On A Course In Leeds

I was born in Sheffield and I have been to Leeds once before, sometime in the early 80's. I have a vague memory that the place was pretty industrially run down. Not so now. It looks like someone re-built it on the same month in about 2002. They call this building "The Dalek"

I was staying in the City Inn Hotel, which had a fine view over Leeds Station - in fact le Tout Leeds d'affairs seems to want to be within a short distance of the station. These are two views from the thirteenth floor (yes, I know, who has a thirteenth floor?) of the hotel, the Skyline Lounge...

You see what I mean about the buildings. It must be the only town with the main hospital - the famous Leeds General Infirmary - on one edge of the entertainment district. The centre is packed with places to eat and drink, from rather tatty at the bottom of the hill, getting slightly swisher as you go up towards Millennium Square. They are all chains and theme restaurants - nothing that feels local except Kendalls Bistro, a French restaurant by the theatre which was holding a private party Tuesday night. There went the wild boar. So I went to the newly-opened Jamie's Italian for supper. It was rammed with a half-hour wait for a table. At seven o'clock. Every other restaurant was empty. But then it serves stuff like this...

A terrific antipasti mix of cheese, salami, the best mozzarella I've tasted and olives. Notice the cute way the wooden platter is standing on two tins of chopped tomatoes. The place was full of hen parties - my waitress said it was not a Tuesday Night Leeds thing. I had the lamb chops and ice creams. The espresso was good.  On the way back to the hotel, I walked through this tunnel under the station...

Which you can bet was not that clean and shiny in 2000. This lead me to my hotel room...

Yep, that's an iMac serving as a TV and available as a computer, something I've always said I'd do if I was living in a flat. Peer round the curtain to the left and you have a fine view of the platforms of Leeds Station. The course? Advanced Influencing. I will discuss that later.

Sometimes Being Tired Just Means You Should Go To Bed Earlier

I spent a Saturday walking around Amsterdam recently with an old university friend. We're within months of the same age and from very similar backgrounds. We tend to experience the similar things at similar times. Right now, we're experiencing one of the many things they don't tell you about Being A Man: staring at the last ten years of your working life and wondering what the heck you want to do with it, now it's clear you don't have a career left. I have a job, a paid-off mortgage, am terminally single and my pension is worth a damn. He's been a freelance technical writer and translator for a long while, has a mortgage and a wonderful partner and his pension is probably better than mine, but not so he can travel round the world on it. He's thinking in terms of living maybe twenty years after retirement, I'm thinking of checking out pretty much when I can't earn any more. Which looks like a lot of differences, but it's just economics.

People only ask themselves what they want to do when they don't know. But you can't answer that question by making lists of alternatives and evaluating them – if one of them was what you wanted to do, you wouldn't bother evaluating the others – so whatever you choose from that list is emotionally random even if it has good numbers. Knowing what you want to do is like being in love: if you have to ask, you don't and you aren't. When all those life- and career-planning books tell you to work out what you want, you're doing all the heavy lifting for them. What we really want to know is how to live when we don't have any clear signals.

And yet, this feels different from all those other moments when I asked myself what I wanted out of life. For one thing, I'm not asking that question. I'm asking why I'm not upset by the fact that there's no-one in my bed. I'm asking why I'm not going to see movies that a few months ago I would have gone to see, or why I'm just taking sandwiches back to the office instead of going out into Soho. I'm asking why I'm tired and waking up early. I'm assuming that I must be in some sort of state of shut-down to be not feeling those things. But what if this is what it feels like to be absorbed or at least occupied by your work? Not something I would know.

There is one more clue in my case. Remember the bit where I'm an ACoA with co-dependency and drink and addiction issues? We tend to sabotage ourselves. Just when we get near to doing something we want to do, that might be beneficial or move us along in the world, we distract ourselves with something else, mess up, or in some other way lose the chance. I maybe doing that. If I knew which of my projects I'm actually succeeding with. The day job? I'm not so sure there. My work? I think my latest story has potential. I'm still in the West End. I could try again to do what I abandoned last time because the budget threatened to run out of control. I should suspect self-sabotage rather than anything profound and just let whatever it is play itself out.

Signs of Distraction

I'm writing this on a train to Leeds. Not the one I booked on The Bank's travel system and for which I had a seat reservation. No. That train left at 17:33 from Kings Cross. That's what the ticket said. I thought I was getting a train at 18:00. There is one. I must have chosen the 17:33 instead. So I missed it.

On Friday I lost my toiletry bag somewhere in Heathrow Airport. I had built its contents up over the years: a small badger shaving brush, a tube of almond shaving cream from Taylors of Old Bond Street, various pills, plasters and potions to cope with minor eventualities and stomach acid, toothbrush and toothpaste. I had it in an external pocket where the security people could look at it, and when I left the Cafe Nero to go to the boarding gate, there it was gone.

When I arrived in the Netherlands, my phone decided to go wandering. It wouldn't find a signal, lost my friend's details and re-booted itself when I tried to look at his records. It cured itself after being off for a while. This morning it lost my sister's details.

