Our Style is Legendary is 1 Month Away

One month to go.

30 days.

Yep, in one month Our Style is Legendary will open in the West End at the Tristan Bates Theatre and run for three weeks.

It will destroy everything in it's path. No doubt.

Oh Christ.

Excited but also feel a bit sick.

Proof is in the pudding.

I think it's beautiful, in a funny way. It may also make you cry.

Who knows?

Your support would be much appreciated, hope to see all of my readers there.

Not north, not south, all notts.

Peace.

Interview with Me by Steve Anderson

Reproduction of an interview originally published here.

Interview: Daniel Hoffmann-Gill

The Nottingham-born actor talks about slumming it as a teen and the tragedy that made him turn his life around.

Across the foyer of London’s Royal Festival Hall Daniel Hoffmann-Gill cuts an imposing figure. At 6ft 6in and thick cut, the actor, playwright and director is almost a giant. However, as he says goodbye to Rich, the designer for his upcoming play Our Style is Legendary, and scans the open-plan hall for his next appointment, I can’t help but think he looks like a lost little boy.

I approach Hoffmann-Gill, who is dressed in a scruffy wax jacket and ripped baggy jeans, and am greeted with a gentle handshake and a warm smile from behind a heavy moustache. It seems the lost boy analogy isn’t too far off as he tells me about his struggle growing up in Nottingham in the 1980s.

The only child of middle-class, entrepreneurial parents, Hoffmann-Gill was significantly better off than those living around him in the notorious St Ann’s area of the city, where racial tension and violence were prevalent. “It was interesting for me because it meant that I could experience a different way of life by making friends and hanging out in that community,” he says. “It was an important education for me.”
Hoffmann-Gill, now 34, describes his teenage years as a sad time, full of anger and violence, spawning from his relationship with an authoritarian father shaped by military discipline. “My dad had a lot of anger towards me and I had a lot of anger towards him. I think it’s a classic Oedipul thing, you want to kill your dad and have sex with your mum,” he tells me, not quite making clear whether he is joking or not.

His rough East Midlands accent comes alive when he spits expletives, passionately breaking his relaxed and soft-spoken demeanor: “I think it’s important when a son’s growing up and he knows he could smack the fuck out of his dad.”

His adolescent violence soon turned inwards as he started using drugs as a coping mechanism to deal with severe self-loathing, and was perfectly comfortable destroying a person he did not care about.
His life was to change very suddenly when he was 16, however, when his best friend Michael died of a heroin overdose.

Hoffmann-Gill reels off the date like it is eternally etched into his brain – “1992, 8th of December” – and for the first time, his easy, sprawling conversation becomes slower and more contemplative. It is less emotional than it is reflective; he has obviously come to terms with his friend’s death. Indeed, their relationship forms the backdrop to the autobiographical Our Style Is Legendary.

When Michael died, Hoffmann-Gill knew it was time to make a fresh start. “That part of my life literally died. That’s the way I believe things should be, if something goes wrong you have to chop the whole arm off otherwise it will kill you.”

A keen performer since an early age and nursed by “inspirational” school drama teachers, he decided to pursue a career in acting, as well as working with problem children in St Ann’s that were wandering down the same dark path he had.

Now working regularly as an actor, making a living from commercials and theatre, the self-loathing of Hoffmann-Gill’s teens has completely disappeared, as he boldly claims he now loves himself a great deal. “It’s not arrogance, but if you make your life reliant on other people giving you love to make yourself feel good, that means they can take it away and reduce you to fucking nothing.”

He says he still believes in a shared existence, however, and proudly tells me he is due to marry his fiancée Eva-Jane in December. The couple met four years ago when Hoffmann-Gill took over directorial duties on a play she was starring in. On a prompt sheet to remember the actors’ names he wrote ‘I love you’ next to hers. “It didn’t mean I loved her, she just looked great. I was like ‘fuck, she’s amazing’.”
Don’t count on the wedding being a big church ceremony though; as an avid science and philosophy reader, Hoffmann-Gill claims him and religion don’t mix. Counting Sartre and Nietzsche among his favourite writers, he calls the Bible and Koran “wonderful bits of writing, but nowhere how you want to live your life”.

“It doesn’t make any sense. Faith is just an excuse for bad ideas.”

Our Style is Legendary runs at the Tristan Bates Theatre, Covent Garden from March 14th until April 2nd. Tickets can be bought here.

