Come On England!

Sunday. 6.20 a.m. Well, I can't really start this post by not mentioning the win for the England football squad's  in Italy yesterday evening. So it means they are only two more steps away from actually winning this championship. 'England in dreamland', being one newspaper headline, another being, 'Pinch yourself . . . we're in the semis!' Well, if nothing else, it will be fuelling certain areas of the economy, such as beer and lager sales, pizza, and probably fish and chips. I noticed huge piles of packs of lager and beer when I was in Sainsbury's on Saturday as well as racks with England replica shirts and other items of clothing on them. You really couldn't ignore any of it. Also, merchandise with links to football, such as Coca-Cola, Pringles, and Walkers, all no doubt sponsoring the football event. A lot of money tied up with football.

Well, football aside (no chance of avoiding it.) when I ventured forth with Alfie at around 5.45, there was a hint of rain, even if it was rather thin. Well, if nothing else it will cool things down as it is quite humid at the moment.

My writing has come to a halt. It's not a problem. It's not due to 'writer's block.' It's more that I know where the thing is heading, I just haven't worked out the mechanics of how such-and-such is going to work. It has to be logical and realistic, to make it work. Still thinking about the different options open to me, then I can sit down and do some serious writing. It is, however, quite strange how things change, even as I'm writing, how things can develop as I'm putting pen to paper (actually pencil. I don't like things to be too set, which would happen if it's in ink. With a pencil, you can rub it out and start again, several times in some cases.) Wandering around Oldbrook Green yesterday morning, I was pondering this particular point in the plot and I didn't know how or why it was (or wasn't.) going to work, and by the time we'd reached the other side of the Green I had come up with a solution (of sorts.) to bring in something which I had thought of some time ago but had no idea how to introduce it. I'm attempting to work out ways to bring in several other storylines so they intersect with what I have already written. It was never conceived as a single narrative, but over-lapping, concurrent storylines. Think of novels by Dickens, where several narratives are running together, or, in television soaps (EastEnders, Coronation Street for example.) where they use this technique, and they break off from one storyline and flip over to other storylines and then go back to the other storyline. The best example I can think of is 'Les Miserables.' I have read the novel, seen the stage musical and film and watched the recent BBC1 adaptation by Andrew Davies. It is written in the same way as Dickens, with overlapping storylines, with the Jean Valjean storyline which runs down the centre, or 'spine' and links up with the concurrent storylines. You'll need to read it and possibly watch it to get my point. All storylines connecting at the end to give the thing completeness, a denouement. A journey, what Joseph Campbell describes as The Hero's Journey.' This 'metomyth' construction common to many stories, such as The Lord of The Rings', 'Star Wars' (well, at least the first 1977 film and the two sequels 'The Empire Strikes Back' and 'The Return of the Jedi.'

Later. I've been out with Alfie at around 9.15 this morning. I'm still mulling over how to shift the plot forward. Thinking as we walk around Oldbrook. I think I've cracked it! How character A meets character B. (No, I'm not telling. No spoiler alerts.) Great! So later I manage to begin to write this sequence. Actually going to be quite central to what happens next. Now it's getting reasonably exciting. I have written a side of A4. I'll just leave it for a while and then return to it. I just want to get the story down on paper and then go back and modify it, tweaking bits here and there. As long as the main points are down on paper, then I can go back and redraft. A lot of over-used phrases and words, but that's not a problem. Time to get out my thesaurus.

Later. 3.05 p.m. I think I have cracked the problem (if indeed it is a problem, which it is and it isn't. I know that sounds odd, but it's not really.) which was so simple that it makes sense. Again, walking around Oldbrook Green was where the idea came to me. These light-bulb moments sometimes come when I go to bed, and usually when I can't get to sleep. It's in those relaxed moments when my mind just drifts which is when these ideas come. 

Lockdown!

(Friday) Another sunny but frosty morning here in Milton Keynes. I've been up since 4.30. Nothing unusual in that, because I can do plenty of things. I started watching a documentary about the Normans which was on BBC iPlayer. It was presented by Sam Willis, and showed the use of a variety of weaponry as used by and introduced by the Normans. I didn't watch all of it and paused it and finished watching when I got up. A really interesting documentary and well worth watching. Made a lot of what else is on, such as soaps such as EastEnders or Coronation Street or endless reality shows such as Big Brother look pathetic and irrelevant, this is what the BBC does best. I think that, if you've read my earlier blog posts, you will know how I feel about EastEnders. A bit like sticking pins in your eyeballs. Just hateful and miserable. Why waste your time watching such misery when there's better stuff elsewhere, a lot on iPlayer? The BBC never seems to trail this sort of stuff and it's hidden away on BBC Four. Go on iPlayer and you will actually find quite a lot of archive stuff which is worth looking at.

