindness’. I have not seen one person in the media being reflective, no self-examination, and not even once wishing things had been different. Haters gotta Hate and content creators gotta … create.

A group of three nurses have moved into the house next door but one. They are all in their 20’s. This may sound like the set-up to a 70’s TV show, but it’s no fun. They spend a lot of time in the garden with a disposable barbecue and talk rubbish VERY loudly. They have already put the bins out on the wrong day and give the foxes a 12-hour feast. I saw one attempting to clear the street of rotten food scraps in her scrubs. I have become my father.

I reluctantly have Amazon Prime this month because I needed some irregular stuff, and there is absolutely no retail here - It appears to be 60% ‘shark eats hot teenage girls’ movies. They have Marty Supreme. A film I now have absolutely no interest in seeing.

Print taken from a painting of Crowley by local artist (and very nice guy) Robert Sample - the original is about 6 feet high. This image appears in the book.

On Friday I finished the artwork for a book about Aleister Crowley’s last years living in Hastings at a hotel about a mile from my house - it was hard work and very complicated, but it’s an excellent book and very thoroughly researched by the writer Antony Clayton. I now know FAR TOO MUCH about Crowley. There are quite a few em spaces. All appropriate and all of human origin. Hopefully it’s back from the printers in time for a book fair I’m showing at in September.

Oh - how we all LOVE a pile-on now; the internet has allowed us to expand the water-cooler bitching session to a worldwide audience.

Whatever this guy did, it was a gift to these people - it seems he made the mistake of thinking he could make his way into ‘academia’ (whatever the fuck that thinks it is) and somehow retain some of his own identity. But his face didn’t fit. He seems to have been supported by people who wanted to introduce someone different into their environment, and that was another crime. It was somehow ‘fashionable’. They all turned on him in the end when it suited them. Did he inflate his achievements or embellish his past? I have no idea - it doesn’t really matter - the guy is dead. He leaves a family. Anyone could have seen this coming, but nobody did anything - it was too much fun. The tide had turned. Whatever the truth of the situation, it was a gift to that kind of person who relished wrapping their racism and snobbery up in moral outrage.

When I left home, I was 17 - I didn’t do A Levels - but I had entry-level qualifications that allowed me to enter a degree course at Camberwell - despite its reputation as a finishing school for the children of trendy media types - I found it a safe, welcoming place. It was only when I went to RCA, a globally recognised ‘prestige’ institute, to start my Master’s, that I realised how ‘different’ I was. Everyone had money, supportive parents, clothes, cars, flats, trust funds, holidays, good cameras, connections. Nobody had to work ‘that’ hard - they were all going to be fine. They had safety nets. They knew people. They had a level of sophistication I could only dream about. They were all usually smart, articulate, well-read, and found life easy. I didn’t. It’s easy to get high marks when you don’t have to worry about anything.

Something else. They were all white. Even the international students. They were all white - except one girl in the glass department I never met but who was apparently very good, and a girl in my year who was lovely. Her name was Flora. Looking back on it all now, she was treated very badly by the staff - put in unfair situations and ‘disappeared’ at the end of the first year. A pointless exercise because we all had bursaries to pay our fees - it was vindictive. Some of the staff were OK, but one key member was undoubtedly very racist. I still think about it a lot.

I was out of my depth at RCA. But I did try to fit in, not to compete, just to fit in. Did I exaggerate sometimes? Yes, of course I did. I pretended I had been to places and done things - mostly so I didn’t look like a loser. I knew stuff, but I hadn’t done stuff. I once mispronounced sycophant in front of a group of students who laughed in my face - not because I was stupid, but because I had only ever read the word, so I didn’t know how it was supposed to sound, and had never said it out loud. It was humiliating at the time but not now. I’d probably read more than them anyway.

One time a girl in my class (who is now the chair of an anti-bullying platform - something that makes me roar with laughter every time I think about it) went to great lengths to humiliate me in front of the entire year, something she’s spent quite a bit of time setting up, because it was fun, and she wanted to knock me down. Another time I was stuck at a table with a group of Cultural History PHD students who literally ignored me, blanked me every time I spoke and tutted loudly when I did anything to draw attention to myself - it happened a lot. I was just some token, awkward, undereducated, Northern interloper who didn’t matter but sometimes had to be tolerated.

Even now - I’m friendly with someone who has it on their CV that they went to Cambridge (they did a top-up course at an FE college to enhance their social worker qualifications ‘in’ Cambridge - the county) and someone else who claims to actually work at Cambridge University - when in reality they are the marketing manager of a company that supplies software services. It’s a competitive world and when you have nothing and start at the bottom - you work with what you have. I always grit my teeth when I think about the subplot in ‘The History Boys’ where ‘Rudge’ the common little sports boy, gets into Oxford because his dad is on the service staff there. I think in the play he eventually becomes an estate agent. (Russel Tovey in the film version, as an aside - I once sold him a book via eBay)

One thing I never had was the proverbial chip on my shoulder - despite everything, I just used to grit my teeth because I knew that there was a world outside and I could get through this and never have to deal with them again (and also because THIS was a world I didn’t want to live in). The entire environment around Higher Education at the time was a hothouse of privilege, snobbery and arrogance. I think it probably still is, but I wouldn’t know. I used to teach on that level, but it was too hostile, the students too difficult, and the internal environment where income becomes king and learning becomes an inconvenience just didn’t work for me. I also found it quite corrupt. Oddly enough, some of the most intelligent, well-educated people I know are often the most ignorant.

What does this all mean and why am I rambling on? Why am I even adding to a toxic discourse that nobody needs? It’s because I’m pissed off. After all, it was so obvious that this was going to happen. Because this country is still crippled by racism, classism, snobbery and entitlement. They raise people, turn them into novelty mascots, then knock them down: ‘He had it coming, his face didn’t fit, he was out of his depth, his type don’t belong here, we gave him a chance, he blew it’ - take your pick. That’s where we still are. There are people today saying that it was inevitable and that’s what happens when ‘these people’ get ideas above their station. Why didn’t you just lynch the guy in the quad and be done with it? Emmet Till was murdered because he had the audacity to compliment a white woman. It’s not a million miles from where we are here.

If you come from nothing and need to add polish to your achievements to excel - be noticed, come close to a level playing field, or just get by on a day-to-day basis - you’re not at fault; the system is. Good luck to you.

Honestly, why the fuck anyone would want to go to any of these places eludes me. Everyone I know who went to a prestige institute has turned out to be a complete wanker (including myself, sometimes). There is something very ugly and cruel about this whole mess, avoidable but inevitable at the same time. There will be hand wringing and finger pointing, but nobody will take responsibility - and nobody will care. Not really. Jason Arday will continue to provide content for commentators even in death. That’s all people really care about.

The original Jumped Up Pantry Boy - Tindle (Caine in his best performance) spends the film being humiliated in every possible way by his ‘superior’. Until he snaps, of course. He should have known his place.

It’s almost exactly the same as the flat I used to live in, Sumner Road - Peckham. Frankly, my flat had a better location and another bedroom. It’s worth pointing out that this property has been slightly enlarged - the old washroom that used to be accessible only from its own front door on the landing is now part of an extended kitchen area - which would once have been the same size as the bathroom.

