The wood stove in the breakfast room lit for the first time as winter approaches and it really has turned chilly, plus the fact that there have been more thunderous tropical downpours. Fortunately with Chris and Douglas back from their week in London it wasn’t up to me this time to dash about with mop, towels, and bowls. Also fortunately they were back to take care of a mini-disaster which, if it had happened when I was on my tod would probably have sunk me in doo-doo up to my neck. There I was in my bathroom late at night happily cleaning my teeth prior to bed when there was a loud bang just above my head followed immediately by a shower of water and seconds later total blackout as everything electrical fused. The others were already in bed but I groped my way to my bedroom door and yelled for Douglas to switch off the water at the mains then, with torches, he and Chris came to inspect the damage. To supply my bathroom with hot water I have (or rather had) this little electrical device, I don’t think it can be called a geyser, high up on the wall that switched itself on whenever the hot water tap was opened and it was this that for some reason suddenly exploded with that loud bang and turned my bathroom into a lake. Except for a couple of sodden books no harm done of course because the water merely hit tiles and porcelain. Douglas managed to get the lights on again and turn off the tap leading to this device. (I really don’t know what to call it) then it was a matter of mopping up and since then I’ve been more or less camping out as everything from the bathroom; towel rail, bamboo table with toiletries, bathmat, etc., has been moved to the bedroom and won’t be put back until a new water heater (that’s what I’ll call it, simple really when you come to think of it, a water heater) is repaired or replaced. The latter I hope because I will now always be nervous of the wretched thing giving a repeat performance and at the most inconvenient time, that is at night when the result is blackout.
Their week in London seems to have been successful. They caught up with a number of old friends and Chris did what he went for which was to have a meeting with Moet and Chandon trying to persuade them to sponsor the launch of his book next year. Evidently it was a congenial meeting and there is a possibility they will come up with the goods – a hundred and twenty bottles of champagne which is nothing when you think of the publicity they could get as the launch is to take place at Wilton’s Music Hall, the last remaining music hall in London and fast becoming a much desired venue. Currently closed for a month or so as it is being used as a film location.
Douglas too had very important meetings and what a dramatic saga that is turning out to be! It really is a case of David and Goliath when you think he is threatening to sue one of the biggest film corporations in the world worth billions. Can you credit that? Not I have to say something to lightly embark on, but more of that at a future date. In the meantime everyone please cross fingers as he has only fired his first slingshot which has caused the opposition to stagger somewhat but there is more to come.

I write a novel in which the main character is a boy named Angelo so I give the book the title ‘Angel’ and guess what happens. Yup, you’ve guessed it a sort of sci-fi number’s just been published with the same title. There seems to be a dearth of good titles. I guess it had to happen and it isn’t the first time. There are four or five books titled ‘Dead On Time’ and at least two ‘Just in Case.’ I guess there is more than likely a ‘Dead On Target’ as well. There is no copyright in titles and so far as I know I still have two or three books with original titles, possibly four with the one I’m halfway through. Many years ago I wrote a screenplay called ‘Speed’ as it was to do with motor racing and drugs. It wasn’t made but shortly after a film of that name did appear. I am trying at the moment to rewrite it as a book, not very successfully as yet and have moved on to Thornton King #5. #4 hasn’t been published yet although I finished it well over a year ago, neither has my horror story ‘The Museum Mysteries’ so there is a backlog building up.
Big headline in The Sunday Telegraph – AT WAR – THE MEN WHO MADE LES MISERABLES A HIT.
Evidently the theatrical knights Sir Trevor Nunn and Sir Cameron Macintosh have had a bit of a falling out and are not speaking to each other? Why? Allegedly Sir Trev is in a tizzy fit because he has not been invited to take part in the celebrations for the twenty-fifth year anniversary of Les Miz , the longest running musical in theatrical history! It has played in 42 countries and been seen by more than 57 million people. I’m not one of them. I saw an extract of the show on television back in who knows when which put me right off. I remember some years ago the same thing happened with ‘On The Twentieth Century’ but when I was eventually dragged to see that I absolutely loved it. Maybe the same would have happened with Les Miz, who knows? When I was teaching in Denmark back in ‘89 one of my students was singing a lovely song,’ Empty Tables, Empty Chairs,’ and recently Susan Boyle’s rendering of ‘I had a dream’ has renewed interest in it so it should run a few more year yet.
Anyway back to multi millionaire Sir Trev, ‘There is no point in beating about the bush. We are profoundly unhappy and we feel profoundly betrayed, and we don’t understand,’ he said. (Note the royal we)
Sir Cameron who has also, by the way, had a long running tiff with that other giant of the theatre, Android Lord Webster, but with whom he now says he is once more on friendly terms, has written to Sir Trev saying ‘ your memory is as bad as your manners.’ Wow! Them’s hard words, Clem.
Sir Cameron, now 63, through the successful musicals he has produced is reckoned to be worth £635million. And to think when he was a nineteen year old unknown he came around to our house in Hackney one Sunday afternoon to listen to the songs in ‘Cupid’ and went away unimpressed. Composer Kenny Clayton and I could have been a part of that £635million. Ah, well, let us not dwell on what might have been. It was not to be and one has to accept that.