I begin to wonder if the BBC, or at least, those who are entrusted with it's administration, have forgotten the first Director General, John Reith's mantra that the BBC should "Educate, inform and entertain." The guiding principles of what is known as Public Service Broadcasting. Too much of the 'entertain' and certainly plenty of informing going on but far too much 'entertaining.' Far too much dross being shown. Stuff that should be only available on commercial channels.

(Saturday) The excitement is getting too much! Scrolling endlessly on Facebook. People are desperate, putting trivia on social media. The effects of this 'lockdown' must be having some sort of effect on people. It is; just trying to keep busy, but, if you are stuck at home, not being able to work, then anything is better than nothing, so scrolling through Facebook and putting senseless stuff on your profile is one way of relieving boredom.

We had church on-line via Facebook on Sunday and will continue to do so every Sunday until this pandemic is finished. There is also the chance to use another on-line site called Zoom, which is intended for conferencing, similar in some ways to eater Skype or FaceTime, but which allows up to 100 people to communicated at one time and we will be using it for a communion service in a few weeks time.

There's quite a lot of free resources currently on-line, such as theatre productions, notably the National Theatre, putting what were recorded productions which were originally screened in cinemas on line through YouTube, 'One Man, Two Guvnors', with James Corden in the lead, which is loosely based on the Goldoni play, 'The Servant of Two Masters.' I had wanted to see this when it was originally staged, but never got a chance, so now I will be able to see it. These productions will be available to view on Thursdays, via YouTube.

I was supposed to have been going to an archeology conference near Peterborough today, but it has been cancelled, due to the coronavirus pandemic. Disappointing, I know, but I have just learned that I can do a free on-line archaeology course though something called 'Dig Ventures,' so that should more or less replace that 'live' event. It obviously can't entirely replace something which is 'live,' but at the moment, with the way things are, certainly better than nothing and it should keep me busy when it's not possible to meet people face-to-face in the 'real' world.

I have been attempting to change the time on my Casio G-Shock digital watch. It's very complicated trying to move on the time by an hour. I have had this watch for around 5 years and have always found it difficult to reset this watch. I found a video on YouTube, but even then it was a bit of an effort. I have now managed to reset the thing, but I think, because it's supposed to reset it set using a radio signal from the nuclear clock near Rugby, I think it did it anyway. The date seems to have reset automatically.

Whodunnit . . . and Why?

The 'Who-done-it,' (or should it be spelt whodunnit?) is a format of many a television series, stage play film or radio drama. They seem to be a regular fixture in television schedules. What is it about them that makes them so popular, not only with schedulers and producers, but the general viewing public? Generally speaking, they have a familiar element to them, rather like a soap opera (EastEnders, Coronation Street, Emmerdale come to mind, but also the BBC Radio 4 Soap, The Archers, which, amazingly, celebrates it's 70th anniversary in 2020, making it the world's longest-running drama series.) Usually set it a familiar environment, a village, a closed society or environment, such as a railway train, stuck in a snowstorm or on a cruise liner, or most likely, a country house, usually isolated from the rest of the world, or an island. Then we have a relatively small group, many or even all are suspects in a murder and then the crime is solved by an outsider (usually) who has a knack of resolving the crime and will search for clues and interview all the suspects and eventually, at the climax of the show, reveal who the murderer is.

It amazes me that some of the locations in which these shows are set that nobody thinks it's strange, the number of murders which are committed. Just think of 'Midsummer Murders', which has been running for goodness knows how long, that there is a murder in that area of the country every week. Surely there's more than the average number of homicides than the rest of the United Kingdom? Why doesn't someone look it to such things? And would you choose to live in such a village if you knew that the murder statistics were above average? Would you avoid such a place? The same with the village in which the BBC1 daytime drama, 'Father Brown' is set, the almost cliched Cotswold village of Kembleford or the village in which Agatha Raisin lives in? Likewise, St Mary Mead, where Miss Marple resides? And what always gets me with these shows, how the detective just happens to be around not long after the murder occurs or at least, as soon as the body is discovered. How come whenever Poirot or Miss Marple goes on holiday, or visits a certain place, no soon have they turned up THAN THE MURDER TAKES PLACE and they are called upon to investigate. And often the amateur sleuths get in the way of the police, and usually manage to solve the crime before the professionals, who invariably get the culprit wrong! Their investigations are generally a total disaster and the amateur sleuth makes them look totally inept.