On Fairness

Fairness, to me, seems to be a very British thing, it is intrinsically moderate, reasonable and balanced. I like fairness, it is a good thing.

Fairness, it seems to me, has not caught on in many places. Europeans and Americans seem to opt for lofty ideals of justice, which is hifalutin in comparison to common-sense fairness, with all it's earthy connotations.

There is far too much talk of American exceptionalism, I for one have indulged in it but something that makes Britain exceptional is its fairness for all, even though, as a notion, fairness would blush as such an idea. That is what our tolerance is rooted in.

Fairness also enables difficult things to be done or said, it is the sweetener to the bitter pill, harsh but fair is one of my favourite phrases.

Fairness is however, a broad church, that allows for all-comers and there lays its weakness and its intrinsic Britishness.

Fair enough I suppose...

Our Style is Legendary: Reading Tonight

I'm quite excited and just a wee bit nervous, because tonight I have gathered a fine collection of actors, an excellent director and a very fine writer to do a reading of the latest draft of my play: Our Style is Legendary.

The reading is for me as the author to hear how it stands, I have done extensive re-writes of late and staring at the PDF can only teach you so much about the ebb and flow of the text, so I needed to hear it before I can construct the final draft and by that I mean the rehearsal copy; the one I will be sending out to agents and whatnot.

The play will go through further changes once in the hands of gifted actors during a rehearsal process.

I have asked all involved to be harsh with their feedback and the play's mentor, Ken Christiansen, has pitted a question for the readers that he wants answered. I hope that by the time we wrap up, come 10pm tonight (although a swift half may follow), I have plenty to work on this week that will push the play from the realms of the very good, into the exceptional.

I trust the folks I've invited to be forthright, intelligent and honest in their assessment.

Then, my aim is to take all the feedback on board and generate the final draft by this Friday.

My next play is already brewing now that this albatross around my neck is starting to lift. More on that later...

Yet Another New Commercial I'm In...

It goes without saying that 2010 has been the best year of my career ever. Seriously.

I have had, to date, an incredible 60 auditions, which is just mind blowing. Today, for example, I had 3 in one day: a feature film and two commercials no less. My agent is a freaking legend.

Work wise, I've done 5 commercials all over the world (with my Kohler one in the America still doing the rounds); reprised Poles Apart successfully; my debut feature film came out across the UK and is now doing very well in the US (with an upcoming DVD release); Kirky came alive on the BBC (a dream come true) and I've had confirmation that my play about growing up in Notts (Our Style is Legendary, which has been brewing for an eternity) will make its premiere next Spring in London.

And it's only July...

I'm not blowing me own trumpet, I'm just using this blog to document a good time in my life because one thing I've learnt about this acting lark is that at any moment it can go deathly quiet. You never have time to savour these moments because you have to keep your head down and keep going, this blog is all I have, apart from my feeble memory that is.

Anywho, without further ado, here is my latest piece of comedy gold...

In My Beginning is My End

Bluster.

I love that word.

Bluster is something the world of blogging (digitised opinion) is full of and I've played my part.

Political commentary has found an apt home in the world of blogging, most of the top blogs ply their trade opining on the issues of the day, shouting from the rafters their opinions from one side of the wire or other. And then there are the army of comment-whores, either fishing for a fight or cheerleading the agenda.

Seems to me a lot of people are just seeking a bit of human contact by proxy, even if it is brutal.

And so we return to bluster, because so much of political commentary now, whether blog based or not, is all about provocation, obsessed with prediction, interpretation and telling those who actually have real power what to do.

It's all pretty shrill, instant and intrusive and has long ago drifted into bluster but particularly cruel and sharp bluster; desperate for an audience. And let's linger on this audience, which seems to be regressing in terms of what it can handle, we are mostly left with a puerile simplicity littered with Unique Selling Points but little élan.

In this cruel 24-hour news cycle nothing ever stays news for long. Drop it and move on.

The end result is a lot of bluster and the UK joining the US in becoming increasingly immature about how it engages with politics and its politicians.

Which is a damn shame.

My Postman Recognises Me Off The Tele

I've had dabbles with fame before, in varying scales, such as after a show and the audience wanting to chat or have photos taken, to the premiere of "My Last Five Girlfriends" and signing autographs and then being stopped in the street (or worse, just stared at with whispering) by people who recognise me off the TV from commercials or whatever.