There is nothing particularly fancy about this flat - the owners have done very little (apart from the enlarged kitchen) to improve it, and I’m guessing the windows were replaced a few years previous to it becoming private. I expect it’s been used for rental ever since its purchase on the Right To Buy Scheme.

The rental value of this apartment is roughly £2500 - £3000 pcm. That’s three thousand pounds a month.

These flats were on the market in 2007 for aprox £150,000

So the profit (for the flat) over the last 20 years has been about £300,000 - and the rental value income about £200,000

My old flat in Peckham, which was bigger, nicer, better positioned and very well insulated with a private balcony overlooking trees and an old school, was demolished in the 1990’s after being fully refurbished and having new windows - to make way for a small estate of low-rise houses. - displacing in total about 400 families across the estate.

My rent (to Southwark) was about £ 140 pcm in the 1990’s. I had a secure tenancy.

There was always a problem with managed decline and lack of investment with these estates - which is insane. The flats were brilliant, practically soundproof, very easy to heat and keep warm and really well located. The car parking areas were usually neglected tarmac, and a very small amount of money and imagination could have brought them to life. People who understand the situation better than I do can talk about the huge crisis in loss of income that the offloading of the housing stock has created for local authorities - or how a very small group of people have become very rich at the expense of the rest of us.

Where did it all go wrong?

Here are the vendor’s details if you fancy becoming part of the problem.

It’s a dog’s life. Literally.

I have a whippet (Nancy) - I’ve always had whippets and greyhounds, and I’ve worked with a few rescue groups over the years and at one time helped moderate a specialist Whippet and Greyhound forum back when the internet was friendly. All my dogs have been adopted from ‘situations’ - my current dog came to me as a short-term place-of-safety foster just before lockdown and has been here ever since. This kind of dog often comes from a background of lamping, fighting, rabbiting, racing and general abuse, without going into too much detail - they are often seen as commodities by certain types of people.

As you can see - it hasn’t rained in weeks and everything is turning to dust - in more ways than one

In the past I’ve had problems with dog snatchers - almost always men in vans or utility vehicles who will see you out walking the dog, stop their van and start a conversation with something along the lines of ‘what kind of dog is that? ‘ which usually descends into ‘that’s my dog - I want her back’ in just a few moments. It’s now happened a few times - including 4 or 5 times in Liverpool (the police were always involved, and one time I ended up fighting in the street with two men as my old greryhound bounced about thinking it was a game) and it happened here on literally the first day I walked Nancy in Hastings (big bloke in a white van - forunatly there were too many people around for his liking and I came away unscathed).

It happened again yesterday: big bloke with a shaved head and beard in a red utility vehicle - stops his van in the middle of the road - starts with ‘what kind of dog is that?’ and quickly starts on the “that’s Sally, my old dog - I’ve been looking for her”. I wasn’t in the mood, and it’s one of those days when I was happy to be 6’3” with a shaved head myself - and I wasn’t taking any shit - informed him that if it ‘was’ his dog then the police have a few open animal abuse cases they want to talk to him about. He knew it was time to leave. My plan is always to wait until they start to open the van door and kick it back as hard asd I can, hopefully depriving them of any fingers that get in the way.

I’ve just about come to the end of a tricky book design project. It should have been easy - an updated version of a book that sold out a few years ago. Unfortunately, the new version was made up from a 10 year old InDesign file and a couple of other more recent files that were artworked in America with some very odd custom settings and the use of plugins that no longer exist - it’s been a nightmare - even the fonts were against me - 3 different versions of Garamnd had to be stripped out and replaced meticulously in all their different styles - and ‘somethong’ within the files refused to allow me to colalte the files into a book, crashing my system ever time. In the end I started from scratch and rebuilt the whole book in a new file. Should have done that in the beginning.

Obviously - it now occurs to me that the book - a highly detailed and meticulously researched study of the last few years of Aleister Crowley’s life - is haunted.

From the notes. I now know far too much about this man

I can’t abide the heat any more - it hasn’t rained for 2 months and been over 25 degrees every day - often over 30. I’m getting worn out trying to handle the worst dog fleas I’ve ever known - despite everything, they keep coming back. I was walking her yesterday, and a woman started a conversation - which somehow got onto dog fleas and ‘her’ immune dog - and she went into a 15-minute ramble explaining how I was doing everything wrong and that I should be using alternative, homoeopathic remedies and bathing her in Olive oil - or coconut oil where possible. I once knew a woman who was a homoeopathic practitioner who ran a business treating PTSD and early years trauma in cats. She would explain to her clients that their cats needed therapy and cures - their reaction to her presence was all the evidence she needed to prove her point - personally, I think cats just didn’t like her. Obviously she made a lot of money.

Jimmy not quite understanding the plot

I listened to an audiobook performance of Rope by Patrick Hamilton yesterday while I worked, with Alan Rickman as Cadell. I’d underestimated just how much of a predatory old queen he’d been written as - it actually made the play much more interesting. Shame that they couldn’t shoehorn that into the film. I once read that James Stewart had no real understanding of the plot of Hitchcock’s Rope at the time - it shows. I listen to a lot of audiobooks while I work and also managed a very good Jamaica Inn, The Birds and Who Goes There (later The Thing).

About 15 years ago I had a lot of very expensive dental drama triggered by what I now understand to be an autoimmune condition (the same one that caused my head and face to be covered with blisters for 2 years) - it wrecked my gums, and I needed to resort to private dental care to save my (perfectly healthy) teeth. The dentist I had at the time (who wasn’t very good) told me to see a doctor straight away and suggested I may be diabetic - but my (equally rubbish) doctor at the time wasn’t even remotely interested in anything a dentist had to say and dismissed my concerns without examining me. Private dental care is something I can’t afford to do now. They warned me at the time that my gums were really badly damaged and I needed to be really careful with them (which I have), but it looks like I’m fighting a losing battle with gum and bone loss at the front on a couple of my lower teeth. I’ve always been paranoid about losing my teeth (I have NO FILLINGS) - my mother (and pretty much all her family) had dentures by the time they were 30 (It was back in the 50s and 60s), and I’ve always considered losing my teeth a humiliation. To make matters worse - when I had my accident I lost 3 teeth on the day and a further 2 a week later - so the damage to my lower jaw is pretty profound. I’m trying not to think about it, but I’m certainly losing sleep over it. I know someone who had a full set of dental implants for free because she flirted with the dentist. Sadly, that’s not something I think I can achieve.

Cooper Hoffman and David Jonsson. I can never watch this film again.

A simple enough premise - a teenage boy from each state is nominated via a lottery (more on that later) to a ‘march or die’ type of televised endurance ordeal where they must walk together at exactly 3 miles an hour without stopping; anyone who falters or falls behind gets a warning, and after their third warning is shot dead. The boys cannot stop, even to relieve themselves - so their humiliation before an almost inevitable death is complete. Only one can survive, and that winner attains untold riches.

