Skiing with chocolates

Close, but no cigar

2011-08-16T03:05:00.000-07:00

It has often been said that the United States and United Kingdom are two countries separated by a common language, and on some occasions I find this to be quite true. Mostly educated in London, I also spent a year at high school in the far northeast of New England. During the long winter evenings when there was precious little to do, along with one school friend in particular, I created a long list of all the things that we had different words for. The list is long gone, but contained things like pavement and sidewalk, estate car and station wagon, flat and apartment - you get the idea. Different vocabulary is one thing, but different understanding yields much greater potential for social faux pas as I once discovered.

As a recent graduate from drama school in the mid nineties, I was desperately applying for acting jobs whenever and wherever I could. Trawling through weekly publications, every faint speck of potential for employment was treated with all the reverence of a phone call from Martin Scorsese. Without the additional benefit of an agent, my career hadn't even started at this point.

During the hot summer of 1997, I had managed to get a small part in a fringe production of a play called "Serjeant Musgrave's Dance" by John Arden. Whilst not my first job as an actor, it was the first chance I had to invite agents to see my work, and I was pleased as the play was good and with my small part, I was able to command the one or two short scenes that I was in. I set to work writing letter after letter to agent's offering them free tickets to come and see me in the hope that they would sign me up. With deep joy, huge anticipation and enormous trepidation an agent agreed that they would come on the middle Wednesday of the three week run. This seemed perfect, and I spent the next few weeks of rehearsals imagining how I might like to thank the Academy one day.

The play opened to some critical acclaim and ran well, despite the intolerable heat in the theatre. The play is set in a deep winter freeze, and I have many memories of standing on stage wearing a thick overcoat and sweating profusely while moaning about the cold in my cod Yorkshire accent. The middle Wednesday of the run was approaching and with it the news that my mother wanted to come to London to see the play on the same day. I warned her that a potential agent was coming that same night and if they wanted to meet me in the bar afterwards, she would have to be patient with me.

The day came, and the performance that night was as good as any other had been. When I went downstairs to the bar after getting changed, my mother and the agent (a chap called Edward) had managed to get chatting with each other, and so with a round of drinks bought we settled down for a short polite conversation about the play, my performance and the weather. As with everyone else that came to the play, I apologised for the temperature (from the stage every night, all you could see were programmes being wafted in unison) and as Edward agreed, my mother made the following observation:

"I didn't mind too much about the heat, but my word those seats are so hard. My fanny hasn't been this sore in ages!"

I gulped, Edward stared intently at the ceiling and my mother waited for someone to comment on the hardness of the theatre seating. Edward finished his drink, and we said goodbye. In the car on the way back to my flat afterwards, my mother asked what she had said wrong. "Well", I said, "in the States, a fanny means your bottom, doesn't it?" She agreed and waited for me to go on. "It doesn't mean that here". "Well then, what does it mean?", she asked.

"It's a bit like my acting career at the moment; close, but no cigar"

Dr Peter Mark Roget

2011-08-03T02:16:00.000-07:00

When I was about twelve, a classmate introduced me to the joys of Roget’s Thesaurus. After only a short time, it became apparent that the wearisome task of writing essays would become much more exciting as my characters could now “perambulate” whereas before they had merely walked. I was delighted that an elevator could reach its “pinnacle” at some point in my stories if I so wished, and had you read one of my essays, you too would have marvelled at the literary impact made every time I described someone “decanting” a cup of tea. Thankfully for both my English teacher and for me, this fad soon passed, and I continued writing dull stories that habitually ended with the protagonist waking up, the entire story having been just a bad dream rather than a repulsive reverie.

The irony of writing about language is far from lost on me, and I am happy to be corrected or criticized as the need may be, but one of the outcomes of three years spent dissecting plays, texts and poems at drama school is the untrained love of language that I now enjoy. I am undecided when it comes to the battle between pedantic and progressive camps; I tend to side with the former in terms of grammar and vocabulary, and the latter when it comes to freedom and creativity. In other words, I do prefer “would have” to “would of”, but I cannot construct a valid argument against the the gradual shift that means “proper” will inevitably mean “really”. After all, what would my gay friends think?

