Discovered John Osborne’s autobiography, the second part, “Almost a Gentleman” in the bookshelf. Our bookshelves are full of surprises and I don’t know the half of what’s in them. As I am far from being a fan of Mr Osborne as a playwright, I have performed in both “Look Back In Anger” and “Inadmissible Evidence” much, to my surprise I am thoroughly enjoying it. It is beautifully written and full of surprises, writing about British theatre in the fifties and sixties – my period I suppose, certainly the time when I was trying so hard to make it both as actor and writer and not getting very far – it tells me a great deal of what I didn’t know at the time and does it in fascinating detail. We have received the bumf from Equity about forthcoming council elections and looking through it there are perhaps only half a dozen or so names I recognise: Alan Thompson, Tony Robinson, Jonathan Cecil, Paul Janssen who for many years was with the English National Opera, Frank Williams, Paul Mead, and dear old Bobby Mill still going strong. The last two were the only ones I actually worked with and my word how the years have taken their toll and how the years have changed us.
My only reason for mentioning this is that in John Osborne’s book I recognise names on every page and it is fascinating to get an idea of what people like Tony Richardson and George Devine were really like and I know now why no play of mine was ever accepted by the Royal Court. They never stood a chance.
Managers of seaside reps in the old days, if the takings were down, invariably blamed the weather – either too hot or too wet. Submitted plays not wanted invariably received the same replies from managements – would make a good film or, if a film script, would make a good play, in either case ‘sorry not for us’.
The Osborne book has been a real page turner. You picked up where you left off and you didn’t want to leave off again which, I am afraid, I could not say for the Gordon Craig biography which somehow I doubt I will bother to pick up again, and the same goes for Anna Karenina. Sorry Mister Tolstoy but that’s how it is.
“The whips and scorns to be expected by an unknown playwright are nothing to those endured by those who discover that neither reputation, success nor standing will prevent them from being sandbagged frontally, publicly, privately or from behind. The unexpected blow from a stranger is more easily dismissed than some young Hal you once caroused with giving you the frozen lip from beneath his critic’s crown … Inside every playwright there is a Falstaff gathering like a boil to be lanced by his liege employers – fashion and caprice.”
From “Almost A Gentleman” by John Osborne.

I am back on my old hobbyhorse again. Sometimes this world makes me really sick. The world cup is on, South Africa rejoices. Evidently the WAGS as they are called, footballers’ wives and girl friends of the English team, the camp flowers, having been forbidden to camp out with their males are camping instead in Sun City. Camping? A room costs £5000 a night and should the desire strike they can purchase a designer handbag for the same price while right next door there is the direst poverty. What does one make of it? What can one make of it? This is not envy because my government pension only comes to about 5000 a year, let alone a month, let alone a week, let alone a day! No, it is not envy, we have been living quite comfortably on what comes into this house, a fraction of a footballer’s earnings or the money his girl friend spends but it does make me wonder whether or not these people have any conscience about the state of world affairs or the state of the Africans around their luxury. Enough, enough. Much as I would like to I can’t change the world but I would like to think if those girls gave just one twentieth of their nightly costs to the local community what a difference that would make to a lot of lives.
How important is the world cup to South Africa? Very important I would imagine though, when it is all over, with all the millions that have been spent on infrastructure and the building of these wonderful stadiums, what will be in it for the poor people already mentioned? Will it have made any difference to their lives? One certainly hopes so. There will be those of course who, in a position to do so, will have grown even richer because of it.
What a great shame that Mandela at the age of 91 could not attend the opening ceremony because of the death of his thirteen year old granddaughter in a car crash.
Have extended a couple of scenes in the play and am going to go through it one last time today to make sure there are no mistakes. We sent it to Ceri Wiercx to read and she came up with half a dozen neither Douglas nor I saw. Proof reading as I have probably said before is truly an art. Well, let’s hope they have now all been eliminated.