For the first time this autumn a real chill in the evening air. The endless ads on television for motor cars have given way to endless ads on kids’ stuff, toys, dolls, games. Guess what, Christmas must be near. What, already? The ads come at such a rate of knots and at such a pitch it’s impossible to remember the games anyway, only ones you already know like Cluedo and Monopoly.
I was just thinking, if Wayne is so busy making waves, training on the pitch, actually playing in games, what time does he have left to write four (or even two) more books? The answer of course is he doesn’t. What the publishers have lashed out their millions on, like his various sponsors, is his name, an image. And talking literature, name, and image, Jane Austen whose writing has always been praised as virtually perfection itself has been downgraded with the revelation by an Oxford professor, Kathryn Sutherland, who has been studying her originals manuscripts, that her writing was actually rather awful, bad grammar and bad spelling, and her books were edited and polished up by a male editor, evidently a man named William Gifford. Oh, dear! Feminists are not going to like that.
I’m often taken by surprise by the books we have that I know nothing about or don’t remember having and can’t even imagine where they came from. Some of them of course are chic-lit, romance, and best-selling misery memoirs left by holiday makers and they’re beginning to take up quite a bit of shelf room. Question – do we get rid of them or leave them for other holiday makers to read? One of the unknown books brought recently to light, this one from the bookshelf in my bedroom, is the autobiography of the Russian actor Nikolai Cherkasov (Notes Of A Soviet Actor) a fascinating document. Cherkasov’s most famous role was without doubt that of Prince Alexander Nevsky in the film by Eisenstein. “I want to tell my reader about the creative work of the Soviet actor and acquaint him with all the aspects of our art. I want to tell him how complicated the path and show him how much of an actor’s art depends on his knowledge of life.”
Then Ray, our last guest, came down one morning all chuckles to say he had found on the guest bedroom shelves a copy of “Lord Cucumber” and “The Boy Hairdresser” by Joe Orton and Kenneth Halliwell, and this was certainly a book I had no recollection of ever having bought. So I immediately set about reading it. “Lord Cucumber” written in 1954, is a delightful and funny Ronald Firbank come Mills & Boon pastiche full of camp humour and is certainly chuckle making.
‘Oh, Richard,’ she said, ‘it seems that I have waited all my life for this moment. Now that I’m in your arms I feel I’ve really come home.’
Half swooning with the force of his emotions, he suddenly grasped at her hand…’
Come to think of it, if she’s in his arms, how come he can suddenly grasp her hand? Oh, never mind. That is simply nitpicking.
‘Above them the sun spread a glittering crown of light, woven into intertwisted strands of glistening gold which cast prismatic reflections upon them. A circle of mystery, widening into rings of glory.’
Jane Austen never wrote lines like that
“The Boy Hairdresser” written two years later is a very different kettle of fish, a much more straightforward and darker work.
Neither book was published in their lifetime.
Interestingly I see the copyright reads “by the estate of John Kingsley Orton (deceased) professionally known as Joe Orton.”
What happened to Halliwell?