When I tried to leave the Netherlands on Sunday evening, KLM decided to change the plane, os instead of leaving at 20:30, we left at 21:40. When we arrived at Heathrow, they parked us at a gate somewhere near Reading. I think we may have been the last plane into T4 than evening.

I bought another train ticket and the chances are good I can expense it. I replaced the essential parts of my toiletries bag. I can re-load the contacts in my phone. I can't get the bad night's sleep back.

But it's not about losing and replacing things. It's about the state of mind I'm in but don't seem to be aware of. I'm distracted. I'm thinking about anything but where I am. It's not just what usually happens over summer, there's a little more to it than that. And when I find out, I'll tell you.

Proust Questionnaire

What is your idea of perfect happiness?
Cool breeze, setting sun, clear sky, clifftop, sparkling sea, and a car waiting to take me somewhere interesting that evening

What is your greatest fear?
Retirement - my pension is worth a damn

What is the trait you deplore most in yourself?
Cowardice

What is the trait you deplore most in others?
Slobbish public behaviour

Which living person do you most admire?
Pass

What is your greatest extravagance?
I don't have the money for extravagances. Books and music are necessities.

What is your current state of mind?
I don't think there's a word for it. I must be in denial. Again.

What do you consider the most overrated virtue?
If it can be over-rated, it isn't a virtue.

What is the quality you most like in a man?
A quick wit

What is the quality you like most in a woman?
All of them

Which words or phrases do you most overuse?
"The snag / problem / catch / difficulty is ...."

Who or what is the greatest love of your life?
All my loves are equal

When and where were you happiest?
I haven't been there yet

Which talent would you most like to have?
Sight-reading music

What is your most treasured possession?
My sobriety

What do you regard as the lowest depths of misery?
I've never known misery - drunken self-pity, yes, but not misery

What is your favourite occupation?
Writing, taking pictures, making music

What is your most marked characteristic?
I don't drink the Kool-Aid

What do you value most in your friends?
Being with them

Who is your favourite hero in fiction?
Any of the main male protagonists in The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress

Who are your heros in real life?
Professional soldiers. I can't do what they do and I'm damn glad they do it.

What is it you most dislike?
Being lied to

What is your greatest regret?
Not having slept with far more women

How would you like to die?
Quickly and before Social Services can sell my house under me

What is your motto?
One day at a time

The Golden Years of Number Ones

It's tempting to say that pop (rock, dance, whatever) music is at its best when you're between, when,  fifteen and twenty-five? The same age girls are at their sexiest. Because it's not about the music, it's about your capacity to react to it. Well, I'm going to beg to differ here. I was still at Belmont Junior School when this period started and just started Erith Grammar School when it ended. I give you from the 5th April 1963 to the 24th September 1965 as the longest unbroken run of high-quality Number Ones in musical history. Ken Dodd ended it all, with Tears, which is why my generation hated him. After that the Number Ones were often novelty numbers (Ernie The Fastest Milkman In The West - huh?) as they were stone knock-outs (Good Vibrations). In order...

How Do You Do It - Gerry and the Pacemakers
From Me to You - The Beatles
I Like It - Gerry and the Pacemakers
Sweets for my Sweet - The Searchers
Bad To Me - Billy J Kramer and The Dakotas
She Loves You - The Beatles
Do You Love Me - Brian Poole and The Tremelos
You'll Never Walk Alone - Gerry and the Pacemakers
I Want to Hold Your Hand - The Beatles
Glad All Over - The Dave Clark Five
Needles and Pins - The Searchers
Anyone Who Had A Heart - Cilla Black
Little Children - Billy J Kramer and The Dakotas
Can't Buy Me Love - The Beatles
A World Without Love - Peter and Gordon
Don't Throw Your Love Away - The Searchers
You're My World - Cilla Black
House of the Rising Sun - The Animals
It's All Over Now - The Rolling Stones
A Hard Day's Night - The Beatles
Do Wah Diddy Diddy - Manfred Mann
Have I The Right - The Honeycombs
You Really Got Me - The Kinks
I'm Into Something Good - Herman's Hermits
Pretty Woman - Roy Orbison
(There's) Always Something There to Remind Me - Sandi Shaw
Baby Love - The Supremes
Little Red Rooster - The Rolling Stones
I Feel Fine - The Beatles
Yeah Yeah - Georgie Fame
Go Now - The Moody Blues
You've Lost That Lovin' Feeling - The Righteous Brothers
Tired of Waiting For You - The Kinks
I'll Never Find Another You - The Seekers
The Last Time - The Rolling Stones
Concrete and Clay - Unit 4+2
Ticket to Ride - The Beatles
King of The Road - Roger Miller
Where Are You Now (My Love) - Jackie Trent
Long Live Love - Sandi Shaw
I'm Alive - The Hollies
Mr Tambourine Man - The Byrds
Help - The Beatles
I Got You Babe - Sonny and Cher
(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction - The Rolling Stones
Make It Easy on Yourself - The Walker Brothers

and then the execrable "Tears".  Okay, I missed a couple, which were at the top for a week, because I didn't want quibbles. This is about twenty-eight months of non-stop strong songs. The period when the Number One was also one of the best songs around that week. Of course, Like A Rolling Stone wasn't a Number One, but it came out in this period. The next year, 1966, saw tat mixed with Eleanor Rigby and Good Vibrations and popular music was never the same again. That period, from April 63 to September 65 was classic pop at its peak, high on youthful spirits (and maybe a couple of reds). In the next years, the music would be high on many things, but youthful exuberance was not one of them.