In the following round, the act Spellbound lost some of its spell, in fact it isn’t moving at all compared to their first effort which was fresh and wonderfully, what can one say, innocent? There was no surprise element. The addition of costumes, fire effects, set etcetera added nothing really – detracted rather. It reminded me of the wonderful funny Jacques Tati film ‘M.Hulot’s Holiday’ which was originally released with an absolute minimal soundtrack: people greeting each other ‘Hello’ ‘Good morning’, the sound of the sea, squeaking doors in the hotel dining room etc. Then someone had the bright idea of adding a more elaborate soundtrack and the whole feeling of the film, for me at any rate, was destroyed; in fact it lost a great deal of its humour which was such a disappointment.
Films one raved about on second viewing can be a big disappointment if not a cause for embarrassment. I remember going on about a film “New Faces of ‘54” and looking at it much later with friends wondering what all the fuss was about in the first place and how really unspectacular it was. The main memory of course was the introduction of Eartha Kitt singing ‘Old Fashioned Millionaire’ and I still remember the song, ‘Oh you can’t chop your mama up in Massachusetts’. “Lizzie Borden took an axe and gave her father forty whacks, and when she saw what she had done she gave her mother forty-one.” Apart from Miss Kitt and a diminutive Frenchman (and I can’t even remember his name or number) the rest of the cast is a total blank.
We watched “Yes Prime Minister” again and found it as deliriously funny as ever. Sheer bloody genius if I may be so bold: setting, direction and acting of a truly witty script absolutely faultless. A lesson in TV acting for any would-be thespian. Every tiny change of expression worth a thousand words. It’s not often I am taken by a television programme. Did this series win any prizes? I may have asked this question before and the answer is if not why not?
Another programme I remember so well and for which in fact I wrote to the director saying how fabulous I thought it was, (something rare for me) was the original ‘The Lost Boys’ about James Barrie and the Llewellyn boys. There was one scene where one of the boys is playing checkers with Barrie and it was unbelievably seductive. Did that child know what he was doing? Did the boy in ‘Death In Venice’ realise what he was doing albeit unconsciously?
I say the original Lost Boys to differentiate it from the programme I was in about paedophile murders. That’s the trouble with titles, they’re not copywrite. It would be a wee bit stupid to repeat titles like ‘Gone With The Wind’ or ‘Wizard of Oz’ but looking on Amazon there are three books with the title ‘Just In Case.’ One was published shortly before mine so I was aware of it but I wasn’t going to change what was a perfect title for my own book. ‘Just in case’ said everything about it.

133. Craig Edward Gordon: A Production. Being Thirty-Two Collotype Plates of Designs Projected or Realised for "The Pretenders" of Henrik Ibsen and Produced at the Royal Theatre, Copenhagen, 1926 Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1930 red cloth, gold embossing, first edition, elephant folio. Thirty-two Collotype Plates of Designs Projected or Realised for "The Pretenders" of Henrik Ibsen and Produced at the Royal Theatre Copenhagen, 1926. By Edward Gordon Craig. dedicated to His Majesty Christian X King of Denmark. Printed at the University press, Oxford by John Johnson 1930 - only 605 copies published. Craig tells the story of his travels in Denmark, the work on the sets and costumes and the rehearsals and production. Watercolour, chalk and gouache drawings are carefully reproduced in facsimile with plate guards. Fine condition, binding is tight and pages and plates are in good condition. A large book, 20.25in x 15.5in (513mm x 388mm). We also have a slightly worncopy available priced at £300. Stock ref 1752. £450.00
134. Craig, Edward Gordon: Scene London:1923 large quarto, original boards, very good copy, 19 lovely plates and 27 pages of text, introductory poem by John Masefield, inscribed "To Victor from EC, 11/1965" - a personal inscription from Edward Craig to Victor Glasstone. Stock ref 4256. £150.00
135. Davis, Walter: Improvements in and relating to Picture and like Frames London: 1910, No.12685 British Patent 3pp of text and one page of line drawings,Very good condition. Produced by Walter Davis, stage manager at the Empire Theatre, Nottingham Stock ref 10000. £20.00
136. Degani, Mario: Mostra Delgi Scengrafi Reggiani dal XVII al XX Secolo Reggio Emilia:1957 red calf spine, red cloth boards, very good condition, gazetteer of scenographers listing their work and reproducing many examples in fine plates at the rear of the book. Stock ref 2094. £42.00
137. Diderot, D'Alembert: Theatre Architecture & Stage Machines Paris 1772 original copy of the famous work covering both theatre architecture and stage machines. Green cloth. This is one of the most important works on theatre design and now extremely rare with both sections on theatre architecture and stage machinery. Stock ref 2344. £700.00