I just knew I should have been a career criminal. I would most likely have made a total hash of it but I could always appeal and appeal and appeal. After posting my last Blog I came across the article about the Somali so, if you will forgive me, and I will get off crime next time around, here are the wondrous details.
We do not know his name. He is referred to only by initials. He arrived in the UK in 1994 aged 15 claiming asylum. In 1996 he was cautioned for shoplifting and jailed for robbery. In 1998 he received jail terms for possession of a knife, shoplifting, dangerous driving, burglary and theft, and for burglary and theft again in 2001. In November of that year he was informed the Home Office was considering deportation. Now the fun really starts. Keeping him in prison has already cost £300000 but in January 2004 he is jailed again for burglary and in April served with the deportation order. In October he was moved to an immigration centre pending deportation and to strop him from fleeing. In 2007 he was released and he is still in the UK because here is the tag to this hilarious joke – He has had legal aid the whole time and being kept at the immigration centre cost £40000 a year. So far he has cost the country half a million pounds. But now Judges have decided he was kept in the centre illegally for two months and is in line for compensation. Not only that but to send him back to Somalia would be to breach his human rights. Forgive me if I die laughing.
But home grown criminals get younger and younger. Most unusually an E-fit has been issued, not of a murderer or robber, but of a young boy. Alden Measure, aged ten, was knocked off his scooter and kicked in the head whilst on the ground because he wouldn’t let go of his toy the other boy wanted. Fortunately a passer-by intervened and the attacker fled empty-handed. The E-fit has been issued because there are no CCTV cameras in Portsmouth Park where the assault took place. But here is the second joke of the day. If the attacker is caught and found to be above the age of ten he is liable to face criminal charges, but if he is nine he will be below the age of criminality.
Poor Wayne Rooney, the footballer who has a five book publishing deal (last heard of it it was three but we’ll let that pass) is in hot water again. It’s not his prick that’s got him there this time but his dissatisfaction with Manchester United and urgent desire for a transfer plus a raise in weekly salary of course, like £200000? Sir Alex Ferguson wants to keep him at Old Trafford. Why? He hasn’t been exactly scoring goals of late, he is at odds with the management, and he has offended his team mates by making out they are not worthy of him. Do me a favour please! No one is indispensable no matter how big their head is (or their boots) and if he stays at United I can hardly see the atmosphere being conducive to camaraderie and good football. So far evidently three clubs are in the running to take on this maverick and, if I were Ferguson, I would say welcome to him; they are Chelsea, Manchester City, and Real Madrid. The last one is out because evidently his mother in law is not going to have her Colleen go live in Spain and, if he went on his own, how long would it be before his prick got him into trouble again? His sulky antics have already been dubbed Rooneygate. Well, I suppose it makes a change from footballers’ flavour of the month which seems to be getting pissed out of your mind in nightclubs, being charged for assault and touching up the girls who do not want to be touched up, no matter how rich and famous you are, using your best line by saying ‘Do you know who I am?’ and expecting them to swoon.
All it needs now is for some joker to post on the internet the rumour that Rooney is actually gay and the shit will really hit the fan!

Latest News: Rooney apologises to team mates, says Sir Alex is the greatest person who ever lived, and signs a new five year contract with United. Phew, what a relief!