Most 'whodunnits' follow the same format, with usually the scene being set, in most cases in an enclosed environment, such as a country house, village, or as in the case of two of Agatha Christie's novels, a railway train (Murder on The Orient Express) or a cruise line on the River Nile (Death On The Nile), with the detective just coincidentally being around somewhere when the murder is discovered, then the bulk of the novel revolves around the suspects being interviewed and the clues gathered. Usually we have a small cast of characters, who we discover have good reasons to possibly be the murderer and at the end the detective reveals who the murderer is.

Some 'Whodunnits,' aren't about murder. Better to actually call them mysteries, because that is really the basic plot, because there is the secret at the heart of the plot, or mystery, of who did the crime. They can be about theft, such as some of the Sherlock Holmes stories, written by Arthur Conan Doyle, such as The Scandal In Bohemia.

In effect a 'Whodunnit' is a bit like a knot. There's something which has to be unravelled, a mystery (usually, but not always, a murder.) and it can only be unravelled when an investigator/detective, either professional or amateur, can piece together all the evidence and then decide who was responsible. This person, either male or female, tends to stand apart from the group of characters who are suspects, has a very keen mind and is able to see all sides and the come up with an answer so that the murderer can be bought to justice. Quite often the amateur sleuth gets to the result quicker than the professionals, who are often seen as bungling and incompetent and probably come up with entirely the wrong solution and suspect the wrong person as the murderer.

The detective, whether they are professional or amateur, is often portrayed as having flaws or at least appears separate from the world of the suspects in a 'whodunnit.' One can mention, as an example, Sherlock Holmes, more like a computing system, who is high-performing, in that he is a single man, who can identify clues which other people cannot. It is almost as if he is O.C.D.  (Obsessive Compulsive Disorder) or he's at least on the autism spectrum, most likely he has Asperger's. He finds it difficult to make friends (apart from his companion, John Watson.) but he uses his compulsive behaviour to assist in his investigations. Also, he has a drug habit, which, no doubt, also aids (or even hinders) his investigations.

Other detectives, such as Morse, in the Colin Dexter novels (which were made into a highly successful television series which starred John Thaw.) is a divorcee, is grumpy and has a love of classical music and drives around in a Jaguar, have 'fatal flaws,' (or hamarthia,) which helps develop them as characters and explains their nature.

Jody Whittaker as 'The Doctor' and Watching 'Quatermass'

I've just seen a trailer for Jody Whittaker as the new Doctor, and for what I've seen, it looks good. I won't even go there regarding the fact that a female has taken over this iconic role. Jody Whittaker will be absolutely fine, although she has a difficult job, following on from all the other versions of the character. Just make the role her's and she'll be great. But, please, can we now stop making an issue out of it now being a female character and just enjoy the journey, which is bound to be fun. I had my doubts as regards what it looks like, even in a short trailer of barely a minute or two, it has a sort of cinematic gloss, a look the show hasn't had in years. Definitely a Doctor for the 21st Century. If I have a quibble with how the BBC handles 'Doctor Who,' and that's can they stop giving away plot details, what the monsters are going to be like? It's a bit like reading a novel and suddenly jumping a few chapters forward to find out what's going to happen. In the old days of 'Doctor Who,' half the fun of the show was when the Doctor and his companions were travelling to their next adventure, whether in the past or the future, and we had absolutely no idea where they were going to end up, when the Tardis's doors opened, we saw the new 'world' for the first time, it was all a mystery, we had to discover who the villains were, or what the monsters we were about to encounter would be like. Today it's all spoilt by giving away far too many details and ruining the anticipation. Please, BBC, don't spoil things. If they do anything, the stories need to be better. It's a pity it all has to be played out within a 45-50 minute time frame. It must be an extremely tall order for the writers to tell a story decently in such a length of screen-time. The old Doctor Who was in a 25-30 minute slot and most adventures ran for about 4-6 episodes, giving a far better running time. But of course, in today's broadcasting landscape, everything has to fit the American format for television. Of course it's 45-minutes so when they sell the show to a commercial network they can put 15 minutes of advertising in to make the show run for an hour. With the shorter episodes the writers can have cliff-hangers at the end of each episode which keeps you guessing as to what happens in the next episode.