It's stepped up a level now as my trusty Postman has figured out who I am.

It seems that Kirky doing the rounds on the BBC and my new advert for VW that has just come out (and that I will post up when I either find it, or can be arsed to upload my copy to the Interwebs), have launched me to new heights of fame and thus, my Postman asked for an autograph.

At the time I was signing for a parcel, recorded delivery and all that, seems this squiggle was good enough, although I was more than willing to give him a more accurate autograph if he requires one.

However, I'm not very good at autographs. I never know what to put and end up either being obtuse or rambling and far too personal. I also have not perfected my autograph signature and have confused many a hunter as they compare signatures that are all different.

Fame is a funny thing, even the mild fame I am experiencing, it is a by product of my job of course but it's an odd experience to be stared at; to wonder if the staring is caused by my pink shorts, or unruly mop of hair, or because they saw me at the cinema. And then there's the texts and emails you get from mates you've not spoken to in a bit, who are jolted into contact by seeing you on the screen. That is one of the upsides.

I do wonder if I will ever ascend to even higher levels of fame, not that I care but the thought of it is both exciting, in that it will mean I am having greater success and terrifying, who wants to be a role model and having your behaviour, words and thoughts analysed and taken-apart?

I'll cross that bridge when I come to it, for now, I'm just grateful my Postman recognises me off of the tele.

Tall, Elusive, Pig-Ignorant Dark Haired Girl Falls Hard For Deformed But Spunky Midget Man. They Embrace, It Looks Like Death, No One Was Saved. What The Deuce? (An Explosion Of A Romantic Novella, Stolen In Homo-Homage From Jake Chapman Of All People)

(What follows does so under the beneficent gaze of Jeffrey Archer...)

(Not that Jeffrey Archer you douche bag...oh never mind...)

It all began with the lover that ended up being cast off (not a euphemism for a sex act) making all sorts of amazing promises to his bride-to-be with the dark do and such was the sheer force of these magical promises that her booby-trapped anatomy belched into his arms with the violence of an overdue autopsy.

Love was surely in the air, indeed, she emitted the following outburst right down his ear canal:

"I love you with all my heart, lungs, pancreas, spleen and kidneys!" she bled, right over him and I mean all over him. He left her to it, to mull it all over and this left a window of opportunity, about the right size for a short bloke full of spunk. So pretty small then.

Afflicted as she was with faith in all matters human, not yet introduced to the cruel dildo of reality that would come crashing right into her valve of inferior vena cava and fuck it right up. This dildo took the form of a deformed midget who, bless him, was actually quite nice if not a little bit loopy.

His mastery of Meatphysics left her all at 6's and 7's, so much so she was all at sea and all of a bother and hot under the collar. This was the midget, after all, who could explain Christians to Dinosaurs, who then, often as not, ate the tedious bores and laughed in the face of their poxy Christ. And by that I mean the Dinosaurs.

"If looks could kill you'd be fucking mincemeat."

Indeed.

Moved by love and the artistic spirit wriggling inside her (again, not a euphemism for a sex act), the tall, elusive girl does a whole series of drawings. This is a selection of her series of drawings and these are drawings, not photographs and anyone who says otherwise is dead meat!

Then there is the bit in pink, the bit in pink that was proper it was.

FUCKING LOCUST! FUCKING HUMAN STAIN! FUCKING SUFFOCATOR OF THE FUCKING CREATIVE FUCKING PROCESS!

Domestic bliss however does not ensure, due to a comedy of errors and a failure to be true and honest with each other and express your feelings in an open and forthright manner. It all gets so forced, esp. when the jilted lover returns to the scene to find his now and soon to be ex-girlfriend mincing about with a midget, that jovial countenances become so distorted that painful, rictus grimaces threaten to give birth their own bloody skulls through their own widely dilated lips.

There is then a sex act...or what that earlier, I may have used a euphemism and not flagged it...oh what the hell...

Add to this the raft of pickled babies mooning down with cheerless washed-out eyes and it paints a pretty grim picture.

In-laws play dress-up, making a sexual fetish of Auschwitz.

That's a tremondously tall order for a vagina!

Fuckface echoes Chlamidya, all nonchalant and au fait.

