Quakes and killers

My first experience of an earthquake. I was sitting in the breakfast room having my tea at about four o’clock when suddenly out of nowhere the table went bananas as did the chair I was sitting on, as did the floor beneath my feet, the fan above me and the hanging light. It didn’t last long, no more than a minute or so, but it is quite a scary experience and in fact makes one, well made me, feel slightly nauseous. Not having experienced it before it took a couple of seconds for the penny to drop. The guys were out doing some filming and arrived home five minutes later. Whilst driving they had felt nothing. Douglas immediately went to the computer to check the situation and discovered the quake took place 82 kilometres west of Xania and was 6.4 on the Richter scale. We haven’t discovered any damage though the quake was felt as far north as Athens and as far south as Egypt. It wasn’t the first earthquake occurring since we came to live on Crete but with the previous three or four I was fast asleep and felt nothing. There were no after shocks, not that I know of anyway and I don’t know of any damage to buildings elsewhere but there must have been closer to the epicentre. That, being at sea and evidently quite deep, was the cause of a small tsunami. The fact that we suffered no damage is theoretically down to the house being built on bedrock and able to withstand a certain amount of movement. Looking up at the swinging light above me I had images of the earthquake scene in the movie ‘San Francisco’ I saw as a kid and, at the time, almost had nightmares over, especially the swaying chandelier before it comes crashing down.

I see on the news there has been an earthquake of 7.2 in the Philippines that has caused some damage and killed twenty people. Is there that much difference between 6.4 and 7.2?

A photograph has been pasted on Facebook of three men each holding up in front of himself a fully grown dead leopard. Trophies to boast to the world how manly they are. Why did these beautiful creatures have their lives cut short by the idiotic machismo of three… I would call them by a four letter word but they are in my opinion so low to do so would demean the object mentioned. The caring world is worried about its diminishing fauna: elephants for their tusks, rhinos for their horns, sharks for their fins, whales for their blubber, gorillas for bush-mean, orang-utans by losing their habitat, the big cats to these idiots, various species for useless traditional medicine, dolphins slaughtered by the Japanese and crazed Danish peasants as ignorant and as stupid, as uncaring as these three shameful individuals. I know in the wild it is a case of eat or be eaten but that is nature and this deliberate senseless killing for so-called sport is inexcusable and should have died out with the big white hunters of colonial times; and shame on Zambia for allowing it to continue. It’s not worth the money.

Fantasy time. ‘Oh look at me, world! I am an intrepid big-game hunter.’ Unfortunately you are also a total wanker and there are far too many of you. It would be poetic justice and Africa’s revenge if a little thing like a malaria mosquito put an end to you.

Gulf states

The Gulf States, Saudi-Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain, Oman, UA Emirates have decided they are going to clinically test for homosexuality everyone entering the country so there will be signs reading ‘Gay Free Zone.’ If it weren’t so pathetic one would be inclined to laugh one’s head off.

The tests were announced by the director of public health at the Kuwaiti health ministry, who said that the routine clinical screening of expatriates coming into the Gulf Cooperation Countries (GCC) will include measures to identify LGBT people who will then be banned from entering. The mind simply boggles at the thought of what these tests are going to be.

"Health centres conduct the routine medical check to assess the health of the expatriates when they come into the GCC countries," he told local daily Al Rai. "However, we will take stricter measures that will help us detect gays who will be then barred from entering Kuwait or any of the GCC member states."

Homosexual acts are banned in all the GCC member countries, which include Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE).

"There is no known medical test to detect homosexuality," said gay rights activist Peter Tatchell. "I wonder what quackery the Kuwaiti authorities plan to invent in their vain attempt to identify gay men. It simply won't work. Banning gay people from entering the country will deter foreign investors and companies. They won't want to subject their employees to such barbaric, medieval humiliations," he said. And what will it do to the tourist and holiday-maker industry?

In Kuwait, people involved in homosexual acts can receive up to 10 years in jail if they are under 21.