It never rains but it pours. Pours? I think a drenching would be more apt. We have had rain. Boy oh boy oh boy, have we had rain? It didn’t rain cats and dogs; it rained elephants and rhinos with a couple of hippopotami thrown in for good measure. Neither did it rain chair legs. It rained a whole bloody bedroom suite. Being on my own, Chris and Douglas away in London, I was to be found dashing all over the place (at my age?) with basins and towels as the rain thundered down alarmingly and water came in here, there, and everywhere. Thank you, farmers, but I reckon your olives now are swollen near to bursting point so don’t pray for any more rain please. Fat chance! Not that I haven’t seen torrential rain in Crete before but this time I think in a few hours we had more rain than a lot of places get in a whole year. At least it didn’t go on to be another China or Pakistan.
The lady who has received abuse and death threats after having been photographed dumping a cat in a wheelie bin and her details posted on Facebook has been fined for the offence and forbidden to have animals for five years. I think it was five. She’s still saying how sorry she is and to this day does not know why she did it except that she was depressed! Well, is that an excuse or isn’t it? The fine was quite paltry, three figures, the costs more than double.
If you will forgive me, Mister Dostoevsky I would like to continue with my dissertation on crime and punishment the word ‘costs’ triggering it off.
Kenneth Noye is not a name known to many people but he is a murdering thug. He was part of the gang responsible for the Brink’s-Mat bullion robbery in 1983 and was later charged with the murder of Scotland Yard officer, John Fordham who was keeping a watch on his house. Despite stabbing the police officer no fewer than ten times he managed to persuade the jury that he was acting in self-defence and escaped a murder charge! The following year he was jailed for fourteen years for his part in the robbery.
In 2000 he was jailed for life for killing 21 year old Steven Cameron during a ‘road rage’ incident on the M25! He fled the country starting an international hunt for him and was extradited from Spain in 1998.
He repeatedly stabbed Mister Cameron with a nine inch knife he kept in his car while the victim’s fiancée looked on in horror. At his trial he admitted the stabbing but once more pleaded self-defence. This time he didn’t get away with it. The jury convicted him of murder after the pathologist said the injuries suffered by Mister Cameron were ‘considerable and consistent with murderous intent.’
End of story? This dangerous specimen locked away for life so he won’t hurt anyone else? You have got to be joking. He could walk free in a matter of months, his case having been referred to the Court of Appeal, the evidence of the pathologist (now disgraced evidently) being considered not entirely reliable. This is ridiculous. Stab wounds are stab wounds and when they cause death the only conclusion is that it has to be murder.
A jailed Somali criminal is appealing against his deportation order at the end of his sentence. Why? Because if he is sent back home he would more than likely be executed so, no doubt, he will stay in England to continue his criminal career.
Put these appeals together with all the others made by guilty criminals appealing against their sentences and how much do you think it costs the country, ultimately the taxpayer?
A Saudi prince has just been convicted and jailed for the murder of his manservant, a relationship which evidently had sexual undertones. He was photographed on a camera in a hotel lift viciously beating the poor man who of course had no recourse in defending himself. The prince evidently thought he would have diplomatic immunity but discovered otherwise. Now, when he has served his sentence, however long or short it may be, will he return to Saudi Arabia or again will the appeals process be brought into being because, if he were to return home, he would most likely be executed. Homosexuality in Saudi Arabia is against the law. Steal chocolate and lose your hand. Love your friend and lose your life.