I couldn't believe that Bradley Walsh was to be cast in 'Doctor Who.' When I first heard about this, I didn't believe it, because I don't believe everything I see on the internet. After all, Bradley is best known as a comic as well as presenter of 'The Chase' on ITV. He's well known as a corpser, a giggler when some unusual or unsavoury answer comes up for the contestants to guess. He has done 'straight' acting, especially in 'Coronation Street' but not in anything such as 'Doctor Who,' so it will be interesting to see what he's like in this show.

The BBC has seen fit to put some of their classic material on iPlayer, in the archive section. I think this is an attempt to counter what Netflix and Amazon are doing with all episodes of a series downloadable so that viewers can 'binge' watch, shows such as 'The Crown,' and 'House of Cards,' (all, at least the new version, although I see the BBC version of 'House of Cards' is available in the archive section. Other stuff includes the brilliantly funny 'Nuts In May,' a really classic Mike Leigh play with stars Alison Steadman, which I clearly remember seeing when originally broadcast in the 1970's.) I'm currently watching 'Quatermass and The Pit,' which comes from the late 1950's. I think I've seen the Hammer version of one of the Quatermass stories but have never seen this television version of a later story. I'm surprised it survives in this 6-episode form and it's quite clear that it must have had an influence on the early 'Doctor Who' series and shaped it's development. Some of the acting and the sets are a bit creaky but nevertheless the story does grip and it's quite scary. Considering the technology of the period it was made and the fact they couldn't edit tape like they can now, it stands up remarkably well. It beats a lot of modern stuff. None of those annoying whip-pans and strange camera angles which add nothing. I believe it was broadcast 'live,' which must have been quite stressful for the actors and technicians. Some sections were on film and would have no doubt have been put in so that actors to move to other sets and cameras moved around the studio. I'm certain that the BBC attempted to restage one of the 'Quatermass' stories 'live' on BBC Four early in the 2000's, at about the time I switched over to digital when I got a Freeview box and I seem to remember watching it and it had David Tennant in it, before he took on the central character in the revived version of 'Doctor Who.'

A Load More Corny Television Clichés (Usually In Soap Operas)

Why is it that scriptwriters, as well as directors, use lazy clichés in television drama, particularly soap? Things that annoy me such as when a scene is supposed to be night time and the action is outside and dark, it's always lit so that you can see the characters and the action perfectly clearly. Why is it so light? Where is the light coming from? The moon isn't always full at night, or if it is it's not always clear and cloudless. It's just rather corny. I bet if I go outside at night and there's no street lighting and there's the chance of it being a full moon, I don't somehow think I'm going to be able to see that well and certainly not other people, regardless of how close they are to me. And it's always a sort of false moonlight-blue sort of coloured light. Why? If it streetlights it more likely to be that orange sodium light that are more common these days.

Why is it when a character in a drama, particularly a soap, is searching for something on the internet, using a search engine such as Google (although for some reason, another cliche, they never actually use Google, which anyone else would use, they use a made-up search engine which nobody else in real life would bother to use, basically because they couldn't use a named 'brand' particularly the BBC, which tries it's hardest to disguise a known name, otherwise they'd get done for advertising. Probably ITV could pass it off as 'product placement' and then get paid by the company.) Anyway, returning to this character using a search engine. How is it that when they're searching for something or other, they always manage to find exactly the right website and THEN, once they're on it, they find the bit of information they're looking for, if it's a detective story, the detective finds the vital bit of information which will lead to the murderer or whoever. Too corny by half. Another one, when there's something someone wants to hear about, such a news item, how is it, when they turn on the television or perhaps a radio, it just so happens to be EXACTLY the right bit of news on when the set comes on, at just the right time, with exactly the right person or thing that they wanted to know. The headlines on the front of a newspaper just HAPPENS to be about a particular incident, a murder, a police investigation, which is the main subject of a particular television drama, how is it it is on the front of the paper at that particular moment in time, or if it's inside the paper, when a character is looking for it they find it so easily, without making any effort to search for it? If I was looking for a newspaper article I imagine it would take a good deal of time and effort before I discovered it, having waded through many pages before I found it. Totally unrealistic. I realize that television drama isn't always supposed to be REAL, but at least make it believable. I know it speeds up the action, but why does it have to be so UNREALISTIC?