I once read that Julius Caesar had a habit of referring to himself in the third person in order to gain a higher status in the eyes of others. I have no idea if this actually worked or not, but I imagine that must have made it quite hard for those in his entourage to know exactly to whom he was referring when he presumably said things like “He’s such a magnificent warrior and has won a great battle there.” Equally confusing for me is the fact that during the last ten years or so, it has become the norm for salespeople in particular to try the same trick. Except that it’s you they are talking about rather than them, and I am not so sure they haven’t just convinced themselves that “yourself” is really the polite form of “you”; they use it with great enthusiasm when trying to flatter you into parting with your money. I don’t really mind it so much, as correct grammar is unlikely to make me want to buy anything, but I just want to tell them they sound a bit foolish and insincere. Doing so would park me firmly in the pedant’s camp, which is a place that myself doesn’t care to be.

Maybe what matters most is the intention, as shown by the eager young flight attendant of a very delayed flight I was taking from Edinburgh to London a few years ago. I think it must have been one of her first flights working in the cabin; she was clearly nervous, but her manner and attention to detail were utterly exemplary. Due to the severity of the delay (which was counted in days, not hours) the passengers were given free food, unlimited drink and countless apologies. I had at last settled in my seat, and was getting my papers ready to do some work on the flight, when she noticed me struggling in the Scottish evening gloom. Fuelled with her Thesaurus, she approached me and asked me if she could “facilitate” the light above my head to make it easier for me to read. Amused by this use of the word but grateful for her thoughtfulness, I considered correcting her for a moment, but smiled and said she could indeed, and with my thanks.

What's in a word?

2011-07-18T00:31:00.000-07:00

John Blatchley was an actor, director and teacher in theatre and opera and I was lucky enough to be in his production of Mary Stuart by Friedrich Schiller, the last he ever directed. It was a second year project at The Arts Educational Schools in the Spring of 1994, and he died before our project was due to be performed to an in-house audience of staff and fellow drama students. He was a quiet and unassuming man, frequently seen arriving hand in hand with his wife Catherine, who held classes on improvisation there. Looking like a figure from a painting by Toulouse Lautrec, he taught a class simply called “text”, and also directed when his health would allow.

His classes were a delight in their unpredictability, humanity and quality. You could never be sure to where his attention would wander next; one moment he might be describing the joy on the face of the footballer Paul Gascoigne, the next he could talk about the merits of the film “The Terminator” and finally he would delve into the intricacies and mechanics of mask theatre.

One sunny morning we were assembled in a semi-circle of chairs around him in a dance studio. Yellow curtains gently fluttered as they hung across the open windows, and he fixed us with his eyes as he poured himself a cup of hot water from his ever-present thermos. “Words”, he mused, “are very powerful things aren’t they?” We sat and listened as he spent the next fifteen minutes articulating the heights of possibility and the depths of missed opportunity that were possible through the careful or careless use of words. I was always patient and respectful with John, even if I was never exactly sure what he was talking about, or why.

I must have slipped into a daydream, as I remember my conscious thoughts being pulled back into the room by him pointing at me and exclaiming, “You there!” (I was never sure if he knew my name or not) “You – what exactly do you think of Coca-Cola?” I grinned at the question, as my breakfasts and lunches for the previous eighteen months had more often than not been a bottle of Coca Cola and a Twix bar. “Well, I like it.” I said. “Really?” John replied. “Yes I do, I really like it. I love it. Why?”

“Well then, what do you tell your girlfriend to make her feel special?” he asked.

See you next Tuesday

2011-07-12T02:28:00.000-07:00

(This post contains profanity)

Patrick, a friend and work colleague of mine, tells this story from the time when he lived and worked in Zambia, organising safari and white water rafting trips for groups of tourists. Part of his job was to collect and return guests from the local airport at the start and end of their trips, and for these transfers they had the use of an old Land Rover that had seen far better days.

At the time it was not unknown for the local police to supplement their income by setting up random checkpoints on roads to check the roadworthiness of vehicles, and issuing fines as they deemed appropriate. One fine August day they were on their way to the airport, and as they passed through a suitably deserted area with no houses or people around, a uniformed officer stepped from behind a tree and raised his hand beckoning them to stop. Patrick leaned out of the window to protest, his face clearly showing displeasure, but before he could utter a word, the policeman barked; "Ah but, I have to inspect your vehicle to make sure of it's in a suitable condition to be on the road. I therefore need you to wipe the wipers and toot the hooter". The last rains had been several months before, and the layers of dust had firmly cemented the wipers in their place since then. As he flicked the switch, Patrick knew full well that the wipers would do nothing. Undaunted by the policeman salivating in anticipation, he then tried the horn button, and as both he and the policeman craned their heads to listen, there came a sound from somewhere under the bonnet that resembled a small animal's dying groan. Despite the car's best efforts, things were not looking good.

