Phew! What a Scorcher!

Monday. 6.45 a.m.Oh, dear! I think I've pinched a headline from some tabloid newspaper, possibly The Sun, for my latest blog post title. I could have chosen something better, but as it's so good and appropriate, it can stay as it is.

Watching Good Morning Britain, ITV's answer to BBC Breakfast. Richard Madeley has taken over from Piers Morgan, who walked out in disgust over some racist comment, but I'm not sure what happened exactly. I am rather sick of the BBC's 'we know best' style of journalism, which is why I have decided to watch this today.

What I find crazy is that the BBC sold off Television Centre in White City. Meanwhile, ITV closed their studio down on the Thames, formerly home of London Weekend Television, so that it could be upgraded, bought into the digital age, and ITV moved Good Morning Britain to Television Centre, which has been revamped, with offices and flats in part of the site, but some of the studio space which remains (not sure how many are left since the refurbishing.) is rented by the BBC, through their Studioworks subsidiary, and several independent television companies rent the space for their own productions, many for both BBC and ITV. A really crazy situation and I can't see what the point of all this is. ITV must have sold off quite a few of their studio space all around Britain when the various local companies that used to make up the federated ITV when they all merged to become ITV p.l.c. back in the early 2000s. Not only is it crazy that ITV moved to  Television centre, but BBC Breakfast decamped to Media City in Salford. When Granada used to produce 'This Morning', (yes, I know. This is getting confusing, because Richard Madeley used to present that show with Judy Finnigan as the original presenters.) it used to come from Victoria Docks in Liverpool and THEY moved the whole thing to the former LWT studios on the River Thames when it became the main centre for ITV plc. Confused? You will be after all this! What was the point of all this? Just to decentralise the BBC, make it less London-centric. As for ITV, it's just confused and lost it's heart  and soul,when it was made into one conglomeration of all the smaller companies which it was made up  of, since its inception in 1955.

I've produced a second batch of scones. I made a double quantity of the dough and cut it with a larger, fluted cutter. I set the oven temperature a bit higher than last time and baked them for fractionally longer than the first batch and they came out slightly more golden, but much better generally. I have to say, still well cooked, centre fluffy and the outside slightly crisp. Now stored in a tin. Unfortunately, because the kitchen is so warm, it's not an environment I can work in comfortably, even with the window open.

Tuesday. 6.25 a.m. Yet another bright and sunny morning. Again sitting here with Good Morning Britain on my television. 

Just read on the Daily Telegraph website about how the EU is threatening Britain over imports of sausages to Northern Ireland. It just sounds like something out of one of those brilliant Ealing Comedies, made in the 1950s. Or perhaps it reminds me of 'The Goodies' comedy series, with Tim Brooke-Taylor, Bill Oddie and  Graham Garden, where they used to do very silly things. In one episode, where they sent up 'Northern' things, there was a scene where they played a game called 'Ekkey-Thump,' where they had to hit each other with black puddings. You probably wouldn't get away with it today, what with 'political correctness.' Probably the EU would put an end to it with some crazy directive. I don't think the EU bureaucrats would see the funny side. They have very little sense of humour,, or perhaps none. When did you ever see Angela Merkel laugh, or even break into a smile?

Later. 3.25 p.m. I've been out with Alfie. I was somewhat shocked by the amount of litter as we walked around Oldbrook Green. Going along the path on the Evans Gate side of the Green, there is a couple of picnic tables, and under and on the top, I see a certain amount of discarded packets of what look like crisps, burger boxes and drinks cans. A crow is walking around on the grass and it suddenly hops onto the table. It pecks around and then discovered some discarded snack, what look like Hoola Hoops. It manages to pick a couple up in its beak and flies off and lands on the grass nearby to eat the Hoola Hoops. It returns to the table for another couple of the aforementioned snack. It again flies to the grass, with the Hoola Hoops in its beak. I should say it's quite a difficult operation to pick them up and fly with them. A second crow comes along and must have discovered what the first crow was doing. It seems as if the second crow had learnt from the first crow, that it could get a free meal because some stupid human couldn't be bothered to put their rubbish in the litter bin which is close by. It's just fascinating watching all this going on, as I sat on a bench, but, unfortunately, Alfie isn't going to allow this. Sitting on a bench isn't interesting enough for him, so we leave the crows and walk on around the Green. Just fascinates me watching these highly intelligent birds. Alfie finds sniffing and stopping to have a wee far more entertaining!

Later. Just leant that Twitty and Unbalanced have said that lockdown restrictions being lifted should not happen until at least the beginning of July. I do hope we can just get out of this situation a good deal sooner rather than later. I for one have lost at least 18 months of my life. I haven't seen my grandchildren since Christmas 2019. I think by the time I get to see them they'll be starting university. I haven't seen the newest one at all, born on 10th May. People who don't have the vaccine are being irresponsible and selfish. They may not catch covid, but they are still likely to spread the virus without realising it. No excuses to not have it when offered.