In a soap, particularly EastEnders, so many of the characters find it difficult to communicate logically. Why are they endlessly searching for another character? Why not just use their mobile phone and RING UP the other character or text? Wouldn't you do that in real life? They do seem to spend an amazing amount of time on this search for so-and-so. Again, crazy and unrealistic. Just another cliche.

In soaps, why do so many of the characters put up with the generally awful surroundings they live in? In EastEnders or Coronation Street, why is it that someone like Ken Barlow, who had a degree, became a teacher, then ran a local newspaper (amazing and very unconvincingly, all on his own. How come? Was he editor as well as reporter etc etc.) He then became a local councillor or something, and ended up as a (wait for it) trolley collector in a supermarket! Crazy and unrealistic. How many wives has he had and why has he spent his life living in a somewhat rundown back-street in a Manchester suburb? Why on earth didn't he move away years ago? Totally ridiculous and crazy sort of thing for a man with his academic ability. In real life, how many people remain in exactly the same street they were born and raised in and then went to university and then come home and spend the rest of their life in? I know a soap isn't supposed to be like a documentary, but at least make it a bit more convincing. I know I wasted a lot of my time watching Corrie for years and years, but I haven't seen it for more than 10 years so I'm somewhat out of date with the characters and plots, but I don't imagine things have moved on much.

In other forms of drama there's got to be some sort of journey for the characters to go on as the story develops. The central character has to change as things develop, he/she should be different at the end of the story, at the climax of the plot, to have learnt a lesson to some or a greater extent. In soap opera the characters never seem to develop, to learn from their mistakes and try to change things. They're not supposed to, because the audience expects things to be safe and cosy. To retain the audience it's no good having the characters change too much. That is what makes soap so popular, the fact that you know exactly what you're going to get each time you tune in. It's a sort of familiar and safe place for your returning audience. Make too many changes, such as writing out characters to frequently or changing the location, you'd find you would loose your audience in droves and a soap is really there in the schedules as a ratings winner. The fact that a soap is set in one location, such as a Manchester suburb street, a square in the East End of London means that it's a good deal cheaper to produce with fewer sets which can be reused endlessly and cuts down the expense of producing the show. Also, with a large cast of characters they can have virtually endless plots created for them, even if they are actually recycling the same sort of plots week after week and year after year.

I can see why soap is so popular, but for me they're just full of stock characters and cliched plots that are, as I've already mentioned, recycled endlessly. I can't stand the fact that most storylines go one ad infinitum. I want plots that come to a definite conclusion some how or other and characters that change. We always get a 'big story' breaking over the Christmas period. Who'd ever get married in a soap? There's always a big bust up or some 'reveal' whenever there's a wedding, or someone who's been out of the show for years suddenly makes an appearance or a long-lost relative makes an appearance or the illegitimate child of someone appears who didn't realise they even existed. Or as I say, at the big Christmas dinner there's an almighty bust-up or another 'reveal.' Just think Angie Watts and Den, when Den gives Angie the divorce papers on Christmas Day, perhaps one of the first big 'events' in the early days of the soap. 

Cliche and Over-Worked Plots In television soaps

In my last post I managed to hint at a subject which intrigues me a great deal and that is the subject of cliche, nowhere more prevalent than in the area of films and television soaps. If you watch soaps on television you will no doubt be aware of the over-use of certain story lines, stereotypes etc. I cannot actually see what the attraction of soaps is, although  in the past I have been caught up in the long-running story lines of soaps such as Brookside (long since cancelled), Emmerdale, EastEnders, Coronation Street and the only radio soap left, The Archers. Admittedly, it has to be said, it must be extremely hard to keep a soap going for 52 weeks of a year, and there must be times when there is nothing much happening as regards plot. But then there are big stories that are supposed to hook the viewer, usually at peak times of the year, most notably at Christmas. The cliche of the big Christmas 'reveal' around the dinner table in EastEnders, Den giving Angie the divorce papers in EastEnders was during a Christmas episode and consequently the rating soared to record levels. Some long-running soap story lines do 'hook' the audience, for example the Trevor Jordache 'body under the patio' in Brookside which ran and ran and was a definite 'hook' (I have to admit I was caught up in it during the 1990's.)