These days it's all about navel gazing queers shambling around in the remains of the conventional novel, stories about stories about stories about stories about stories about stories about stories about stories about stories about stories.

By the end of it, she has her unborn child ripped out of her guts and stolen by the feisty midget and dies in a pool of her own mess.

("I can't believe he thieved this."

"So?"

"So?"

"All is stolen."

"That is a pretty fucking lame excuse.")

An Epilogue

The lover that was cast off, presumed dead by all and sundry, is actually the victim of a terrible series of invents which include but do not exclude: Flunitrazepam, a field in Slovakia and a midget with a wooden butt plug/hat stand.

Wake up there big man!

[Insert Vincent Price's bit from Thriller right here and now]

State by State. Part 1: Missives on Alabama to Missouri

ALABAMA
I have been there, it was hotter than hell and I had a cry at Martin Luther King's Church in Montgomery. Home to a lot of racism, it might have even been invented there and a keystone in the transformation of the South from Democrat to Republican. Nearly the fattest state but it isn't there quite just yet. Alabama loves Jesus a great deal.

ALASKA
Coldest state by some margin, this may or may not be connected to the fact it has more suicides than any other state and also consumes more oil than any other. The bastards also gave us Sarah Palin and over-fishing. Did I mention it is very cold?

ARIZONA
I have been there. The hottest state, even hotter than Alabama and just pipping close pal Nevada. There is also a serious lack of drive-ins and entertainment facilities, only 10 per 1 million people. Home to a surprisingly large amount of dis-enfranchised white folks.

ARKANSAS
Gave us Bill Clinton. HURRAH! A constant battleground between decency and liberty, not as red or blue as it may appear.

CALIFORNIA
I have been there, who hasn't? Sometimes it is not like America at all. A shed load of people live there, it is America's most populated state. Been at war with Utah to have the fewest smokers in the United States, with only .2% separating them, tune in next week to see who'll win the war on fags! California does win the award for least petrol consumed of all the states, some achievement considering its size. I've also figured out why the rest of the 49 states hate it so: it has more foreigners than all of the others. Rumours of California's collapse abound, will it fall into the sea, will it fade away and can all this be blamed on the Terminator?

COLORADO
A very square state but perhaps not as square as Wyoming which is very square indeed. Square carries unhip connotations so let's use boxy instead. Clear light and thin air, good climate, the settlement of Colorado has a shallowness and impermanence about it. It is a place of romantic individualism.

CONNECTICUT
I have been there. If you live there you are a Nutmegger. Nearly the slimmest state with only 51% of its population obese and another nearly, in that it nearly has America's best teeth. Uses hardly any oil at all and is clearly too posh for oil. Very rich but not as rich as Delaware, a point of some consternation to all the old money floating about there. A place to drive through, famous for being very WASP.

DELAWARE
I have been there and it didn't last very long. The first state is the richest state by a clear margin of $11,000 over Connecticut, perhaps because it doesn't like to tax people very much and is something of an on-shore haven for corporations.

FLORIDA
I have been there and not just to Disney. My dad insisted that we explore other parts of the state and I got to see the joys of poverty in Florida at the age of 19. It upset me a lot. Florida is smashing and loves its own but is the second most popular choice for non-Floridians to move to and call home, so they must be doing something right.

GEORGIA
I have been there and thought it very beautiful, plus, it gave us Ray Charles. Many Chinese live there because the climate is like China, it also loves Jesus quite a bit.

HAWAII
The best teeth in America are in this state but they don't like to vote much, gave us Obama (along with Kenya) but no one knows what Hawaii actually means.

IDAHO
Another state with a made-up name that has no meaning at all...it might mean Hello. Idaho has 10 major rivers, 18 ski resorts and fifteen people per square mile. It used to have a hell of  a lot of beavers but they all got killed.

ILLINOIS
I would love to go to the land of Lincoln, which in theory makes it the best state ever, because although Lincoln was born in Kentucky, it was in Illinois that he made his name. As well as Lincoln Illinois makes its claim to being the best state by contributing Miles Davis, Muddy Waters and Oprah Winfrey. Also, Obama has a strong connection to the state. Never, ever, pronounce the 's' at the end of Illinois, it is a hanging offence.

INDIANA
The lowest divorce rate of all the states, so it is a state of lovers...or masochists, one or the other. They used to make a lot of mint in the state, now replaced by corn, which is pretty much everywhere, especially in the next state...