When I lived in England I should have been a career criminal. I’d most probably have made a great deal more money than I have done legitimately. Mind you, this is only in the UK. Being a criminal in Iran or any other country living under Shia law can have disastrous consequences. A man who stole chocolate from a shop has been sentenced to a year in prison and to have his hand chopped off.
It has to be genuinely frustrating for the police to actually nick a criminal (as opposed to the poor motorist) only to find the judge saying naughty naughty, slap on the wrist and don’t do it again. The problem of what to do with criminals in society has never been solved. Even when prison was something to be dreaded, or worse, it didn’t stop crime. Today it would seem that prison is a holiday camp. I don’t speak from experience of course. The only time I have been in an actual prison cell was in Wandsworth during the filming of the TV “The Lost Boys”, but someone we know was sent to prison (this was before the days of the ASBO) for possession of marijuana and, after six months, came out a hundred percent fitter than when he went in the food and the amenities were so good. Now there are those who say that is the way it should be, it shows how civilised we are and how we respect yuman rights. But what about the yuman rights of those who are the victims of crime? Is that purely coincidental? Not everyone is compensated and criminals these days, thanks to the directives of the EU and yuman rights, literally get away with murder. So he was sent to prison for being in possession, a minor offence and one that is committed every day by hundreds and thousands of people. It wasn’t as though he was dealing and surely in this case a community service order would have been a more logical way to deal with it rather than have the taxpayers shelling out thousands of pounds to keep him in comfort for six months.
Evidently almost 2,700 criminals have been sentenced to community service after having been found guilty of 50 offences or more. An MP has said “These statistics show what a joke the criminal justice system has become. You have to work very hard to get to prison these days.”
Whatever happened to life sentences for murder? That’s even more of a joke. A killer is given fifteen years and on appeal it is drastically reduced so he is once more at large. Shawn Higgins, a criminal from the age of eleven was spared jail after amassing over 60 convictions in nine years. In November 2008 a judge jailed him for two years, four months, for car crime. Higgins unfortunately was released on licence after serving only half his sentence. Four weeks later he spotted a yellow MG in a driveway with its motor running. A Mrs Sankey whose car it was tried to stop Higgins, who had jumped into the driver’s seat, from stealing it but he drove straight at her, catapulting her in the air like a rag doll. She died later in hospital. Higgins pleaded guilty to various charges including manslaughter. The judge jailed him indefinitely, ordering him to serve at least six years.
Since when did indefinitely become six years? – not much for taking a life is it?

PS: And I haven’t spelt Human rights wrongly. I think yuman rights sounds better.

Blog 192

Watched the first episode of the TV series “The Island”, the dramatisation of Victoria Hislop’s book of the same name. It is in twenty six episodes. Chris and Douglas were both going to work on it, they even had the contracts, when Douglas was diagnosed and that was the end of that, but hopefully not the end of a possible career in Greek television. The opening episode was very good. Just a couple of slight quibbles. I thought Theo used the out of focus shot too much, you know, person in foreground , person in background, and whoever is talking is in focus the other one not. It alternates with each speech. I also felt he tended to drag the ending out just a little bit much. It was very moving until that old ‘get on with it’ feeling set in. The series stars our friend Stelios Mainos in the lead and he truly is an actor to be reckoned with. Chris and Douglas went to work for him in a play in Athens and I went to see it. Even with my extremely limited Greek the evening flashed by with not a moment’s boredom or not understanding what was going on. Have I contradicted myself here?
Isn’t it strange that in earlier centuries the saying would have been going to ‘hear’ a play, now it’s going to ‘see’ a play? We have became (is it because one of the reasons lies with film? orally impaired. That sounds terribly p.c. but I don’t mean deaf. As far as listening is concerned attention span for many seems to get less and less with the passage of time.
In a letter to my friend Gray Lee of Covesville, Virginia, in 1984 he was a student at James Madison and with whom I am still in touch, I was complaining that actors don’t know how to speak anymore. I know when one grows older one gets hard of hearing but I have an extremely expensive state of the art hearing aid and, even with that in me lughole, I still too often can’t understand a single word. ‘Brokeback Mountain’ is a good example of what I am talking about. Not only could I not hear a word of dialogue but the others in the household couldn’t either and they are younger than I and not yet hearing impaired (!) I’ve heard from others that they felt the same way over this movie. There is a paucity of voice classes in America which might explain some of it, otherwise it’s just sheer laziness or bad sound recording, like having the background music in the foreground and the dialogue vice versa. One of my students in ’84 asked to take voice lessons and I duly gave them. Sometime later he called to thank me. He was doing a summer outdoor pageant type of show and by the end of the second week he was the only one still with a voice. Unfortunately some English actors have succumbed to the disease and joined the mumble stumble school of acting. I can only make out one word in five from Bonham Carter.
Chris accuses me of wanting everyone to enunciate in the most exaggerated fashion to which my answer is; the film stars of the forties and fifties etcetera were totally audible without the necessity of over enunciation. Could you not hear every single word Bette Davis or any of her contempories said? I still have no trouble in hearing every word watching those earlier movies.
In answer to my complaint Gray said ‘They’re moving pictures, the dialogue isn’t that important’ in which case why do writers even bother with it?