It has often intrigued me about soap and that is, why do the characters live and work in such a small area, i.e. a small northern backstreet,  an east-end square that  is run-down, etc etc and not only live and work there, but form relationships with one another in such a small area, why do they never seem to do what the rest of us do and not move away from such a small area?  I know, you're thinking to yourself as you read this, "well, it's not real. It is drama, and it isn't supposed to be real." But that doesn't excuse the fact that it doesn't bear any resemblance to how the 'real' world acts and behaves so we can at least identify with what we're watching. For example, why is it they never seem to move away from that little closed world as the rest of the world does? Some do seem to go outside the confines of this small world, but when they do they never seem to return or are forgotten. Perhaps it's because of the soap format, the restrictions of the soap 'form' because if they do the soap can't work. In that respect I find it so boring, so depressing and unimaginative. I suppose the story lines have to work within such a restrictive format because it is an open-ended form of drama, because it is expected to run several time a week, for 52 weeks of the year. For me, I have to say I prefer something which ties up within one episode or over a set number of episodes. We rarely get single dramas or plays on television as we used to have in the 1960's or '70, with such strands as 'Play of the Month', 'The Wednesday Play', 'Play For Today' or 'Armchair Theatre.' It's a pity that everything seems to fit into a series slot, either crime, mystery, who-done-it, medical, etc etc. There's nowhere to go for a 'one-off' story. The BBC have done daytime drama series, such as 'Moving On' which has a sort of theme, but all the stories are told over a 45-minute running time and don't relate one to the other with stories overlapping or having returning characters. A bit like short stories in the printed form as opposed to long-form writing with, say, novels.

Why do soaps get such high ratings? Could it be that it's actually a habit-forming sort of drama. Soaps are on several times a week and at the same time. Also, people are drawn to the gossipy element, everyone love to 'find out' the latest bit of juicy gossip, which is always carried by the tabloid newspapers. Soap seems to sell newspapers so it's a sort of cyclical thing, soaps drive sales, the audience for soaps soar and round and round it goes.

I do seem to have wandered off the topic of cliche, but never mind. Once I get going on a subject such as this it is always so easy to get onto another area. I'm just interested in why people get so hooked on soap, unfortunately they don't have much else on that they can get their teeth into. Soaps seem to make good topics for the tabloids whenever they use social issues as the basis for story lines. It was usually such playwrights such as Dennis Potter, Mike Leigh and all those who wrote for the BBC series such as 'Play For Today' and 'The Wednesday Play' which used such subjects as homelessness which made those plays so memorable.

EastEnders and Coronation Street are one big cliche without going into too much detail. Corrie is stuck in some sort of late '50's early 60's time warp.  EastEnders is stuck in a sort of 1980's time warp. Do people still live in backstreets like that? Wouldn't that area have been bought up by developers and been bulldozed long ago and been replaced with a retail park, modern houses and business premises? As for EastEnders, can someone please explain how it is no one in Albert Square owns a washing machine? And from experience I have used quite a few laundrettes, but the one near Albert Square has staff who DO YOUR WASHING FOR YOU and the place looks dirty and uncared-for and would most certainly put off customers. Why, whenever the writers want to kill off a character or characters do they have someone run into or run over by a car, when there are surely no more than half a dozen cars in the Square and that person just happens to walk into a car when there are no other cars about and there's no through-traffic? Ludicrous and silly, to say the least. How is it so many of he EastEnders characters can afford to spend so much time in the Vic pub (the same can be said of Corrie in the Rover's and Emmerdale in the Woolpack.) and they drink excessive amounts of alcohol yet can still stand up straight and walk in a straight line. Most people would have permanent hang-overs and be falling all over the place. No one seems to have a job that would earn them enough to be able to afford to buy the homes they live in. Most of the houses in that area of London would be worth far more than they could afford.

I could go on. I may return to this subject in future posts.

Creative Writing

My writing is going well at the moment. I'm not sure whether I mentioned on here that I'd done a one-day creative writing course at Milton Keynes Art Centre one Saturday at the beginning of November and as a result of that I have got a good deal more confident as regards sharing my work with other people. From that course I'm signed up for a further 10-week evening  creative writing course, again at Milton Keynes Art Centre, and again lead by Deborah Fielding. I'm really looking forward to this and I'm absolutely sure that it will inspire me to write new material and also help with my writing in general.