IOWA
One word: corn. Corn is the biggest thing in Iowa since...well...nothing. Corn is where it is at and as not many Americans are willing to pick corn, Iowa has become an unlikely mini-Mexico in the Mid-West.

KANSAS
I have nothing to say about Kansas. Sorry.

KENTUCKY
America's smokers abound here, 33% of the population smoke, hence the second worst teeth in America, so much to be proud of in Kentucky. Actually, the climate is perfect for a whole range of insect and other wildlife to flourish there, making it one of America's richest ecosystems.

LOUISIANA
I have been there, New Orleans however was to me a vomit drenched blot on the landscape of a fine state. This was pre-Katrina. I had a piss on ice cubes in a trough with lemon slices in, the watery-citrus-piss juice leaked out into an open drain. Louisiana locks more people up than any other state, even more than Texas and they are mad for it, most Louisianian stay in Louisiana, for life. I saw this in reality, wooden houses on sticks in the middle of marshes.

MAINE
The safest and least violent place in all America. Quick move there! It is also the oldest with a median age of 41. If you are not from there you are a 'From Away'. It is illegal to bait bears with donuts and shoot them in Maine and the drug of choice is coffee brandy. I think Maine may be my new favourite state...

MARYLAND
I have been there and if you live there you will know Marylander's have on average a very long commute to work. The state song of Maryland, the catchy titled 'Maryland! My Maryland!' is a racist, separatist dirge with anti-Abraham Lincoln lyrics.

MASSACHUSETTS
I have been there and is my current favourite state because it has Boston in it and a wealth of history. There is no such thing as a Massachusettean but rather people from the state are called Bay Staters. If you look at Massachusetts on a map and squint, it looks like a mini-America, aside from Texas is missing (a blessing?) and Florida is horribly deformed. The state is very much the past and as each year slips by it get's further about the past and less about the now. Loves the Red Sox. A lot.

MICHIGAN
Highest unemployment rate in the US, it has taken a lot of hard blows on behalf of the entire country. You are never more than 6 miles from freshwater, in fact water is a big part of the state. People in Michigan are obsessed with the weather because they have a lot of it, they are also obsessed with being generous and kind.

MINNESOTA
Made in Northern Europe. Only 9% of Minnesotans lack health insurance and it really does not like incarcerating people unless it absolutely has to. They also love voting in Minnesota. This may be to do with the phenomena of 'Minnesota Nice' the perhaps mythical attitude of all Minnesotans, which might have more to do with a deep sense of shame at the poverty they came from and the government subsidies they take.

MISSISSIPPI
Does not like breast feeding one bit or roller coasters, it has a serious lack of them. Poorest state by some distance and does not like foreigners one bit but they were very nice to be as I have been there. Competes with Alabama as the home of racism in the US.

MISSOURI
They have large canoes here you know? They also used to have the fourth largest city in America and the collapse of St. Louis is the stuff of legend, as was its alarming crime figures, which thankfully are now creeping downward. Missouri has become America's mini-Bosnia Herzegovina with the largest number of Bosnians living outside of Bosnia.

America Will Always Kill It's Own For Better Ratings

Endless small towns
Full to the brim with American flags and bad food
All that time and all that television
This is the real America
Where the American slow death plays itself out over football seasons
And raking the leaves
All that heritage
Depressed shells of the American Dream (copyright) they tried to be
No one told them it was a joke
The joke was on them and that the American Dream (all rights reserved)
Is only for the few and that the rest can just chase it
Serve their time chasing in the tortured land of beautiful fugitives
Proud suppliers to the American Machine (trademark): soldier boys, food, patriotic air, good sturdy racism and a raging separatist spirit

America is a nomad
A bastard
A criminal
Cut loose in their own vast country to wander and wage war
Always lost
Always homeless
Come and go
America never notices: body bag or
Business class.

The PCC Submission

This blog post is all about calling the Press Complaints Commission (hereby referred to as the PCC) to account and thus, our press to account. This is an invite to all of my readers to join me in this noble venture established by Tim Ireland of Bloggerheads.