The film itself is simple enough - we start at the beginning of the race and follow the boys through roughly 300 miles of marching, accompanied by three armed vehicles that are equipped with cameras to live broadcast the entire event - and a cluster of well armed and completely ruthless uniformed soldiers who despach the boys one at a time - superficially enough with clean shots but cruelly if they get the opportunity. One of the soldiers is a woman, and she is just as cruel as the others. A ‘Major’ figure is in control - he shouts and postures, hides behind dark glasses, is pompous, bombastic, ruthless and vain. He also gets to sleep and shower when he feels like it.

The bulk of the movie is an exploration of the boys’ bonding, sharing stories, supporting each other, and ultimately dying needlessly. It doesn’t end well for anyone. There are, of course, very clear parallels with Shirley Jackson’s The Lottery and even Death Race 2000, which tells roughly the same ugly story through comedy and trashploitation.

There are lots of ways to interpret the film (and the book), but none of them is cheerful - it’s not an entertainment - it’s a warning, a parable and a mirror. The boys may, or may not have been chosen at random (one certainly wasn’t - and he knows it). This is a ruined America, post-war (of some unknown description) and post-hope. The boys are being sacrificed and exploited. The public are the passive observers of this carnage. It tells us that we are all being used, we’re worthless, we will fail, we can hide our fear behind vain hope, but there are always going to be people above us who cast us aside once we’re done. This is a fascist America ruled by self-serving despots who dangle gold in front of a broken people who can’t bring themselves to understand and accept that they are being played. See what Stephen King did there?

The cast is excellent, as is the cinematography and script. There is little musical support - and that works really well. David Jonsson in particular is superb. Quite honestly, the only problem I had was that Mark Hamill seems to have been badly overdubbed in parts. It was one of the most depressing films I’ve seen in years - not because of anything in the film itself, but of everything that made it come true. I could never watch it again.

I had a look at some of the critical responses to this one - mostly good, but so many ‘serious’ critics seem to not understand what film is about - big-name critics complaining that there wasn’t enough exposition about the world outside the walk reminded me of the constant whine that Alex Garland’s ‘Civil War’ didn’t explain what ‘that’ war was about. That was the whole point. It seems to be the great problem with our current society that nobody is capable of thinking for themselves now.

Gina Gershon

Gina Gershon talking to Jakki. Jakki is from Billings, Montana - which she fondly describes as the Meth and Fentanyl capital of the United States. As a teenager, Jakki once spent several weeks in Juvenile Hall by accident.

Yesterday afternoon I did something out of character - I forced myself to go out and meet people. I used to have to do that all the time when I lived in London/Brighton and Liverpool - but I think I’ve earned the right to give people a miss now. In this case, I made a trip to a local independent bookshop to meet Gina Gershon. THAT Gina Gershon. She was doing an event to promote her latest book - ‘Alpha Pussy’. There were about 60 women packed into the room - and 3 men. One was me. Of the other 2, one was with friends, and the other was, according to someone I was talking to, a bit of a creep and a sex pest, and everyone knew it. At 6’3”, I suddenly felt very visible. Gina Gershon is about 5’7”. She’s very nice; she is also staggeringly beautiful and very animated. She was nice to everyone and chatted away - the first person to get their book signed was my friend Jakki. Jakki is from Montana and has more personality than anyone I have ever met. Within about 3 minutes, Jakki and Gina were best friends. (This has happened before - a few years ago, Jakki started talking to a random older black woman in Rye - and became firm friends. That woman was Marsha Hunt. They are still friends). When it came to my turn to meet Gina. I lost my voice and could barely croak. I also realised I had nothing intelligent to say and started stammering. I’m sure she gets that a lot. I really like Gina Gershon - I’m from the generation who saw Bound in the cinemas, and it’s still a film I think about at least once a week. You should never meet your heroes. I sincerely hope she has completely forgotten me.

At least she signed my book

(also - one day I’ll write an essay about how Showgirls is a better reading of The Odyssey than Nolan’s effort)

When I lived in Brighton, I used to do a lot of music reviews and interviews for a local events website - often once a week. Interviewing people you have no interest in is easy - you do a bit of research, smile, ask the obvious questions (they always have the answers) and type it all up. Meeting someone you like or admire is much harder. You should never meet your heroes.

Many ages ago - in 1987, actually - I was on my own voyage of self-discovery. I had recently started my Master’s at the Royal College of Art, hated it and couldn’t make friends. I felt isolated and a bit shipwrecked. I still had one faithful friend from Camberwell - my mate Paul, who had recently decided that he might or may not be gay. Let’s call him AC/DC Paul. As he was about 10 years older than me, he was a bit more motivated than I was to make inroads into the Gay community in London. I had always known I was gay, but somehow it didn’t really show, and I wasn’t fitting in anywhere. Paul announced that we were going out on a school night to a place called ‘Paradise’ (in Islington of all places - 1 Parkfield Street, N1).

We made several expeditions to Paradise over the next few months - fighting our way through the hostile crowds on the Underworld, I mean the Underground, and washing up ashore in the parking lot of Mount Olympus, behind the Angel tube station, and outside Paradise itself - surrounded by a battalion of strapping men of a certain age, most of whom wore leather straps, boots, and beards. I felt safe there - and lost myself in the welcoming arms of Circe. I mean Stella. You know what I mean.

There was always live music at the Paradise - the owners must have been keen on Disco and had ‘connections’, and one night the curtains parted and as the house lights flooded the stage - a gasp rang out from the crowd. It was Odyssey. The Odyssey. The ‘Native New Yorker’ Odyssey. Like the Sirens they were, the crowd were lost in music for the next hour - entranced, excited, totally won over; we surged towards the stage. We were their prisoners.

When they finally released us, everyone excitedly returned to their own lands (the bar) and drank themselves silly with some epic revelry and bacchanalian delight. The room was full of eager suitors making the most of the hospitality, none of whom I trusted or liked the look of - I suppose they all had their own agendas. I finally found what I had been looking for on my epic search - an architect in his first year of practice called Adrian who lived on Whitfield Street in the shadow of the Post Office Tower. AC/DC Paul was a bit pissed off with me and never spoke to me again; I suspect the ‘let’s go out for a quick drink and a few tunes’ had been a bit of a Trojan horse and he was angling to conquer my defences by the back door. He sent me back into exile (Peckham, not Ithaca). Adrian turned out to be a lost cause - but did entertain me with the story of the time he stole an expensive chrome ashtray from the Millbank headquarters of the Labour Party. As close to a golden fleece as you could get in those days.

I suppose Odyssey themselves continued with their tour - it had been roughly 10 years since native New Yorker had illuminated the charts, and although they were still getting slots on Top Of The Pops - playing in a back street gay club with no proper changing room seemed a tragedy of Greek proportions to me.

As it happens, they are still touring and will be appearing at Soul Mamma - again on Parkfield Street (number 21 this time) on the 12th of December (3 original members).