International football is about to take place in Qatar. FIFA spokesperson told IBTimes UK that the football organization "is not aware about the specific matter" of the proposed legislation.

"FIFA through the work carried out by its various Standing Committees is actively engaged in fighting against all kinds of discrimination within football and within society as a whole," it said. "FIFA's zero tolerance policy towards any acts of racism and discrimination affecting the freedom of private persons - including their sexual and political freedom - applies to the FIFA World Cup and to all other FIFA events and activities."

Tatchell responded saying that FIFA "has its head in the sand - of Qatar".

"It is pretending that this new repressive, homophobic threat doesn't exist," the LGBT campaigner said. "FIFA is all fine words but no serious action against homophobia. Is FIFA saying that the plan to test all visitors for homosexuality and exclude those who can be identified is untrue? Has it bothered to contact the Kuwaiti and Qatari authorities? It seems not." You can bet your bottom dollar that FIFA, like the Olympic committee and Russia will blinker themselves and true to form act like the self-seeking cowards they are.

I am led to believe that this proposed Arab legislation together with the Russian clamp-down and the recent upsurge in homophobia in Uganda and Cameroon can be laid at the dirty feet of wealthy American fundamentalist evangelists, the new Christian missionaries preaching not a gospel of love but the gospel of hate.  

These vile misguided individuals are no closer to Christ than I can jet to the moon on a fart. When oh when will they come to accept that human sexuality is a whole lot more than the eye to eye missionary position in marriage, wham, bam, thank you, mam, or simply for the sole purpose of breeding. Their god made it an urgent instinct and a pleasurable experience and could it be that pleasure they are so afraid of? There have been American states where oral sex, even between husband and wife, was illegal.

When will these ignorant bigots come to realize that like King Canute attempting to control the sea the battle is lost before it is even begun? Gore Vidal said “there are no homosexuals, there is only homosexuality” and if you stop and think about it he was absolutely right. Throughout the ages those found guilty of homosexual practices have been tormented, imprisoned, tortured, and put to death in the most horrific ways imaginable ( sometimes by other homosexuals hiding their own inclinations) yet it has had no effect. It has always been with us. It will always be with us. Leviticus not withstanding learn to live with it. If, as a so-called Christian (and take note evidently Jesus never mentioned the subject, New Testament, nor is it one of the Ten Commandments, Old Testament) you believe it to be a sin worthy of death, all the cruel and hateful methods including the threat of everlasting hellfire having failed, you could try eradicating it by one of the following methods: feed them Prayer Jelly Beans or have a mass day of ‘dial a prayer’ or sprinkle them with holy water to cleanse them, read them books by Ray Comfort, and the best of luck. These holy methods will be as efficacious as any other. There are problems to tackle in the world far more important, far more urgent and worthy of Christian interference than worrying yourselves sick about other people’s sexual orientation, something you obviously can do nothing about except cause pain and misery.

There are wars being fought, innocents being massacred, there is famine, hunger and homelessness, there is unbelievable greed, self-interest and corruption, there are diseases still to contend with, there is cruelty to animals in many forms, destruction of their habitat, destruction of the rainforest, destruction of the environment,  pollution of the oceans, climate control, child abuse even by parents sometimes resulting in murder, boy soldiers, amputations, floggings beheadings, circumcision of women and other barbaric traditional tribal practices and beliefs that should have been abandoned many years ago.  Rather than vent your spite battering away at a lost cause, do your Christian bit, no matter how small, to help alleviate suffering in all its forms and yours is a sure pathway to heaven. 