The thrust of it is a request from me to you (that is if you agree, I'll not twist your bloody arm that our press is in a fair bit of a mess) to sign the following petition, which for all you hotlink phobics is also listed here in it's full and glorious form... http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/pcc/

Now, this is much more than a petition; it is a group submission to the Editors' Code of Practice Committee for their annual review of the PCC's Editors' Code of Practice, and it allows anyone who endorses it to add a suggestion of their own (or more, if you wish). In other words, it is a petition that (a) is pretty much guaranteed a group response, and (b) warrants/enables individual responses, too.

Now, Tim has more info right bloody here, as well as a very smart video here and the petition itself has a full breakdown of what we are suggesting, so you can either approve of it, or not.

Aside from that, if you do agree with our cause, then of course do what I've done (and many others) and blog about it, if you want a press that is more accountable and quite frankly, a hell of a lot better than the rabble we have now.

Thanks for reading.

"All Work and No Play Makes Jack a Dull Boy. All Work and No Pay Makes Jack a Mean Motherfucker"

1. Don't compare yourself to others, compare yourself to yourself
2. Throw out the notion of referencing yourself against others, comparison only leads to self-loathing not self-improvement, this can only come from self
3. Don't waste time and obscure your own potential by trying to match somebody else's
4. If you really want to get it done in life then you have to prepare yourself for what becomes of a real moving, living and breathing individual: it is going to hurt but it is worth it
5. End of lecture

Internet Laws Part 3: DeMyer's Laws

Ken DeMyer is a terrible online hack and his uniquely awful writing style has influenced a whole raft of laws in his name, which are best observed by anyone who doesn't want to come across as a bit of a crank and Internet loon. DeMyer's Laws are as follows...

DeMyer's Zeroth Law of Internet Debating states:

“If you are Ken DeMyer...or another of Kenneth DeMyer's aliases, the debate will eventually reach a state where you violate one of the internet laws and you are going to lose.”

DeMyer's First Law of Internet Debating states:

“Anyone who brings Young Earth Creationism into an argument - that is not about creation, the origins of life or the age of Earth - requires no further serious consideration and is deemed to have lost the argument.”

DeMyer's Second Law of Internet Debating states:

“Anyone who posts an argument on the internet which is largely quotations, can be very safely ignored and is deemed to have lost the argument before it has begun.” (On a personal level I have extensive experience of dealing with bloggers that use this terrible tactic, which runs hand in hand with the Argument From Authority fallacy)

DeMyer's Third Law of Internet Debating states:

“Anyone who posts a picture with a caption which does anything other than describe the picture is deemed to have already lost on the point they were trying to make and it can be ignored."

Internet Laws Part 2: Cohen's Law

WARNING! THIS LAW IS INFINITELY RECURSES AND MAY END UP DESTROYING YOUR MIND!

Formulated by Brian Cohen in 2007, Cohen's Law states that:

“Whoever resorts to the argument that ‘whoever resorts to the argument that (insert idea here) has automatically lost the debate’ has automatically lost the debate.”

Has also been stated in the much longer version:

"Whoever resorts to the argument that 'whoever resorts to the argument that... 'whoever resorts to the argument that... 'whoever resorts to the argument that... 'whoever resorts to the argument that ... 'whoever resorts to the argument that... ...has automatically lost the debate' ...has automatically lost the debate' ...has automatically lost the debate' ...has automatically lost the debate' ...has automatically lost the debate' has automatically lost the debate."

Internet Laws Part 1: The Law of Exclamation

"The more exclamation points used in an email (or other posting), the more likely it is a complete lie. This is also true for excessive capital letters."

This law is related to author Terry Pratchett's field test for insanity, in which an increasing number of exclamation marks from one to five indicates increased separation from reality, with five exclamation marks being an infallible indicator of the speaker or writer being "someone who wears their underwear on the outside".

Other examples of The Law of Exclamation include phrases such as: "this is true, it ACTUALLY HAPPENED to me!!!!" or "This is SPOOKY!!! I thought it was just an urban legend, but it isn't!!!!".

The Police Are Experimenting on People...

I was heading off to an audition and was waiting at the bus stop at the end of my road for the short ride to Wood Green station, when I spotted this...

(click on the image to make it bigger if struggling to read the madness on it)

The full text reads as follows:

"Police Experimenting Illegally On Sick & Unemployed
Electronic Harassment Check Web"

Which is a pretty odd thing to find written on a bus stop in an urban suburb of London, I mean I expect to see some tedious gang tags or a badly drawn penis, or at the very least someone's name and a reference to how much they love cock...