I've been watching the series 'Moving On' which is a BBC 1 early afternoon drama series which must by now be in it's fourth or fifth series. It's shown each day for a week. I remember the BBC doing what are termed 'single dramas' when I was growing up in the 1960's, series of plays such as 'The Wednesday Play' which eventually became  'Play For Today. ' This series is very much in the same mold, and the plays feature subject-matter which is far more socially-aware than a lot of current, prime-time television drama. Writers such as  Alan Bennett, Dennis Potter, John Mortimer and Mike Leigh and wrote plays for these drama 'slots'. Mention of John Mortimer reminds me that he wrote ' A Voyage Round My Father' which I worked on at Greenwich Theatre in the early 1970's and started life as a Play For Today. 'Moving On' is produced and developed by Jimmy McGovern, a writer whose work I very much admire. My own writing is an attempt to produce more current material,  and has, hopefully a sort of depth to it. My current 'multi-strand' project was inspired by 'EastEnders.' I'm not actually a lover of this 'soap' and I wanted to attempt to create my own project much in the style of a soap in that it's set in a single location. I used Bedford as the location so that I could tie the various elements of the stories together (although it isn't actually set there.)  Some of the characters are based on people I observed while I lived there, not necessarily their real stories, but from making observations and visiting various places which I was familiar with was able to develop some of the characters and stories. Much as in the style of a soap, but I hope I am able to get away from the somewhat stifling restrictions which the average television soap has, such as the same old recycled story lines and the fact that the stock characters only live within such a restricted setting (i.e. a street, square or village such as Coronation Street, EastEnders and Emmerdale.) Some of the stories over-lap and characters cross between the various story elements. I had intended to have a single day as the time-frame, but having got so far with the project it seems that this will be too restricting and it now seems to cover a far longer time frame. As it has developed I am really surprised how the characters individual stories have grown and extended far beyond what I had at first envisioned and I'm more than pleased by how it has gone.

Working In Care- Part 6

The residents of the house in Everton had a good life. They went out and about, not only going to daycare, but some went shopping with staff, not just food shopping (although most of this was done using the internet, which saved time and effort as it would be delivered by the supermarket, Tesco, just the same as  for any other customer.) but also to shop for their own things, such as clothes. The lady I supported at the daycare centre in Biggleswade also went to a lunch club which was held several days a week in a church in Brickhill in Bedford, St Mark's. They not only got a meal, served by volunteers, but could play games, such as bingo.  As the homes that the residents had been moved into when Bromham Hospital was closed in the late 1990's had many friends which they had made in the time they had lived at Bromham, it was felt that they would want to continue seeing their friends, if they had for example been moved to a home some distance away from where they lived. Everton is some way from Bedford, perhaps the furthest out from the centre of Bedford, so these lunch clubs were set up so that residents could keep in touch with their friends. There was another one in Harrold, a village the other side of Bedford, which had the same sort of remit as the one in St Marks. 

Now this lady, who was in her 80's, was a keen player of bingo, but if she didn't win she would become very upset. You try telling her that she couldn't always win,  she would get very annoyed, but we are talking about someone with a learning disability. She had an extremely strong personality and was quite wilful if she didn't get her own way, which was quite often. She was obsessed by television soaps, and watched all the regular ones such as EastEnders, Coronation Street and Neighbours. I think she more or less lived her life through these shows and would talk endlessly about the various plots and the exploits of the characters, to the point that I think she thought it was real. We had to time her bed-time to the soap's schedules, and she had to be ready for bed so she could sit and watch one or other of these programmes. I didn't actually have any interest in any soap at that time, so, in order to be able to talk about them I began to watch some of them, which was something I did so that I could interact better with her.