Cars I've Owned- Part 1

Over the years I've owned many cars. Some I've loved, but many I have hated. You have a definite love/hate relationship with the car you own, basically because when they run smoothly, get you from point 'A' to point 'B' without any problems, when they decide not to behave, for example, refusing to start, or breaking down unexpectedly, they are more hated than loved. Most, if not all, the cars I've had have been second hand. I never seem to be in a position financially to afford a completely new vehicle, so the old cars I've had were prone to the usual faults such as refusing to start in cold or damp weather and one-hundred-and-one other problems. I suppose an older car is going to cause more problems than a brand new one because the bits and pieces, such as brakes, tyres, water pump, starter motor and so on are the bits that wear out fastest and so cause you the most problems.

Having been brought up on a farm does have it's advantages, particularly when you're starting to learn to drive. There is always space, or at least there was at Malting Farm in Cardington, I don't know whether all other farms are the same, allowing you to be able to drive a vehicle along farm tracks or across meadows and fields without encountering other vehicles. I was able to drive tractors which aren't exactly like driving a car as they have so many gears and sub-gears and far more levers to shift into these sub-gears. But at least I was able to drive such vehicles as Land Rovers which gave me a chance to do some driving, although off-road, before I was able to start driving lessons. 

The first car I owned was a Ford Anglia, the classic car from the 1950's- 1960's. I was working at the Everyman Theatre in Cheltenham in 1969 (see earlier post on here which gives a full  description.) Before I'd gone there I had been doing driving lessons and hadn't yet done my driving test. I don't know how many lessons I'd had, quite a few I seem to recall. My test was set to be during the summer break in the theatre's season so I went home to Bedfordshire. I probably took a few more lessons and then did the test. Unfortunately I failed miserably, on something quite trivial, like not turning right or left when told by the examiner, or keeping up with the traffic. I went back to Cheltenham and did a few more lessons there and did my test and this time I passed! As a result my parents bought me the Ford Anglia, which cost all of £75! I know, looking back, it doesn't seem possible that you could buy a car for so little! It was two-tone green, light on the top half and dark on the bottom half. It had quite a few quirks. One being the windscreen wipers. When you put them on, and you drove slowly, say, up a hill, in a rainstorm, they moved fast, but if you drove faster, for some strange reason they moved slowly. Why? Seems odd thinking about it now. On those old cars you had the headlight 'dip' control on the floor near the clutch pedal, unlike in a modern car where you control the 'dip' with a lever on the steering wheel column. I think it might even have had indicators which actually stuck out from the side of the car when you were going to turn either left or right and not just a flashing bulb on the four corners of the car. It's a wonder they never got knocked off when a bicycle or someone went past. Goodness, how cars have changed, but this is a good 45- or more years ago.

Of course, having a car was made use of as part of my stage management job. Moving on to work at Greenwich Theatre a few years after working at the Everyman Theatre in Cheltenham, as part of my work I had to return a lot of items which were used as props in a show we'd done. I had to load up the little Ford Anglia with no end of items and then drive into the centre of London and return the things to some of the prop hire companies around Covent Garden in particular. I had not been driving for very long and it was quite nerve wracking driving through Marble Arch, not knowing exactly where I was supposed to go and no sure which lane I was supposed to get into as well and looking at an A to Z Atlas of London which was open on the passenger seat beside me. It was quite hair-raising, to say the least. The best way to learn to do something that might be difficult is to just get on and do it, a good motto for life I always think. Spending to much time mulling it over is a good way of talking yourself out of it, so that incident driving through Central London certainly taught me a thing or two and came in handy a good deal later when I used to go in to London in my car when I used to do TV walk-on work and had to get to, say BBC Television Centre or any of the major television or film studios such as Pinewood or Shepperton.

On another occasion I had to drive a large van with a load of furniture into central London and was going to return it all to the various hire firms around the city and beyond. It was a rainy day, which didn't exactly help matters. I don't think I had ever driven such a large vehicle before and I think it must have been the largest vehicle you could drive on an ordinary driving licence. I soon found out that stopping the engine was no easy matter. You couldn't just use the key to turn it off when you wanted to park the vehicle. The only way to stop it was to stall it by shifting the gear stick and the clutch at the same time or something weird which made the lorry shudder horribly. I went with another stage management member to help me unload the furniture, which included a piano. Somewhere in Covent Garden (at a time when the fruit and vegetable market was still there.) it was a real knot of small alleyways and roads and I accidentally got into a one-way street- the wrong way, so I had to reverse the lorry quite a distance so as to get out and so get back into the correct flow of traffic. Not an easy manoeuvre at he best of times, but not helped by the fact that it was raining. My vehicle-driving experience was increased several times over that particular day.