Instead we get some apocalyptic warning of the British police experimenting (illegally may I add) on the sick and unemployed and also utilising some form of electronic harassment. I decided to follow the bus stop graffiti advice and check the web. This is what I found...

Bugger all.

If anyone out there can help clarify the story of police carrying out experiments I would be most grateful as I have a few unemployed and sick people I would like to suggest for the program...

Busy, Busy, Busy

As you may have guessed from the title of this blog post, busy as hell at the moment, which is great but I'm attempting to juggle the filming of a new commercial, booking a holiday to Washington DC, trying to finish off a script, rehearse for a new short film, audition for lots of things and teach the youth of Britain how to act and to a lesser degree rap...

But to keep you all busy in the mean time, I stole this video off of my good friend Martin because it was so cute, it gave me cancer of the cute gland.

Until next time!

Blogging About Blogging Spam

I know blogging about blogging is naff as fuck, even if some of my favourite blogs have been doing it a lot recently, but online diaries seem to have metamorphosed, like some future youth, hepped up on growth hormones and stem cell research into these ugly, snide beasts that propagate personal opinion and myth like they are eternal truths.

Why is everyone a political blogger now? Where have all the personal diaries gone? Why do so many hide behind daft names? Why do I care?

Anyway, I thought if esteemed bloggers who are in the 30 best bloggers in the UK at the moment are doing it, then why can't I?

My rhetorical question is: do bloggers have responsibility for what is said in their comments?

The answer for me is an unequivocal yes and the reason I'm asking is that on quite a few blogs I frequent and one in particular, the comments are getting out of hand. Blogger has given us plenty of tools by which to maintain and control comments to stop this; not that I am a fan of moderation at all (as this slows the dialogue and exchange of ideas) but on a basic level, you can delete offensive stuff or, you can close comments all together on a post to stop it descending into an endless tit-for-tat.

At Blurred Clarity, if anyone here uses hate speech in their comments, like racist terms, homophobia, gender bashing, then after a warning, the comment will be gone. I can't let bigotry stand, even in my tiny, tiny part of the Internet. It is a matter of principle.

Some bloggers let offensive comments stand because they support that view but don't want to be caught saying it and can hide under the free speech, anti-censorship stance. Some bloggers let offensive comments stand because they are of the 'give them enough rope to hang themselves' stance, which is all well and good but if the comments go unchallenged it just looks like you condone them. Finally, some bloggers let the offensive comments stand because, no matter what they are faced with, they cannot bring themselves to censor an opinion; which is honourable but makes you a target for exploitation.

I find the best way to kill out of control commenting is to, once all avenues of discussion have been exhausted, to either delete the comments or close the thread.

And I say this as someone who has overstepped the mark in commenting many times before but, as a blogger, you have a responsibility to make sure the comments on your blog are moderated in one form or the other, without repressing people's right to contribute.

Crying at the Coal Face

It can't be easy being naturally gifted?

(Jokes)

I wouldn't know, I've got some instinct but much of what I've got was gotten via graft

True, the older I get the better I get

And I am pretty good

But you're young and brilliant

Be proud please

It's not a millstone, or a curse

It's a blessing and a back-up

And no one can take it away from you

Not matter what they say

And as I stroked your hair and gave you a kiss

I felt your tears land on my arm

I held onto you

And did my best

Because, my boy

I love you

And what you've got

And I'll do all I can

To guide you on the path

You've got to walk, on your own

Swatting away the twats

They'll try and distract you

I won't be there

But if you look hard enough

I will...

Email of Support Re: Poles Apart Part 2

Mark & Dan

I know we said how good the show was the other night but couldn't’t let it pass without formally recording how much we enjoyed the show. I read the comments on the blog, especially the guy from Taunton and yes, you were expressing some comments about the troubles that the Poles have had to endure but we do need reminding of these issues and if comedy makes us think about the horrors that mankind inflicts upon his fellow beings then so be it, because we do need reminding.

Having been to Poland and seen the horrors left behind we cannot even contemplate what it must have been like and we certainly don’t want to experience that again.

On a lighter note it was a tremendous show and we just hope that you keep on producing such master pieces, both of you are brilliant and you both seem to hit it off so well together, (or is that the hours of practicing?).

It was an excellent evening, well done and we look forward to the next show.

Regards,

Graham