Grace-filled beauty of a New Brighton morning

October 30, 2007 6:16 PM

LAST Sunday it was. I woke late, feeling dead depressed.
Don’t know why. There was no obvious reason, but I’m a poet, of sorts, so this cruel world was never meant for one as sensitive as me.
Anyway, during the night a blue funk had enfolded me in its heart-slowing grip.
But I knew just what to do to dispel the gloom on waking up last Sunday morning...

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Phoney art and why John Lennon was WRONG

October 21, 2007 11:29 AM

AS promised, here are the scripts for the other three ´Thought for Today´ slots I did for BBC Radio Merseyside´s Breakfast show from 15 to 19 October 2007.

ON TRUE ART ... AND PHONEY ART
In an era when we are bombarded by strident images everwhere, the genuine artist has to struggle to get us to notice his or her vision.
But if things go to plan today (19 October 2007), the spotlight will have fallen on the work of the four artists shortlisted for this year’s Turner Prize – one of the most talked about awards for the visual arts in Europe.

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Go-go bars and showbiz stars

October 19, 2007 12:39 PM

APOLOGIES if I’ve caused any of you to choke on your toast and Marmite this week upon hearing my voice doing the Thought For Today slot on BBC Radio Merseyside’s Breakfast show.
I do have a serious, reflective side, honestly – though those who regularly see me when I’m all red wine and bacchanalian antics in Hell’s Waiting Room, New Brighton, might be forgiven for doubting it.
Anyway, it ain’t just ‘Thoughtful’ stuff I do. I recently wrote a vulgar comic monologue about extra-terrestrials making Liverpool the base for an attempted colonisation of the world.
It came out of my attending a comedy workshop led by the brilliant Pauline Daniels.
I see this monologue as the start of my glittering new showbiz career...

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Stuff your interactive nonsense. I just don't want to play

October 5, 2007 6:22 PM

THE police, the NHS, our country’s bloated infotainment industries (digital TV etc) – they are all so terribly keen to get interactive with us these days.
Well, I don’t want to play. They’re not cool enough to be in my gang.
And they can shove their hi-tech services where the sun doesn’t shine.
What everyone fails to realise is this: just because the technology exists to do something does not necessarily mean that that “something” is a good idea.
Television, films, the world wide web and computer games are all slowly converging into one all-dancing, all-singing stream of noisy moving images which are liberally laced with coarse sexuality (and in the internet’s case, really disgusting pornography).
Although there is some good content on the internet (you’re looking at it, dude!), the web’s overall influence is not benign.

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What Paul McCartney can learn from my youthful good looks

October 3, 2007 7:01 PM

IT’S a shame people can’t grow old gracefully – or disgracefully, whichever course nature and genetic imperatives have prescribed for them.
In other words, just accept what is coming to you. You can’t really fight against it. Not effectively.
That otherwise brilliant poet Dylan Thomas sought to deceive us all when he urged …
“Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.”

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