I was always very keen to keep on the right side of the law. For some reason or other, one always gets somewhat edgy, almost guilty, for whatever reason, when you are out driving somewhere and you see a police car, when you're absolutely sure you've done nothing wrong. On one occasion, when I was working at Greenwich, when I'd gone home for the weekend and was driving back to work fairly early one Monday morning. The route required me to go through the Blackwall Tunnel. I never like driving through tunnels at the best of times, but I had to go and ignore an instruction on a reading or one of those overhead gantry things, which told me to move over into a different lane. I just drove on and didn't move over to a different lane and I got stopped by a Police car, pulled over to the side of the road. I didn't have my driving licence with me and was told I'd have to go into a Police station and show my licence. I was numb with fear. I don't know why. I don't think, up until then,  had ever set foot in a police station. So, I did as I was told and a few days later I did just that, produced my licence at the police station somewhere in or around the Greenwich area, was told to not do 'it' again, and went away, fully warned off. I don't think, after that, I ever ignored an instrucion as regards driving in the right lane ever again.

As for hating any cars I've owned one was a bright red Ford Escort estate. Bought from a neighbour. It was a real pain to get started, particularly when the weather was damp or cold. I tried to remedy it with such things as new spark plugs, battery leads and other bits and pieces that I replaced, but all to no avail. It was worse when it was damp, even when there was no rain. Those cold, misty mornings, a slight drizzle, you name it, the confounded thing refused to start. Even having a tow from someone else's vehicle and jump starting, it would not start. So much so I just lost my temper and gave the confounded thing a good kick. A bit like that famous scene in "Fawlty Towers" when Basil Fawlty can't get his car to start and hits it with a branch of a tree. It's almost always when you need to get somewhere in a hurry, early morning, have to get to work. The thing had an almighty dent in it's side for ever after. I'm not surprised I lost patience with it. Stupid thing.

London Visit

I went to London on Friday. I went by train, as I didn't fancy driving. I have applied to join an agency called Casting Collective to get back doing film and television walk-on work. I have done a lot of this work over the past few years, but haven't done any for a while, due to one thing and another. I'd sent my details via their website, and up-loaded a photograph. It had taken a while, as we have an extremely sl-o-w internet connection at the moment (long story regarding this.)but it must have got to it's destination, as I got an email from them telling me that, to join their 'book' for 2010 I would need to go to their offices during November to register. I rang and got the appointment for last Friday at 2 p.m. Carol insisted that Daniel, her son, meet me in London, as she knows that I have no sense of direction, and I think she thought I was going to get lost. Daniel had done his homework, finding the correct train for me to catch in Milton Keynes (the 1204, to be precise.) the right Underground connection, train etc, and where to get off near the agency's office. I texted him once I was on the train to say that I was on my way, and we met outside Costa coffee at Euston station.

Casting Collective's offices are in a rather uninteresting area of London, not far from BBC Television Centre. We got there in good time, as I was texted to say that I'd need to get to the office a good 15 minutes before the appointment. Other people began to arrive, presumably as they were booked for a 2 p.m appointment. We eventually went in and Daniel went off to fill in the time before I came out from the appointment. The door was locked, with a printed message saying to not 'buzz' the door as it was lunch-time and to wait unti 1.45 before 'buzzing' to be let in. Which someone at the front of the queue did. We had to sit and wait in a long line of chairs and then fill in further forms, which seemed to take some time, and I was eventually taken in to the registration area. I won't actually know for certain whether I'm selected for entry into the 'book' until sometime in December, as it isn't a foregone conclusion. I suppose they get so many people who want to do this sort of work, and then, for one reason or another, suddenly decide that they can't do it, perhaps because of work commitments, and then don't sign on. So, I must be patient and see what happens. I do hope so, as they have done a lot of big films, Harry Potter included, and it would be great to work on something like that. The session ended with a photographer doing several photographs, which will go in their casting directory and on their website.So, I went off and that was the end of the appointment. Nothing glamourous about any of this, as it never is. Just an ordinary office in a rather boring street in a rather unassuming corner of London.

I texted Daniel to say that I had finished, a good deal quicker than I had anticipated. The whole appointment was no more than 45 minutes all told. He had gone into Charing Cross Road to look around computer stores there, so I had to wait for him to return. I walked towards the Underground station, and met him about half way. We went back to Euston, got on the train for Milton Keynes and he got off at Watford Junction, as he was going to work that evening. I rang Carol on my mobile, to discover that she had been given a lift from the academy to the carpark near the station, and I met her outside just as I got off the train.