Writing

I have recently been going through old scripts, the first one of course being The River Of Sand, a play I must have written around 1954/5 and I remember it did take me a long time to finish it, almost two years. A much later play, Rosemary took just five days. Having left South Africa in ‘53 that first play, influenced by my favourite American writers, Clifford Odets, Tennessee Williams, Eugene O’Neill and novelists like John Steinbeck  was of course about that country, set in 1904 just after the Boer War. Reading it again I feel justly proud of a beautiful piece of work even though I have to say so myself. It was once performed with the greatest success, as the Victorians used to say, as a play reading in the studio of the actress Janet Barrow but that is the only light of day it has seen despite numerous submissions including a couple quite recently. Apart from two I can’t remember in those early days to whom it was sent but the two remembered are Flora Robson and Granada TV. I thought Miss Robson was perfect casting for the lead but the play came back with a little note which read in part. ‘I couldn’t possibly play a part like that. What would my fans say?’ To this day I do not understand what she meant by ‘a part like that.’ Maybe she felt having played Elizabeth 1 anything less grand was beneath her. I would have thought any actress worth her salt would leap at a lead so powerful and sympathetic but then you never can tell with actresses. They continually moan that there are no parts written for women above a certain age but when presented with them they turn them down. Not all actresses are like the wonderful Joanna Lumley who is prepared to make the most fabulous fool of herself and is totally brilliant with it. Dulcie Grey was perfect casting for Mrs Borrodaile in Beautiful For Ever and when I was in a play with her at The Haymarket I gave her the script but when she read the description of Mrs Borrodaile she nearly had conniptions. Flora Robson, had she sill been alive, would have made an ideal Madam Rachel though more than likely she would have turned the part down in case her fans disapproved.

As for Granada TV and River of Sand the answer that came back was ‘Who’s interested in South Africa?’  Then came Sharpeville and suddenly everyone was interested in South Africa. Timing is everything and I am usually arse about face when it comes to timing, either to late or too soon. I have a play called Between Two Sighs which basically deals with two babies, one “divinely formed and fair” and the other deformed. The producer at the Belgrade Theatre, Coventry at the time wanted to do it but the committee hummed and ha’d saying what if there were people in the audience in just such a position and how would they feel? And while they were fandangling along came A Day In The Death Of Joe Egg. End of Coventry and Between Two Sighs.

My second play, The Narrow Lane is autobiographical which I suppose is par for the course with a young budding playwright and it is toe-curling embarrassing, not because of content but because of the writing. In places some of the dialogue is appalling though in others there are signs of progress and the development of a certain sense of humour. However it is not a good play and will never see daylight but stay in the archives. The script is prefaced with a quotation by John Wolcot, ‘Truth is a narrow lane all full of quags, leading to broken heads, abuse and rags.’

Cameron Mackintosh maintains that it was the musical Salad Days that inspired him and I can quite believe it. I thoroughly enjoyed it when seated in the audience of a West End theatre. I didn’t enjoy it quite so much when playing in it and realised what a rather trite piece of whimsy it is. It is though, whichever way you look at it, a popular success and, like Cameron, having been inspired by Salad Days and with two plays under my belt I decided the next thing I would write would be a musical. The fact that I didn’t have a clue as to what to write, had never written a lyric in my life, and didn’t even have a title didn’t seem insurmountable problems. Eventually for lack of any other idea it was called Opus One; how pretentious can you get? Somewhere along the way the first act has got lost, no great loss to literature or musical theatre. The second act is still among my scripts and I really wouldn’t mind if that was lost as well but I am forbidden to touch it. It’s archive material after all. Since those far off days I have written over fifty plays including film and television. I have absolutely no idea what Opus One was all about and since then I have written the book and lyrics for Prancing Ahmadou from the book Prancing Nigger  by Ronald Firbank (no composer), Pickwick (no composer), Cupid (composer Kenny Clayton), Black Maria (composer Kenny Clayton)  La Belle Otero (composer Chris Littlewood), Alice in Winterland  (no composer), Peter Pan (composer Andy Davidson), Fugue In Two Flats (composer Paul Knight) and songs for The Double Deckers (composer Ivor Slaney), 78 lyrics in all. A long way from my first tentative attempt.

P.S. Rosemary and Peter Pan are both available on Amazon.

Childhood

This one is all about children and childhood. I suppose the general treatment meted out to kids does change with various societies and at various times, the Victorian ethic, spare the rod and spoil the child – for example. And this principle held good until fairly recently when it became not only out of fashion but illegal. Some years ago in Edinburgh a French tourist was seen to give his errant son an admonishing slap, was reported by someone, arrested and charged with assault.