Wouldn’t it be great to be able to say seven hundred pounds? Pfft! Peanuts, let’s have it. Actually I hadn’t meant to copy 136 or 137 but only the Gordon Craig but, having included them, I might as well leave them for interest’s sake. The reason for the Craig is because I am having a truly tough time trying to wade through his biography. What is it that makes it so dull? Into his twenties he had already done a whole heap of living and I am on to his third big love affair and there are more to come, each one a true love until he lost interest or went a philandering. There is no doubt he was a weird creature – does this come with genius or as Arthur Miller might have said with the territory?
This time last week I wouldn’t have believed I had another full length play inside me but finished it yesterday – five days! – eat your heart out Noel.

Israel really appears to have shot itself in the foot with this storming of an aid ship to Gaza. Demonstrations have been taking place everywhere and Turkey, who until fairly recently has been a friend if not an ally of Israel is incensed by it, the Turkish Foreign Minister calling it ‘murder by state.’ If that is the case how does Turkey excuse its treatment of the Kurds? Although I personally can’t understand rabid nationalism, if Iraq gave up a little of its territory, and Turkey did likewise surely the formation of a Kurdistan would being peace to the area. But no, Turkey won’t give an inch, just as Israel won’t give an inch. Just as Hammas won’t give an inch and just as the Basques and the Maoists in India won’t give an inch and so it goes on and on. Sad really as more and more people are killed for a cause.
Turkey, instead of owning up to it, is still trying to make excuses for the massacre of the Serbs early last century. They weren’t very kind either to the Anatolian Greeks but what the hell, that is all in the past and there is nothing can be done about it now except to own up and say, well that is how it was. I don’t think an apology is necessary. I don’t go for all this apologising for the past, for example as far as slavery is concerned. People demanding Britain and America apologise for the slave trade are really whistling in the wind. They tend to forget, or ignore the fact, that, horrible as it was, Africans and Arabs were also involved in it but we don’t hear any voices raised against them. Why not? Particularly in view of the fact that in some parts of the Dark Continent slavery of a kind still exists. Might as well suggest the Greeks and Romans apologise for their slaves or the Spaniards for their galleys.
But will the Germans ever forget or stop having to apologise for the holocaust? All those deaths had nothing to do with today’s generation but they are not allowed to forget it. I’m not suggesting they should but in some ways this being reminded of it at every turn doesn’t seem quite right anymore. There are museums and memorials to those who perished at the hands of the Nazis but it seems they proliferate even now so many years later. The latest is a man in Berlin laying what he calks stumbling blocks, - blocks that stand proud of the pavement’s surface with a brass plate on which is engraved the name of someone who died in a concentration camp.
Apartheid was a blot on the world and it too has its museums and memorials but isn’t it time to heal wounds? Surely, or there will never be peace in this world.