I went to my local Odeon and sat near the front. Behind me, legions of popcorn-munching, crisp wrapper crackling, pop-guzzling people spent the entire movie excusing each other in order to go to the bathroom. I refuse to eat or drink anything served in a bucket. I hate the Odeon website and their app. But it’s cheap on Monday (£7.50). There were no ads or trailers - probably due to the long run time squeezing the slots.

The film itself was good. But to be brutally honest, I wasn’t the right audience here. I didn’t really fancy it, but it was still good. Let’s be clear - this is not Homer’s Odyssey, or any classicists, or anyone else’s - it’s Christopher Nolan’s (with whatever considerations he had to make for market, budget, studio and whatever). It wasn’t really ‘my’ Odyssey either - but it was still good.

It looked lovely, it sounded great, the costumes and art direction excelled, the acting was superb, and the robot dog was very clever. I enjoyed it.

Everyone seems to be looking for problems with this one; I suppose that’s just human nature, but it is still pretty tedious. It’s a big budget film for a modern audience (not academics) that’s designed to make a profit and enhance the director’s reputation as a storyteller and film-maker. Everyone involved needs it to go on their CV, and I’m sure they will be happy with the results.

John Leguizamo is fantastic

If I had problems, they are probably ‘my’ problems. To be honest - I had trouble with the narrative and exposition. Nolan has done a great job of making a complex story coherent and accessible. Using the Charlize Theron character for some detailed storytelling really helped - as did her ethereal nature - I was never completely sure she was really there (a bit like Athena). Unfortunately, there were times when I literally lost the plot. My biggest problem there was with Helen of Troy and Clytemnestra. Her role was so small and stripped down that I didn’t really understand why she was there - and it’s made worse by the duality of casting Lupita Nyong’o in both roles - I wasn’t sure who we were looking at or why. It also got a bit tricky later on where all the male characters merged into one generic ‘face’ - Suddenly Logan Marshall-Green might be Cosmo Jarvis or vice versa.

Matt Damon is fine; I don’t like him usually, but he’s working hard here. I liked him in The Martian, but he was playing himself, which is exactly how Andy Weir seems to have written him. He carries the film well. Everyone is good.

A couple of things.

Samantha Morton and John Leguizamo are AMAZING - just give them the fucking Oscars now.

Elliot Page is great.

I’m very unlikely to watch this again. I’ve seen Oppenheimer 4 times and each time it gets better with more layers of meaning and intrigue - but not here.

It didn’t have enough narrative storytelling for me (not that I’m thick or anything, but I needed help) - when the cyclops was introduced, I couldn’t help but think of a similar sequence in Jason and the Argonauts; I understood far better who was what and what they were doing after a few lines of carefully crafted dialogue - but here I’m cast adrift too often.

I had MASSIVE issues with the dialogue - I know that American English is universal and they need to make it as accessible to audiences as possible - but it really grated very quickly, and accessibility of language went too far for me. Dad instead of Father and liberal use of the word ‘fucking’ didn’t help.

I don’t know who the giant armoured soldiers were or their motivation, and sadly - I lack the motivation to look that one up.

Robert Pattinson deserves an Oscar for looking so mean, cruel and wretched. How did he do that?

Everyone felt human, relatable and real - even if they were none of those things. That’s quite an achievement. Scholars ranting about accuracy and integrety need to probably stay away from the cinema.

All that bollocks about casting Helen of Troy is garbage and clearly a problem for people who have not seen the film. Helen didn’t actually exist - her dad was a God, and her mum was a swan. A black swan or a white swan - I know not which.

This shot of Nolan is the set-up to one of the best scenes in the film and helps everything make sense.

I’ve just finished a couple of years working on two books for Granta - follow-ups to the hugely successful Brilliants Maps series (Ian Wright) and part of a wider stable of map-based publications (Wild Maps, etc)

My part was designing and illustrating the maps - 100 in the first book, and 50 in the 2nd (which is a Quiz book - out next year). The first book is ’sort of’ out now in a few test retailers and has had some pretty good feedback and hopefully will be packing out a few Christmas stockings this year. Both of these books were written and edited by John Grindrod.

The context for both books is to present interesting, offbeat, imaginative and intriguing maps - hopefully to stimulate as much debate and investigation as they generate entertainment and imagination. We really didn’t want to present flat facts and dull infographics, but to try and bring the world to life. Every map is different, unexpected and hopefully engaging. There is a HUGE range of ideas, everything from Faberge Eggs to oil pipelines, driving ages, the progress of women in government to birth and fertility rates. Bringing everything together with a single coherent ‘look and keeping each map fresh and intriguing was a challenge, but it’s exactly the kind of work I like doing, and Granta were supportive and great to work with all the way through. My favourite part had to be at the end where I got to work closely with the editor (who, despite being based in Japan, seemed to have been on call 24/7) and the absolute delight of dealing with a production division who were calm, professional and on the ball (that NEVER happens!) It’s been interesting watching the debate on here about AI-assisted writing and em and en dashes - Jack (the editor) is pretty keen on them and mathematically precise and methodical on their usage and placement.

The first book is out now, with the Quiz book to follow next year. I have yet to see one ‘in the wild’ yet - and it’s too early for customer reviews (I’ll avoid them where possible!), but it was a great project to work on. I can 100% guarantee it will keep most kids (and adults) occupied for at least an hour while someone sorts the Christmas dinner. Just saying.

You can order online here and from plenty of other retailers, and a few shops are already testing live sales

I propose The Fall’s 1987 Masterpiece ‘Hit The North as the new national anthem - (actually, I prefer the Frank Sidebottom version). You can see my house from here.

I was born in Chester, spent my first 10 years there and then a few years down the road, just over the Welsh border - but mostly in and around Liverpool and Manchester.

Back then, the North West was a mess - famously doomed to ‘managed decline’ by Thatcher and Heseltine (who, for some reason, is still alive). These once proud cities that powered our industrial might and global trade routes were declining, decaying and derided. Apparently, the future was elsewhere. Banking, early digital, ‘professional’ careers and education were all ‘South’ looking towards Europe and the US. The north was unemployment, drugs, limited lifespans, poor health, dirt, low standards of living and poor food quality. It was mocked. It didn’t matter. Regional accents were a thing to be ashamed of. I myself was acutely aware of just how unsophisticated and ignorant I was on the rare occasions I was able to take a train to London on a school trip.

I was very unhappy at home; I was pretty desperate to get away. I wanted something better, different, opportunity, a future. There were no credible creative industries in Manchester or Liverpool at that time - what there were was already being left behind by the shift towards computers and ultimately digitisation. I was offered a place at Liverpool School of Art to do my degree but chose Camberwell - mostly because it was as far away from home as possible. (The course at Liverpool was fantastic and I really wanted to go, but it was too close to home - my father had recently died and my mother would have forced me to live at home and done everything in her power to scupper my chances of an education and escape). Because Camberwell was pretty relaxed, in a working-class area of London and had a fairly mixed intake - the culture shock wasn’t so great (I was also pretty naive - I didn’t ‘get’ class at first). It wasn’t until much later, when I was trying to work and at Royal College, that I realised just how different people in the South were.