Yet, even in the wild, if a cub tends to get a bit too boisterous it’s likely to receive a nip or a cuff around the ear to maintain a bit of discipline.

Inevitably things have changed dramatically since I was a child; since I was a youth. In those days one was allowed to be a child. Life was much simpler then. How truly primitive but how enjoyable and even with what excitement were the games we played both indoors and out. I don’t remember ever being bored. We made our entertainment. We weren’t closeted by fearful parents but had freedom to roam and I remember only one case of paedophilia and that was by a British soldier passing through during the war. One never heard of any incident involving an attack by a pupil on a teacher, a phenomenon that seems to be endemic these days. The cane of course was still in use but rarely used, if it was it was usually on the open hands. However its very presence ensured a certain amount of discipline, something that seems to be entirely lacking now, as does any sense of respect for anything by so many of the young. I remember some years back waiting to cross a road at a pedestrian crossing and a boy of about twelve stepped out in front of a speeding car that obviously was not going to stop. I warned him of it, "Look out!" and his response? ‘Fuck off!’ His face contorted with rage. My thoughts after that could hardly be called magnanimous. ‘Die you little shit,’ I thought, ‘and make the world a cleaner place.’

As kids we were social animals. We had friends we could actually talk to, sped time with,  we went to parties, to dances, we went camping, we had sport, we listened to the radio, we read books. We did not sit glued to a computer, a mobile phone, an I-pad or anything like. Nowadays children as young as five or six are given a mobile phone. With that in hand social graces and intercourse tend to fly out the window.

So what is it like to be a kid today? We know all about single mothers and absent fathers. We know all about abuse in the home. We know all about gangs, gangs with knives they’re only too ready to use. There has always been bullying of course but now cyber bullying is added, evidently so distressing that in some cases it leads to suicide.

On Fridays we usually buy the Daily Mail. I might have said this before, it is to replace the Sunday Times we used to get and gave up when the culture section disappeared. The Mail on Friday has book reviews, cinema and theatre reviews but doesn’t get published in Greece in the winter. No British holiday makers to make it worthwhile. But let’s see what stories involving children are in last week’s paper

We all know about the spoilt Cruise brat the worth of whose fabulous wardrobe would feed Somalia for a year but what about ordinary everyday families?

An alcoholic cannabis smoking mum is guilty of starving her son age four to death. Five other children between five and thirteen years of age were found in soiled nappies crawling through piles of filth knee high in every room in the house. There was even cat faces in the bath tub.

Internet fears over the child iPad boom. The number of children using tablet computers triples in a year, 42 percent including children as young as three. The worry is that parents have not been able to keep up with their children’s technology skills and are unable to protect them from danger.

Catholic school bans bearded Muslim boys. Not really surprising. What is surprising is the boys are thirteen and have beards? Maybe kids are just maturing earlier these days.

America has witnessed a number of shootings in schools; here is a story from England. A schoolboy plotting to carry out a new Columbine school massacre asked his teacher which gun he would be prefer to be shot with… He plotted to bomb schools, Mosques and council buildings and police found bombs, knives and guns in his home.

Again, again, and again, will they never learn? A boy advertised his birthday party on Facebook, result? Hundreds of teenagers turned up to trash the parental home and turn the whole street into a mess with empty beer bottles, vomit and piss. In the house a skylight was broken, ornaments and other property stolen, carpets and furnishing spattered with drink and vomit. I wonder what the parents of these sons and daughters think of their offspring, that is if they even know or care. Once upon a time they were known as hooligans or vandals. That obviously no longer applies either. How often we find a parent protecting and making excuses for its little vandal when it should be chastising it. No, the lout’s bad behaviour is always the other person’s fault.