Patrick next tried logic; "Now look here, it's the middle of the dry season - why on earth would we need wipers for God's sake?" Seizing upon this clear lack of respect for his authority, the policeman wagged his finger; "Ah but, you should be grateful I am not checking tyres today!" Realising that that the tyres on his Land Rover would not exactly pass an MOT, he then tried charm; "OK, I'm really sorry. What about if I promise to get the wipers fixed? Can't you let me off with a warning?"

"No, my friend, I'm going to fine you and teach you a lesson so you don't do it again". Patrick had tried everything he could, but nothing had worked, and on top of being fined he was also going to be late to collect his clients. In defeat there seemed to be nothing left for him to say except: "You cunt."

The policement leapt forward, his face inches from Patrick's and his finger jabbing him in the chest as he hissed triumphantly: "Ah but, I can and I will!"

Start with the end in mind

2011-07-08T07:52:00.000-07:00

I travel frequently by plane, and apart from the obvious problems of air travel like delays and spending long periods of time in confined spaces, I mostly enjoy relying on someone else to schedule my time for a short while. If I have been lucky and secured a window or aisle seat, I am grateful if no one sits next to me. If I am less lucky, and am destined to share the experience with another at close quarters, I then pray for a travelling companion who is average sized at most, affable and hygienic. If I am really unlucky and get the middle seat in a row of three, then I comfort myself with imaginings of being flanked by a pair of nymphomaniacal mile-high club members of the female persuasion.

Many years ago, after finishing a week's work for a client in Amsterdam, I headed to Schipol Airport for my flight back to Heathrow. It was an unremarkable day, and I was looking forward to going home. I checked in, and then headed off to explore the delights of duty-free. It was only when I had to produce my boarding card during a purchase that I saw my seat was "18B". My heart sank at the prospect of my seat's location, and then lifted at the faint possibility of spending a 45 minute flight sandwiched between Claudia Schiffer and friend.

On hearing the final call for my flight, I approached the gate and boarded. Proceeding up the aisle, I reached the eighteenth row and looked down. In the window seat was what could only be described as a pile of clothes that you would normally see left in the doorway of a charity shop. In the aisle seat was someone who looked the size and shape of a typical sumo wrestler. In between was my seat, and after the appropriate amount of apologies and awkward contortions I was firmly wedged in place. The pile of clothes to my left wriggled once, farted and then lay motionless for the entire flight. To my right, the sumo wrestler was firmly focussed on his work, and fidgeted constantly. Throughout the trip he and I played what I can only call "armrest hockey"; that childish game that people often play where they try to preserve a large amount of personal space at the expense of others. (Some teenagers on the London Underground are particularly good at this, sitting as they often do with their bottoms as far forward on the seat as possible and their legs as wide open as they dare.) Sumo and I didn't make eye contact, exchange a word or acknowledge each other; after all, this was war.

Forty five minutes later we landed and began taxiing to the terminal. As we bumped over the tarmac, passengers began collecting their belongings from their pocket seats, turning on their mobile phones and preparing for the mad dash to customs and baggage reclaim. The plane came to a halt rather abruptly and the pilot informed us over the intercom that he had turned into the wrong gate. This would mean a delay of about twenty minutes as we had to wait for a tug to come and push the plane around. Quite naturally there was an audible chorus of groans from the passengers to this news, and Sumo and I made eye contact for the first time in order to raise our eyebrows and sigh in resignation.

We started talking. First about delays and how useless the pilot was, but then about work, about travelling and about ourselves. As we talked, a curious thing happened. We began to accomodate each other, removing our elbows from the barbed wire of no-man's land and engaging each other in a polite, interesting and interested conversation. It only lasted until we reached the gate about fifteen minutes later, but it was long enough for me to realise that perhaps if we had made the effort at the start of the flight it would have been more enjoyable for both of us. As we shook hands and said goodbye, I promised myself that I would not let something like this happen again.

On leaving the plane, it transpired that the pile of clothes was a very sleepy and disarmingly attractive young dutch woman. Start with the end in mind indeed.