It’s fine; it really doesn’t bother me - after 30-plus years in the industry, I ‘get’ why metropolitan centres with good transport links are destinations for people and industry. I also understand how unattractive the North ‘might’ have been 30/40/50 years ago. But that was then - yet the prejudices still fester.

Culturally - the North was just as good as growing up in the south - in some ways, better - because everyone had to try harder, be more resourceful - it took extra effort to find things, to move about, to meet people and connect. That resilience has stayed with me my whole life. Certainly, now - there is nothing in the South that you can’t find in the north - and it’s literally up the fucking road. When I lived in Brighton I would finish work at 5, get a lift to Gatwick, a 35 minute domestic flight to Manchester (£16 each way, cheaper than the train) and be in the pub with friends by 7 pm - every Friday.

We’re not in Kansas anymore. The thing is - seeing the cows in real life was exciting up to a point - because I know cows, and that’s not what they look like)

When I was a teenager - the ‘South’ began at the exact moment you saw the concrete cows in Milton Keynes from the left-hand side window of the train - 4.5 hours into a 5 hour train journey, that had been sluggish all the way until that exact moment when it suddenly seemed to speed up - a brief pause at Watford to water the horses and it was straight on into Euston. The countryside changed, the houses changed, the gardens looked nicer, the suburbs expanded out, and soon there were multi-story buildings and even the thrill of Wembley Stadium. Once you hit Euston and were knocked sideways by the claustrophobic, noisy, nicotine-filled bottleneck of the concourse, you stepped out into an entirely new world of fancy buildings, traffic, noisy people and the Post Office Tower. I lived in London for about 10 years, and loved it - then a few years in Brighton, which I didn’t love so much, but I never once thought of myself as a southerner - although I never once had a problem or any sensitivity about being a northerner. I learned early on to distance myself from any environment where that might be an issue. After a few years back in Liverpool, I now live down South again - in Hastings. I always preferred living by the sea; I like Hastings - it’s like Brighton was 25 years ago, before it became a suburb of London. I still have a lot of friends and family in the North; I even have work there - suppliers, contacts and workmates. I’ve never had a problem with seeing the North and South as two separate places, but unfortunately, most people do.

I never felt out of place in the South - because it was always so mixed - people from everywhere (although I never really mixed with the nice, white middle class types anyway).

Andy Burnham

I like Andy Burnham - I always have. For lots of reasons, but the most important one for me is how he handled the Blair Government’s absolute car crash approach to the Hillsborough tragedy, learned from his mistakes, admitted he was wrong and fixed the problem. That humility and integrity are what we lack in politics. His commitment to Manchester and the North of England throughout the last 10 years has just reinforced my personal belief that he’s what we need as a PM for the entire country. I don’t particularly like the way it’s all come about - and the process over the last few weeks will be held against him forever by the press - but he just has to move on. I applaud his investment in a ‘Number 10 of the North’. I think this entire fucking country needs to get over itself or we’ll end up in the same political, social, cultural skip-fire as America.

The Northern Deride

I’m already seeing a lot of shitty condescension in the papers - quite a bit of it is about money and clothes, both Burnham and his wife have been mocked and criticised for wearing ‘good’ clothes - as if Northerners are still supposed to wear sacks and cloth hats. That will obviously continue - because the right-wing press have no imagination, and ultimately - that will be their downfall. Nobody is perfect - but I’m more than happy for Burnham to lead this country, for one thing - his tenure will almost certainly cover the fall of Trump, one way or another - and whatever happens after him, we need to be in a good place, and not at the back of the queue.

Blah, Blah, Blah.

Sorry Kirsten, there is no hope - enjoy it while you can.

Storywise, it’s a mockumentary following the experiences of a group of very small-town American girls as they prepare for a low-rent beauty contest that ‘might’ give them the chance to move up to a less low-rent contest and onwards and upwards to something better than they have today. It’s about ambition, desperation, fear of failure, actually living with failure, greed, delusion, prejudice, hatred, murder, more murder; it’s all in here. We laugh as contestants are picked off, mutilated, innocent people get shot in the face, set on fire, perform expressive dance routines, do their hair, find new uses for Vaseline, and live the American dream. And that’s the whole point - the American dream is cruel, ugly and ruthless - a bit like Kirsty Alley in a role she was clearly born to play.

Brittany Murphy, Kirsten Dunst, Amy Adams and Denise Richards are all excellent.

This film is 30 years old, but it’s become so much more of a mirror to its society than it could ever have imagined. I’ve always struggled with ‘mockumentaries’ because they literally exist to ‘mock’. It’s a fine line between finding humour and relishing humiliation. There is nothing wrong with living in a small town and wanting to escape. My own cousin was a teen beauty queen who hit the heights (after winning a number of local pageants, she became Miss Wales, the first ever Welsh speaker to win), and later a finalist in Miss Universe) So I get it, and the girls in this film NEED to win, either for themselves or as a proxy for their parents (and community) - it’s how far they might be prepared to go that scares me.

The smartest part of the film is the ‘almost’ happy ending - the potential snatched away at the last minute and how the girls react - who really wins? Does anyone? The men are all monsters, but the women don’t escape criticism either; everyone is somehow a predator.

Allison Janey and Ellen Barkin being the classiest women in the movie.

The cast are excellent - the impossibly beautiful Denise Richards puts in an early career best (I’m now starting to see her as a talented actress held back by her looks), Amy Adams is unrecognisably young and fresh - she’s genuinely charismatic and sparkling here. Ellen Barkin and Allison Janey give us heart and soul - Kirsten Dunst is fantastic, but there is the sadness that comes with me spending most of the film musing that the world is a colder, darker, poorer place without Brittany Murphy. She is missed.

I miss Brittany Murphy.

First - it’s always important to know the truth about things and understand them for what they really are. HIV, the general name for the cluster of viruses that cause AIDS, is known to come from primates and crossed species at some point - probably multiple times - and most likely because a hunter with a cut or wound handled a contaminated kill, one of the monkeys that make up the generic term ‘bushmeat’. Not every variant of HIV was ‘successful ’, but at least one was - and entered the new species, humans. (There is an interesting fact that an early variant of the virus was identified within the community of primates under the care of Jane Goodall). Whilst nobody could have predicted this, it was, to be frank, always going to happen. The film takes us through the detailed evidence that traces the development of the AIDS crisis from the 1950’ onwards - based not just on anecdotes but on medical records and preserved specimens. While most people still believe that AIDS was initially accelerated by the gay community in a small number of metropolitan centres, this is totally false. One important fact I didn’t know until yesterday was the truth about ‘Patient Zero’.

Gaétan Dugas

‘Patient Zero’ is generally assumed to be Canadian flight attendant Gaétan Dugas, long blamed for bringing the HIV virus into the United States. Dugas was a gay man; he travelled internationally and was not embarrassed by his active sex life. For many years this myth prevailed, and for much of that time I have myself assumed there was at least some truth here - but nothing of the sort, nowhere near. AIDS had been circulating in the US for years before Dugas came on the scene. This myth comes from a simple typo and a kind of unconscious bias we all carry with us.