So the Eurovision song contest is over for another year and Germany comes out the winner. I didn’t watch any of it because our telly has been on the blink for months and we just haven’t bothered to do anything about it. Chris and Douglas though went down to our Norwegian friends in Georgopoli who have a Eurovision bash every year. Neither of them came home seemingly all that impressed with what they heard. I saw a section of the English boy’s effort on the news and all I can say is it’s no wonder Great Britain came last with ten measly points. He and his song were both truly pathetic, embarrassingly so. How on earth did they get that far? Talk about jutzpah!
Not having watched it I can’t guess how many millions were spent on yet another spectacular. Following on the story of the food aid funds in India being diverted for the Commonwealth Games, there was a story on Headline News about the new football stadium built in Rustenburg by the local king who evidently gets, was it 20 or 25% of the income from platinum which means he is worth a fortune. So he builds this fantastic stadium whilst all around there is still the poverty and the jobless. What happens when the World Cup is over and there are no more international football matches to play, particularly in Rustenburg which is a dorp to say the least? I am sure part of Greece’s financial problems is down to the Olympic Games and the same thing is going to happen to London I bet. They should have let the French have them.
If you haven’t seen it – look it up on Youtube – a gymnastic act called “Spellbound” performing on Britain’s Got Talent and spell binding they are too. A dozen or so beautiful young boys and girls in an act so daring and so beautifully choreographed it simply takes your breath away. I t certainly seemed to do that to Simon Cowell whose face was a picture, the other judges as well. It’s little wonder they deservedly received a standing ovation. (The act not the judges). When one hears so much about a lost generation, how wonderful to see something like this and realise just what these kids are capable of. They have evidently become a huge hit in America where the act has been described as “jaw-dropping” and the clips, not surprisingly, have had millions of hits. I have watched it a number of times and each time it only seems to be more impressive.
Another quite remarkable act was the dancing dog and, when I say dancing, that’s what he did. He did his exercise at the barre before going into the most convoluted routine with his mistress and this again was simply a jaw-dropping act. He even took his bow when it was over and he really seemed to enjoy what he was doing. How long did it take to train this canny animal I wonder? and surely something like this must show people just how wonderfully intelligent animals are and hopefully treat them with a little more respect.

Seated in the conservatory having breakfast Sunday morning I could hear the Papas loud and clear going through his stuff which, considering I am hard of hearing and the church is a good half a kilometre away, means he had the decibels up to the fullest. I might have mentioned this before but it’s weird how the Greeks like noise. What did they do before they discovered the microphone and sound system? A traditional band of three of four playing at a celebration aren’t happy unless the music they make is around 110 decibels which I believed is the noise a plane makes taking off. Returning home in the early hours from a panagia at Litsarda a village a good four and a half kilometres away we can still hear the band giving out for all they’re worth. Music is far too loud in restaurants making conversation in some cases quite difficult. Evidently the authorities, in Athens anyway, have been inspecting nightclubs and restaurants and clamping down on the noise.
Talking of Litsarda we went last week to the brand new pizzeria and very impressive they have made it. Two very large rooms and a vast balcony. They have built two apartments on top one for each daughter both if whom are getting married this year Lucky sons-in-law is all wot I can says. One thing you have to say about Greek families, they do stick together. The food was as delicious as ever and it was a very merry party celebrating a friend’s birthday. The old pizzeria across the road that was abandoned for this brand new building is evidently going to be another taverna – pizzeria! How daft can you get? The original is an institution, people come from far and wide to patronize it; why would the village want a second pizzeria? It could be interesting to find out, eating in the old building as in days of yore. And still on the subject of food I forgot to mention in my previous Blog the grapes which are plumping out nicely as well. Maybe this year we’ll have better luck. The last two seasons were washouts; last year because for some reason the bunches tended to wither on the vine and the previous year because Mister Ratty and his family had a field day or more noshing on our grapes. In order to stop them I hung old DVD discs up which did the trick as they move and flash in the wind and sunlight and what amazing colours they produce, enough to frighten any rat away.
There were two letters in the Athens News this week in answer to the Dutch lady’s criticism of Greece and the Greeks, both of them more or less accusing her of ignorance and wanting to know how she could just condemn a whole nation out of hand with what little knowledge she might have. I am constantly amazed at how widespread the paper’s readers are. Letters come in from all over. America, Canada, Australia, I can understand , the Greek Diaspora, but why Holland? Interesting, like my Polish fan who hasn’t got his photograph yet but I will get around to it.