Chester Visit

I was in Chester a couple of weeks ago, on business for reasons that still make me mad to think about them. I took an evening train up and went for a walk along the Shropshire Union canal...

(It's worth clicking on both those for the detail.) The hotel room - in the Kings Suite of the Queen Hotel by Chester station - was pretty good...

though the courtyard is kitsch beyond description...

Lunchtime was at the Old Harker's Arms, on the canalised. It might not look prepossessing...

...but the food is consistently damn good. As this hake was...

As things are going, I won't have many more excuses to visit the place in the future. Kinda shame, as it's a nice time and I keep wanting to use my right to shoot a Welshman who has dared venture near the city walls with a bow and arrow.

Why Can't The BBC Do The Wire?

There was an interesting article about British TV drama in the FT a couple of weeks ago. The starting point was The Wire and why the BBC hasn't done anything like it. The article ended with an attempt to suggest that British TV drama was different-but-equal. Tosh.

What lifted The Wire clean above even The Shield, The West Wing and BtVS, was season four, that heartbreaking series about criminality and evil amongst school-children. These were children murdering and hiding the bodies in derelict houses, pouring lye over the corpses to help with the decomposition. Being children, they poured the lye over the clothes. They didn't quite get it. The series didn't flinch, didn't miss a detail and it didn't moralise once - it told the story. I can't remember a single moment of hope in all twenty-two episodes.

It took David Simon thirteen years of non-stop writing and producing to get there, with one hundred and fifty four episodes of Homicide: Life On The Street between 1993 and 1999, six episodes of The Corner in 2002 and sixty-six episodes of The Wire, before that awesome series four. No other writer in television history has had Simon's opportunities, and he has admitted as much in an interview. It's not that British TV can't do The Wire - no-one else could or did either.

What British TV should be able to do but can't, and Hollywood can and does, is The Shield and follow it with Sons of Anarchy, or BtVS and follow it with Angel. (And don't dare offer Dr Who and Torchwood) Why not? Well, are we looking for reasons or excuses? Lack of money is an excuse - if the British wanted to produce high-quality drama, they would find the money. God knows they find enough for football and celebrity presenters. The "theatrical tradition" is an excuse as well - the Americans only got this good at TV in the early 1990's. Both have had the same time since the invention of television to learn the art. The fact that British culture is run (if it is) by kidults to busy attending inclusiveness and marketing courses is an excuse as well. There are sensible people you can hire if you are prepared to pay. It's not a lack of talent either: the music scene is bursting with it and Hollywood moves and TV are packed with English actors who couldn't get jobs in the UK.

British TV produces not-quite-good-enough (or "flawed" if you're being polite) drama because the British simply are not serious about the job of writing, directing and producing drama. That's not unique to drama: the Special Forces and music aside, the British aren't really that serious about anything. They rely on the fact that the competition are just as... lackadaisical isn't the word, nor is shoddy... easily satisfied is probably it. On the creative side, the British are easily satisfied and on the managerial side they are just plain cheap. Which is why most British writers never do more than two drafts - they aren't being paid enough.

I suspect that most British writers and producers don't even read the books. Hollywood has three standard texts on screenwriting: McKee's Story, Syd Fields' Screenplay and Vogler's Writer's Journey. Everyone has read these, and even if they don't agree with what the authors say, the industry shares a common technical language. Do you know what a "beat" is? Entire British scripts can go by without a single one - and as for story arcs, in British scripts, fuggedaboutit. (One reason I love Local Hero, Dinner Rush and Groove is that they are packed with satisfying character arcs.)

It's more than just a lack of technique. It's as if there's something missing in the soul of many English writers: it feels like they don't really like or understand people. The Big Names who write for theatre admit they are all about the Ideas and the Politics as if that's a good thing. The British can make nasty, mean movies (Eden Lake, Kidulthood) but they can't make something as charming as Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist or Before Sunset. No. You just think they have. But they haven't. And costume dramas are cute, not charming.

The real question isn't why British television couldn't do The West Wing or The Wire. It's why the BBC can't even do Flashpoint or Blood Ties. If I was unlucky enough to be in charge of drama at the BBC, I swear I would cancel the lot and show a test card where Eastenders was supposed to be, until either I or someone else worked out how to tell engaging stories with characters the audience will identify with on the limited budgets at my disposal. And if I couldn't, I'd give the money back to the license-payers.