Patient ‘zero’ was actually Patient O (for ‘out, as in Outside California ‘) - 0 and O look almost the same on a typewriter, and frankly - everyone wanted a villain. A promiscuous gay man with a foreign name fitted the bill - and Dugas made things worse by being unashamed and uncooperative. We have the bad guy.

No man of God. ‘Are you a Sex Bore"‘? - at least they have your funeral expenses covered.

The more uncomfortable truth is that one of the key events that drove the AIDS crisis was a cluster of infections in a large industrial area in Africa where the male population of workers outnumbered the female population 3 to 1. You know the story - lots of men working away from home, payday. Looking for company. It was the straights what done it.

The film was more about the mechanics of the epidemic - but having lived through that time, it’s the politics that always interested (and affected) me. And this is the other thought I took away from the film. That unconscious bias (or later - very conscious indeed) is what did the most damage. The assumption that, because AIDS can be easily associated with sex, drugs, prostitution and ‘deviance’, it offers villains and absolves ‘innocent’ victims. Dugas was the bad guy because people wanted a monster. It didn’t just stop there. In the late 80s, millions of dollars (and about 2 years) was wasted looking for a ‘jewish super gene’ after some superficial research indicated that within gay communities where the popuation was comparable (ie - New York, young, professional gay men within a limited community reach) - Jewish men seemed to be immune, they were not getting infected at anything like the rates of ‘non jews’. Assuming that someone is different (superior or inferior) because of their race or culture is stupid and racist, but the assumption was made because even scientists can fall victim to unconscious bias. In fact, the truth was out there in plain sight and had been for years - being Jewish was irrelevant, but being circumcised deprives the virus (which is incredibly fragile and can’t live outside the body) of an easy passage from person to person, as decades of research into STDs had already established. (Can I also say that many of the most intelligent people I have met are also the most ignorant).

You may need a drink and a lie down after reading these letters

I grew up with that bias. The virulent homophobia of the British media (and most adults I knew growing up) turned an illness into the wrath of God, or whatever you wanted to call it. It characterised gay men as soiled, dirty, corrupt, evil, and tainted - on top of any discomfort people already had. They were a threat, and they deserved what was happening to them. We should have been rounded up in camps, eliminated from society and kept away from decent men, women and children. AIDS was initially established as a ‘thing’ in about 1981, when I was about 16 and has been a shadow of my entire life ever since. Although I know very few people who have openly admitted to carrying the virus, and even fewer who have lost their lives to it, I know people whose whole lives have been shaped by fear and grief. I used to work with a guy in the mid 90s who had lived in New York for many years but moved to London because everyone he knew was dead or dying and he couldn’t deal with it any more. A student I worked with in the early 90’s was so tortured by his parents’ constant admonishment for being gay and warnings about what was going to happen to him if he didn’t repent that he needed to be hospitalised. My own parents were totally incapable of dealing with challenges ‘outside’ the house and refused to acknowledge AIDS, or ultimately me. It’s certainly shaped the way I behaved when I was younger and probably even now - it’s just ‘there’ in the background - something just out of my field of vision, waiting to pounce on me if I make a mistake, or was bad, or dirty - that’s me falling victim to other people’s manifestation of their ugly bias.

It seems to me that society can’t exist without a villain to blame (or hide behind). Blacks, Jews, Gays, the Trans community, immigrants, gingers - whatever. Which school you went to, the team you support, what your father did, where you live, what god you do (or don’t) pray to, you name it - someone hates you for something they see in you - which is always easier than looking in the mirror. When I was teaching, I used to give lectures on semiotics and try to explain to students why and how unconscious bias dictates what we think, how we react, and how to harness it for the good. I was generally wasting my time. Students are just as vulnerable to bullshit as everyone else (often more so).

Scoot McNairy as Steve and Nessa Dougherty as the young Alysia

I knew who Steve was (and a decent amount about the politics and history of that period) before I saw the film but hadn’t read the book (I have a copy now), and the 2 years distribution wilderness that Fairyland endured was frustrating to say the least. The part of Steve is played by Scoot McNairy - and him being probably my favourite actor helped. You may know Scoot (John) from his breakthrough role in Monsters, and big films such as Argo and as Bruce Wayne’s security guard who loses his legs in that Superman film with Ben Affleck.

The politics of branded orange juice make an appearance here

There is nothing radical about the film - it starts at the beginning with the phone call reporting Alysia’s mother’s death and ends with Steve’s death from AIDS - Alisa grows from about 4 years old to early 20’s, and as she’s the same age as me, I get the pleasure of following all the fashion, news and music references, we seem to have liked the same bands at the same time. There are a lot of parallels that I hadn’t expected and small incidents from childhood and adolescence that we seem to have somehow shared - even though I lived on the other side of the world with very different parents.

Although the film is seen through Alysia’s eyes, and she dominates every scene, it’s really all about Steve.

Steve loves his daughter unconditionally and believes he’s doing everything he can for her, but he’s poorly equipped to be a parent and in the process of reliving his childhood himself as he searches for his own identity and purpose. He struggles to make a name for himself through work (he gets there eventually), but they never escape near poverty and rent-controlled apartments. Alysia’s maternal grandmother (Geena Davies) is the epitome of wealthy, white, conservative America and funds her school and holidays but constantly hovers in the background and makes no secret of her desire to ‘rescue’ Alisa from her circumstances and claim her as one of her own.

Despite everything, Alysia is a successful student, gets a scholarship to NYU and spends a study year in Paris. She’s bright, aware but insecure - she hides her father’s sexuality and inadequacies from her friends and often expresses (or at least feels) that somehow he’s failing her or that she’s missing out.

So far - it’s pretty much a traditional father/daughter against the odds coming-of-age film; there is nothing particularly radical here - except pretty much everything.

The director chooses to tread lightly over the drama and trauma of Alysia and Steve’s lives. There is no sentimentality here - just experience. There are no real tears (just one at the end), and there is an almost matter-of-fact reading of real history: the early Pride marches, the murder of Harvey Milk, protests and Reaganism - it’s all in here - they just don’t milk it for drama - it was everyday life. And that includes the main shadow over the film, AIDS. There are no histrionics, no melodrama, no wailing or gnashing of teeth - it’s just a matter of fact and daily life. People are dying, friends, workmates, family - and nobody cares, at least nobody outside the community. All of this is shown to us through the eyes of a young girl who has lost her mother to violence and will lose her friends and substitute family to a disease that many believe is some kind of deserved justice, and in the end - she has to take her own father to the hospice he volunteers at.

Steve and Alysia (Emilia Jones) at the end of everything and the start of everything else.

The film ends with Steve’s death and Alysia’s freedom - she can move forward with her own life - but it’s richer for everything she has experienced. We’re not here to share in her life, just witness it. A good judgement call from the writer/Director Andrew Durham and producer Sofia Copolla. The cast members are all excellent - the setting seems authentic and well researched, and the pacing is just right. Using real footage (a budgetary decision) adds an extra layer of authenticity, and the carefully chosen music, embedded into the action instead of as background music, really helps paint the scene.