Finally pushy mums and dads including A-list celebs who put their kids through hell in reality shows. According to those present at a recording one little girl cried throughout most of the show, wanted to stay backstage, hated being in the limelight and suffered terribly from stage fright. There’s a difference between performing from behind the couch for guests in the drawing room to appearing in front of the cameras to an audience of millions. Of course there are kids who revel being in the limelight as is witnessed by the universal talent shows but these are children of sometimes truly amazing talent: instrumentalists, singers, dancers, not your ordinary sons and daughters of celebs. And when these ultra-talented kids are universally praised to the skies, what does it do to an ego that later in life could so easily be bruised?

Whichever way you look at it, childhood has always been a period of pitfalls one way or another, but today it's a period of too many..

Islam and America

Is Obama a Muslim or, at least, is Islam where all his sympathies lie as some now firmly believe? This is a question that really has to be answered. He is one of the most powerful men in the world and, if he believes the world should be Islamic, as so many Islamic fundamentalists do, the world is in very deep trouble. I have been watching a selection of videos that show Islam in all its gory awfulness and it is truly difficult, almost impossible except that it is true, to believe that in this day and age the enlightened advanced countries of the world should be menaced by this ambitious mob of hate-filled ignorant religious fanatical  savages stirred on by their religious leaders, many of whom have a mind-set more appropriate to the dark ages than the modern world.. I am beginning to believe there can be no such thing as a moderate Muslim. If he faithfully follows the dictates of the Koran, a book as vicious and as bloody as the Bible, he has no alternative but to have murder on his mind and in his heart and by murder one means massacre.

Very interesting photographs on Face book of Baghdad and Tehran some thirty years or more ago (as I remember) showing groups of women then and now. In the first photo they could be women in any part of the civilised world and in the second they are a collection of unrecognisable sinister black ghosts. Is this the future for France, for the UK, for America, Demark, Norway, Holland, Germany, Italy, and Greece? Can you imagine the same photograph taken in a New York street of hundreds of women wearing the burqa? Be afraid. Be very afraid. This is what they want. But more frightening still is their ambition to have the whole world subject to Sharia law with its hangings, its beheadings, its stoning, floggings, amputations, honour killings, child brides, opposition to education for girls

What would happen to gays in America if Sharia was established, and what abut the Jewish community? Less important but still part of us, theatres would be closed, orchestras disbanded, alcohol prohibited which means closing all the bars, clubs etcetera.

When Obama was elected for his first term I, like many, was delighted that a black man had become president of the United States, not only that but the republican candidates seemed a very sorry lot following on from the disastrous Bush dynasty and Obama appeared to be exactly what we woolly-minded liberals hoped for. But now the doubts creep in. Is it too late to alter the course of history or will we really see all the advances made in the democratic world trampled beneath this religious fascism? Already in some major cities, Paris for example, there are whole areas given over to the Muslim community where the police, firemen, doctors, ambulances, refuse to go and the indigenous population feel like foreigners in their own land; and the boast of British Muslims is that by 2050 England will be a Muslim country. Be afraid. Be very afraid.

Triumph

So the weeks of hard work, shredded nerves, tensions, tantrums, preparations and rehearsals are behind us. Well, there you go then, as my dear sainted mother used to say, all over bar the shouting. Except of course the shouting isn’t quite over as congratulatory messages keep on arriving. What an evening Friday turned out to be. Chris was on top form and, like the man on the flying trapeze; he flew through the show with the greatest of ease. He had the audience from the very start and proved himself to be not just a singer, an actor, a dancer, but the complete entertainer. It must have made quite an impact on me because I find myself still thinking about it, the subtle changes he made in intonation, in gesture, and expression. It’s hard to believe that we’ve been living with Champagne Charlie one way or another since the eighties and, familiar as I am with it, this came as a completely new performance. He well deserved his standing ovation. So I reckon I was wrong in not wanting him to do it and an apology is forthcoming but it was only because, at his age, I wasn’t at all sure he could do it.

Even taking into account the audience’s enthusiastic response it was certainly a triumph in every sense and hats off too to Douglas who just has to be the supremo of stage managers. Finally Paul Knight’s contribution as MD and the musicians. There must have been something to criticise surely? Well, yes, only a minor one, but I did feel the trumpet was too loud and it should have been muted. Much to my surprise Douglas informs me it was.