Each year the residents went on holiday. Not always all together as some of them had holidays on a one-to-one ratio with staff as some needed more individual attention. Another lady who lived in the house and well into her 80's, could be extremely stubborn. Well, I suppose if you had reached her age you had every right to be stubborn and difficult. She didn't like going out much and whenever she was asked she would refuse point blank. Although there was one thing that would get her to go out and that was a cream cake and a cup of tea, generally consumed at Willington Garden Centre which is not that far from Everton. Even when it was baking hot in the middle of summer she would insist on wearing her vest and a really thick coat and wooly hat! Try and prise them off her and she would get quite aggitated. When the rest of the residents were told they were going on holiday (to somewhere on the east coast, Cromer I think, but I'm not sure.) she wasn't told and was got ready on the day the mini bus was going to depart. It was quite an ordeal loading all the wheelchairs into the minibus as they had to be put in so that each could be locked using a special device which hooked over the axels and then into a sort of grooved track in the mini bus floor. This meant that the wheelchairs were firmly anchored and wouldn't move about as the mini bus moved along. It could take a good 45 minutes to get all the wheelchairs into the vehicle and loaded using a hydraulic lift on the back of the vehicle.

I enjoyed the days when, instead of merely staying in the house with the residents we took them out and about, for example, to the daycare at St Marks or to the college in Biggleswade. One Sunday when I was on shift we took some of them to Whipsnade Zoo. I have always loved Whipsnade from my childhood, so to have a free day out there, even if I was officially working was something of a bonus. Not that it was an easy day, far from it, as not only did we have to load and unload the client group in their wheelchairs, but we had to push them around all day, which was extremely hard work. We had made up a picnic so that the group could have their meal out but we also had to take all their medication with us as most of the residents were on quite a lot of medication and we had to make sure they were given this at the correct time. This also meant taking their administration charts to make sure it was all given properly and marked off correctly.
Anyway, we arrived at Whipsnade (I seem to recall I drove in my car with another agency carer, so I wasn't in the mini bus on this occasion. Perhaps it was for lack of room or something.) We unloaded the residents and then discovered that we were a wheelchair missing. The gentleman responsible (I'm not mentioning his name. I have not mentioned names on here as it might infringe confidentiality.) was a Senior Support Worker and he should really have checked before they had left Everton to make sure they had everything for an afternoon out with the client group, including wheelchairs. So while we sat in the bus, he went into the zoo to fetch a wheelchair that could presumably be hired for those customers who had a need for one. He returned a few minutes later and it turned out this wheelchair had no straps and the brakes didn't work properly. And who was it had to push this wonky wheelchair for the rest of the afternoon? You've guessed it, yours truly! And it was something of an effort as Whipsnade is not all flat surfaces. There was the possibility that the client who used the wheelchair which I was pushing might fall out without the required straps to hold him in, or the wheelchair might run away down a steep slope and he could have come out in quite a nasty accident. But fortunately nothing of that sort happened. The afternoon was unfortunately cut short when it began to rain, so it was a rather wasted afternoon, and quite a long journey from Everton to Whipsnade then back again.

A Few Days Away- Part 3

On Friday, our final day in the North West, we left the hotel early once again, having packed up everything in the car. We went to Salford Quays, to visit the Lowry Centre. This is a theatre and art gallery, named after the artist L.S. Lowry, who lived locally. We had something to eat in a Cafe Rouge and then went to the Lowry, and then we found that it didn't open until 10 o'clock so we spent some time in the Lowry outlet shopping centre. This is similar to the Galleria in Hertfordshire and the Bicester Village in Oxfordshire, both of which we've visited on several occasions and bought stuff such as shoes.

The Lowry, Salford Quays

The Lowry is a somewhat quirky building, looking as if it's made up of oddments and inside it's all bright colours and at peculiar angles. Even the floor downstairs in at a slight angle, it slopes slightly which is somewhat disconcerting. We eventually went up on the excalator to the gallery area where there is a good exhibition of Lowry's paintings and drawings. I was surprised by the variation in his work, imagining that all his paintings were of 'matchstick men'. Anything but. There are a lot of those familiar scenes of industrial landscapes with the classic 'matchstick' figures, but he did a lot of portraits and scenes that aren't so typical.

Media City UK, Salford Quays

Incidentally, Salford Quays is the location of Media City, UK, which is where BBC Breakfast now comes from. It's a very modern looking building and stands out quite distinctively from the other buildings. Quite a lot of BBC shows are made there, including Blue Peter, In It To Win It etc. ITV is supposed to be relocating later in the year, and the Coronation Street lot (the outdoor set) is being built nearby.

So, on leaving the Lowry, we went back to the car, which we'd parked in a multi-storey carpark, and drove out of Salford towards the M6, Milton Keynes and home. It was a long journey as there were long delays along the motorway, and we got back to Milton Keynes at around 4.30.