For me, it’s the small things, little episodes that ring true and do all the hard work. The film is bookended by two small but essential moments. Steve chastises his cold mother-in-law for not allowing him to read a poem at his wife’s funeral and tells her the service was too short, but at the end, the same woman calls Alysia to praise her for the words she wrote for her father’s own funeral. Tiny domestic dramas involving the price of shampoo or the politics of orange juice. The cost of peanut butter AND jelly. Alysia’s untidy hair or her unfashionable and archaic sanitary towels - the cost of having no woman to guide her through adolescence. The point where Alysia stops being a child who happily accepts her father’s lifestyle and becomes embarrassed by him, the naive recklessness of the adults embracing their own second adolescence with drink and acid parties and Alysia’s near miss with a predator. All the little details work together to bring the story to life.

Steve, trying and failing to get picked up

There are many small but important moments - but for me there was one key episode, the short, quiet, dialogue-free scene where Steve sits alone in a bar, in his best butch outfit - cowboy hat and denim jacket - waiting for someone to pick him up - already aware that he’s too old and too obvious - but still sitting, waiting, desperate to not be alone. The success of this film is that you get to know who these people are and like them. It feels honest but unfussy - that was just the way it was.

At the very end of the film, there is an incredibly sad scene where we get to see how the photograph on the cover of Alysia’s book was created. It’s heartbreaking and heartwarming at the same time. Whatever we do, the only real measure of success in our lives is to be ourselves.

The real Steve and Alysia

Lars takes Bianca to church every Sunday

At its heart is a shy, insecure, deeply troubled young man (Gosling) so crippled by fear and insecurity that he develops a delusional relationship with a phantom girlfriend - but instead of just an imaginary partner, he chooses Bianca, an anatomically correct ‘RealGirl’ silicone doll.

Lars reads his bible to Bianca - she sleeps at the main house to be ‘decent’

This is not a sex comedy; at no point does the film veer into the physical or pornographic - it’s a quiet, paced, gentle exploration of how pain and fear shape (and distort) us. Lars is crippled by the grief of his mother’s death in childbirth - which is fueled by his fears over the imminent birth of his own brother’s child (Lars and his Brother Gus own the substantial family home between them, but Lars insists on living in a monk-like cell above the garage).

Lars takes Bianca to a party, she’s a hit. He gets a bit jealous.

Lars holds down a job, lives in a small, anonymous American town and goes to church - it’s very Fargo. One of his co-workers is clearly in love with him, but Lars is mortified by her advances, and she reluctantly moves on.

Lars only comes to life when Bianca arrives (in a crate from Taiwan), and he quickly installs her as his girlfriend and a participant in the community (in a wheelchair - she has ‘issues’). At this point, the entire film could have fallen apart and descended into a grim farce, but somehow it comes to life. Everyone has such affection for Lars that they accept Bianca, and she somehow becomes an important part of the community - more real than if she were indeed a real girl, she even gets a job. This has to go somewhere; Lars decides that Bianca is unwell and takes her to see a doctor - who recognises that it’s actually Lars who needs help, and through her skill and the kindness of everyone, there is a resolution for all. Bianca’s origins are irrelevant - she becomes real because everyone needs her to be real

This is probably Gosling’s best film (on a par with the very different and much darker Half Nelson). He’s a much younger (and fuller) figure than in Hail Mary, and his face is a blank page - but still he manages to convey fear, insecurity, pain, confusion, love and longing. The times when he needs to show emotion here feel real and painful - and the rest of the cast support him throughout with exceptional performances from all - even Bianca changes from the twadry, over-made-up doll to something sweeter, more human and then pale and fragile as her ‘health’ declines. It’s still a comedy, and there are some genuinely funny moments, but it’s more a film about people, community and the healing power of kindness. I didn’t really like Project Hail Mary because it felt constructed, polished, impeccable, engineered and ultimately artificial; it was also incredibly well crafted with exceptionally good editing, cinematography and production values - but it didn’t work for me (although I loved The Martian). Just because I didn’t like a film, it doesn’t make it bad - it just tells me that I’m not the audience - but I am certainly the audience for Lars and the Real Girl.

See also - The Station Agent (2003), another quiet, small-town American comedy drama along similar themes with the lost and lonely Peter Drinkage who finds peace when he inherits a defunct railway exchange shed - again, with the miraculous Patricia Clarkson as the conduit for real healing. It’s almost the same film.

Weird random fact: Paul Schnieder (Lars’s brother Gus)- also starred in All The Real Girls (2003) - which also starred Patrician Clarkson. There is a killer Venn diagram in here somewhere

Obviously, I’ve had quite a lot of time to think about this one, but as it happens. I have absolutely no real feelings or interest in this milestone event whatsoever. It kinda means nothing. I feel the same as I did 10 years ago, when I felt the same as I did 10, 20 and 30 years before that.

I can generally map my life out in decades. I spent my 20’s in London, my thirties in Brighton and Liverpool and the last 20 years back on the south coast in Hastings. 10 years ago I was in quite a bad accident, so somehow the last decade sort of stands alone. It started by me taking a year off, and like many people with head injuries - find myself detached and distant from everything that came before. A lot has happened in the last 10 years, not just Covid, Brexit and Trump - but work has changed and the people I have around me too. Generally - for the better.

Physically - I’m a tiny bit heavier than I would like to be, I’ve just had a lens replaced in one eye (due to damage in the ‘big’ accident - and not age) and I’m currently waiting for the pool of fluid that formed under the new lens to drain so I can finally get back to wearing glasses and see what I’m actually doing. For the last 3 years I’ve been monitored for prostate cancer - in the beginning it was all hands on deck with multiple scans and a really unpleasant biopsy - now they want to be more hands off, despite my PSA levels now zooming up from 7 to 11. Oddly enough, I’ve worked my way through all the implications of that one and find myself ‘not bothered’. I feel fine. I always feel fine. I’m self-employed- I have to always feel fine. Now that I am 60, I can get free prescriptions…. I’m almost looking forward to being ill occasionally.

I’m not a birthday person; I hate that kind of attention. For my 25th birthday, the people I shared a studio with organised a surprise party for me - I got wind of it and didn’t go. I’m looking forward to it being behind me.

If anything, I’m fairly optimistic about the next 10 years, and at the same time dreading the downward spiral to 70. I outlived my parents by decades; I’m on my 3rd nose and have a reconstructed lip after a selection of messy injuries; I’ve never broken any bones and, despite everything, still have all my own teeth (and no fillings). I have a wardrobe full of decent clothes that don’t embarrass me (I’ve had very few ‘who did I think I was going to be when I bought that’ episodes) and I get on fine with my siblings. I mostly own this house - even if it is falling down, riddled with structural issues I can’t afford to address and pretty much unsellable in the current market. I’ve done good work over the years without too many compromises, and you can Google me - which is weird and confusing at the same time.

I’ve always lived on my own, so I never had the financial benefit of a 2nd income, which has held me back far more than being freelance - and I’m not lucky enough to have been supported by my parents; a surprising number of my peers still have one or two parents still alive - and are counting the days to inheritance. My only real regret is that I don’t live in London, so I could have a Freedom Pass. I would have loved that.