The only disappointment of the evening was the failure of the “streaming” to live up to expectations and we were looking forward to it so much. The gremlins really got in the works in particular as far as the sound was concerned. The opening number for example, “Music Mad” was performed (for us watching the film that is) in complete silence and there were glitches most of the way through. We thought it was just us suffering but according to some of the e-mails it seems it was pretty universal. Fortunately the last twenty minutes or so went smoothly which was some consolation.

So, what a delightful evening it was. While the guys are in London I have been looked after by our friend Judith who is a gem. I think she can either read my mind or she is psychic but never have I been so spoilt. Friday was also her birthday and mutual friends Derrick and Joanna wanted to celebrate by bringing us dinner: smoked salmon and rocket salad for starters, beef cooked in red wine with mashed potatoes and green beans Cretan style, that is with onion and chopped tomato, and for dessert a pear, apricot and almond crumble; and to wash it all down celebratory style champagne of course. Actually I’m not a lover of champagne. I find it too dry so I like it as a bucks fizz. This one though was a Greek version and I found it most potable as, even though labelled brut, it had just the tiniest edge of sweetness and went down a treat.

I have been watching “Cranford” again. I know it is only a short while since I watched it previously but it is such a remarkable piece of television, and as Judith hadn’t seen it, we have settled down to watch every episode before she leaves. She loves it and I am enjoying it as much as first time round. I just needed the excuse of watching it again so soon. With a stupendous cast, the crème–de-la-crème of British acting talent giving perfect performances; beautifully written, beautifully photographed, beautifully directed at just the right pace it is, in my humble opinion, the best thing the Beeb has done in years. I have no doubt, after an interval, I shall watch it again.

Kenya

Yet again the religious maniacs have been responsible for chaos and bloodshed. I refer to the Al-shabab attack on the shopping mall in Kenya where so many innocents were gunned down or wounded, not jut Kenyans but citizens from various countries. What is it with these primitives that jihad seems to be the only answer to their grievances and ambitions, and what are their grievances and ambitions? The establishment or spread of Islam and sharia law, that barbaric set of rules and punishments; beheading, flogging, amputation, stoning, that has no place in the twenty-first century and yet, and yet, and yet, regretfully, they want it. Maybe now when moderate Muslims accept their religion has been hijacked by fanatics they will do something to help in the fight ageist terrorism because that is what it is. But just how do you counter millions of brainwashed primitive uneducated men some of whom are willing to sacrifice themselves in suicide bomb attacks in order to gain a supposed paradise and those mythical 72 virgins.  And then there is the problem that, like Christianity with it’s literarily thousands of sects; it is not a cohesive whole but rent by factions, tribal animosities, and traditions. It’s one helluva mess is it not? A Gordian knot and nothing in the near future at least is going to untie it.

So tomorrow evening comes the big moment. After weeks of rehearsals, planning, organising, scoring and fraught nerves Champagne Charlie has a one-night stand at Wilton’s Music Hall.

Wilton’s has teamed up with live streaming experts so we will be able to watch it here in Crete – that is if my nerves can stand it – after all it’s going out to a bigger audience than it has ever done and it’s going out live! If you’re interested, details can be found on the website of Arts Streaming TVs and it’s free. Boy, I am such a Luddite I simply can’t keep pace with all this new technology. I don’t even know how to use my mobile phone and it is the simplest phone you can get. It doesn’t connect to the internet, keep a diary, take photographs or cook breakfast but it still leaves me all at sea. Mind you this bloody machine is inclined to give me the megrims. I think Douglas was pleased to get away I called on him so often to get me out of trouble and he was beginning to show distinct signs of impatience. I swear this computer, like Hal in the movie 2001, sometimes goes its own sweet way behind my back. Why I would like to know, if I type out a word accurately, and I am absolutely certain it is accurate, does it sometimes come up with a similar sounding alternative. Spite, that’s all it boils down to, sheer spite.