As far as ‘the big day’ goes. I may buy a family-sized trifle. Or I may not. See how I feel in the morning.

I have no idea how old I am here - anybody’s guess.

Me at 12 with my horrible uncle Stan - that jumper came from C&A in Chester

Me at 17, toned down a bit for a cousins wedding - still trying to pass as an extra in Eraserhead

Me at 26, with hair, at French Connection in their old office in Bow.

Me at 30, taken in a photobooth at Alders in Croydon. After I took this picture, I travelled down to Brighton to collect the keys to my house. I then stepped through the door for the first time as an ‘owner’ and onto a wooden joist with a nail sticking out that went through the sole of my shoe - and then my foot.

Police photo of me at 32 after being beaten up by drunk squaddies. Two of them went to prison, one was later murdered.

Me at 34 at a friend's wedding - I am in a Helmut Lang suit. It was wasted on everyone.

Me at 37, in a client’s office. They were hedge fund managers. I worked with them for about 5 years. I still have no idea what they did all day

Me at 36 at a Gorky’s gig in Brighton

Me at 37 in New Brighton, I still have that shirt.

Me at 40 in London

Being interviewed for a film about French Connection at 44

Me at 49, the day after I came out of hospital after my bike accident. I had no idea what day it was for a month.

Aged 54 in Hastings

Aged 55 running a quiz night with Sue Tilley

Me at 60. Despite years of hopes and prayers, my hair never grew back. I noticed yesterday that there are photographs of Jeff Bezos and HIS hair is magically growing back. I never liked him.

This is one of those films that you read about and never expect actually to see - but thanks to the random content dumpster fire that is now streaming (In this case - Amazon Prime) it appears, in reasonably good resolution, somehow dragged from the vaults where at least one of it’s stars may have hoped it would remain (In this case - a youg, lean, handsome and visibly distracted Tom Selleck - way down the credits and displaying absolutly none of the charm that made him a star with Magnum PI).

A young Tom Selleck, out of his depth.

The thing is - it’s actually quite an interesting concept - the script and scenario are criminally underdeveloped, leaving us just the shadow of a plot to work with. America has abandoned the death penalty (too cruel..) and replaced it with something crueller - all death row prisoners are deported to an island with minimal supplies and left to their own devices. Watching it now - it feels as if we’ve been here before, many times; there is no attempt to break new ground or find anything original here - the general tone from the point where we reach the island is a sub-Russ Meyer exploitation flick (although there is a smart intro section that contextualises everything neatly and economically). The men here are mostly violent idiots led by a psychopath, supported by a strapping black enabler. The women are all streetwise, hot, sassy, broken and angry. They all wear hot pants, do the chores, reluctantly provide the sex and still find time to do the hard labour. Most of the men (about 40 or so) live in a crude encampment, occasionally kill each other and take turns on the women, but a few have broken away and live a more civilised life on the fringes. These good guys kidnap/rescue the women, and all hell breaks loose. There is an inevitable confrontation; lots of people die (horribly - and by that I mean the over-acting - and all of the copious blood appears to be cream of tomato soup). Fortunately, the sassy women have a few extra skills - such as the ability to create hand grenades from gunpowder they make themselves and even identify poison plants for the arrow tips.

The women. Hardened criminals, killers, assassins, hot pants.

Interestingly, the men are all mindless criminals (except Sellek - a doctor condemned unjustly for a mercy killing and now addicted to homemade drugs), but the women all have context, political assassination, black rights activists or revenge killers. One, a mute, is even suggested to be the victim of systematic abuse. Under the surface, there is quite a lot going on here - it just hasn’t had the chance to be developed properly.

In modern terms, it’s a terrible film, but also mesmerising at the same time. Incredibly cheap but somehow it just about works. It’s also intensely political

Directed by Stephanie Rothman, a talented, intelligent woman who began her career as assistant to Roger Corman, Terminal Island has been reassessed over the years as a feminist masterwork. Rothman complained later in life (she’s still with us at the age of 89 and was recently honoured with a retrospective, and her work has been reassessed favourably) that working in exploitation genre low budget held her back professionally but she says it like it was - she had bills to pay, she needed to learn her craft and she invested far more into the work than might have been apparent at the time.

“I did everything: write new scenes, scout locations, cast actors, direct new sequences and edit final cuts. It was a busy, exhilarating time. Roger did not teach me these skills; I learned them in film school. But he did share his greater experience with me, giving me useful criticism and, equally important, information on how to efficiently organise work on the set so that a film could be shot on schedule. The schedules he set were much shorter than those of the major studios. Since it was his own money he was using, Roger did not want a film to go either over schedule or over budget. He also taught me a valuable lesson in psychology: he encouraged me, often expressing his confidence in my abilities, and I therefore tried to do the best work for him that I could”

Terminal Island has an unexpected ending - the survivors manage to create a strange utopia away from ‘civilisation’, and the burdens that society places on both men and women, and Sellek’s character even refuses the opportunity to return to the world outside - he’s happier ‘here’ than he ever was ‘there’. I suppose it’s pretty conceited for us now to be able to look back at a 50-year-old movie and ‘reassess’ for a modern audience - the world is very different now (or is it?). It’s trash… but it’s good trash - and with money, it could have been great.

Widicome at the beginning and end of her career - bookending 50 years of hate.

I’m not talking about that - I’m going to talk about who she was. People say they warmed to her when she became a TV personality. I didn’t. She wasn’t very good at anything she did, and although she seemed to make a virtue of it, she was sneering behind a cold, rigid smile. There is a peculiarity in the British personality where we warm to public failure and humiliation - as if it’s a virtue. The overweight girl with the mediocre voice and sob story might win the audience and take the prize in the televised singing contest against all the odds… but nobody buys her records afterwards.

Ann Widicombe was a monster. She wasn’t ‘pugnacious’ - she was a blunt instrument. She wasn’t a ‘good debater’; she was a brick wall of self-belief. I believe her rigid, ‘stoic’, ‘principled stance’ was just a disguise for her bigotry, cruelty and ugly beliefs. She was an absolutist - about God (until the church she visited became too ‘soft’ and she shuffed off to the Catholics), and about the law - and don’t ever forget she shackled pregnant women and girls within minutes of giving birth, was a supporter of capital punishment and an enthusiastic prisons minister who would have gleefully taken us back to Victorian Values justice. She was ABSOLUTELY NOT in any way a supporter of gay rights; her late-life meddling in Brexit and Europe contributed to the mess we are in today. He disgusting display in Brussels in 2019 when she turned her back on a school-age saxophone band who had come into the European parliament as guests tells you exactly who she was. Happy enough to take the pay (and pension) of her time as an MEP but just as happy to trash our country and the people who live here.

She was a bigot; she hid behind a wall of ugly beliefs and contributed nothing to this country except division, cruelty and hatred. I’ve always thought she manifested outward what she really felt about herself inside, and made us pay for it. I’m sorry she has such an awful end; I really am - but I doubt she was ever sorry for the harm she did to people like me and how she contributed to the mess we are in today.