I am writing a poem to try and compete at the Stanzmania Poetry Slam at Colchester Arts Centre on Thursday for work.
Been writing it today. I figure hiding behind comedy is my best bet as I am (like most other people) terrible at poetry.
It's called "I fancied you so much that I became a cyber-stalking nut job"
I have a bone to pick with you, Elaine,
That's right, I know your name,
Have you any idea how much time that it took,
To get enough details to add you on Facebook?
I guess it started in 2007,
You were bowling in aisle 10, me in aisle 11,
I was alone and you with your mates,
You know that stumpy Brunette, Kathleen or Kate?
She yelled "Hey Elaine you're up next"
We both went for the same ball and out eyes met,
And you smiled and it knocked me out for a strike,
And with the voice of an angel said "You can take it if you like"
So I took it and you watched me find the gutter,
And you laughed and my heart melted like butter,
You turned and went back to your friends,
And for you that's where our encounter ends,
But not for me - I don't give in without a fight,
I started researching you that very same night,
Straight off the bat, I'll confess this to you,
Ok, I was the guy that stole your shoes,
Not for anything weird, or anything wrong,
I mean, sure occasionally I slip them on,
And parade around my flat and take pictures of my feet,
or keep them in my bed so I can smell them in my sleep,
Look, Im getting off track,
Point is I had your first name but not a lot more than that,
So I looked up every Elaine within 20 miles,
Got all their numbers and from a phone booth I dialled,
I visited the houses of maybe nine different Elaine's,
Rang their doorbells and ran away,
And I knew you would be trouble because you were the last one on my list,
You emerged from your door like a ship from the mist,
Like a punch from a fist, like a knife from my wrist,
And you were wearing a similar expression to now,
As you came out in your PJs and looked around,
I thought about rolling out from under your dads car,
Just to tell you how beautiful you are,
But you got cold and went back in,
So I hopped you fence and rifled through your bin,
And found some payslips from your weekend job at Boots,
Oh and some discarded gum and tissues which are framed up in my bedroom,
I ran home never more in love,
Guided by a sparkling sea of stars above,
Which seemed to move to form the outline of your face,
And I screamed your name and it echoed into the eternity of space,
I added you to the social network site,
And stayed awake staring at your profile for three consecutive nights,
On the 4th night I got a message that I never expected,
"FRIENDSHIP REQUEST REJECTED,"
So I tried again maybe five, or ten, times,
And decided that I would follow you until you changed your mind,
So everywhere you went I was three paces behind,
At the library, the park, the supermarket checkout line,
At the swimming pool, the pub, when you picked up your little sister Heather,
At the train station, at the your grandmas, family only, 80th birthday get together,
I just thought we could get to know one another,
And maybe sometime, next week, you could meet my mother,
I just want all the stuff that other couples have got,
You know names for kids, deposits on adjacent burial plots,
I know I've garbled and not made much sense,
And I've been told that sometimes I come off a little bit intense,
But we could get married, make love below a weeping willow,
And when you're 95 and terminal I'll smother you with a pillow,
And we'll be together in heaven with no space between,
And rule it together me as king and you as my queen,
But you've blocked me from Facebook, ran off, left me bitter,
And I guess the only saving grace is you've got an account on Twitter.
Early draft.
Need ideas.
Saturday 8 October 2011
Saturday 13 August 2011
Blind woman story explodes
So a story from my little provincial newspaper has blown up and gone national, being aired on tv stations, radio broadcasts and making the biggest selling daily paper in the country. This is how.
On Tuesday I received a phone call from Susan Henshall.
She is a lady from Dovercourt with only ten per cent vision in her left eye and uses guide dogs to get around.
She informed me that she had just been evicted from the White Coffee House in Kingsway, Dovercourt, for trying to take her latest guide dog, two-year-old Usef, in there.
She was offered a seat outside and refused, opting instead to report the cafe to the Guide Dog association and to call me.
Refusing to speak over the phone, Miss Henshall invited me to her bungalow where we discussed the details, I met Usef and invited a photographer along to grab a snap of them together.
I put the story together, spoke to the cafe regarding their side of events, stood it up with legislation from the Guide Dogs association and told my newsdesk I thought it was a strong contender for our front page that week.
It ran as a page three lead for the Daily Gazette and, sure enough, was promoted to a front page splash for the weekly Harwich Standard.
The following day I was in court covering District Judge day, when I got a call from my news editor, James Wills, informing me the Daily Mail wanted to buy the story.
And so it began to run nationally.
The next day I received a call from the Jeremy Vine show asking if they could use the story and asking me to contribute on air.
I handed the honour to my editor, Brendan Hanrahan, who took the interview in our office while we listened to the live broadcast through headphones.
(37 mins in).
It has now been on Daybreak, Anglia TV and Miss Henshall contacted me the day after to thank me for the piece and offered me an exclusive follow up for breaking the story.
I fielded a call from the son of the cafe owners who was unhappy at the level of the coverage but we came to an agreement that the article was only representing the truth of the matter and represented his parents comments to me well.
As well as being hugely self congratulatory, this post is more about the way a good story can be universal.
I've been reading, with amusement, the vitriolic comments under the Daily Mail story. People from all across the country commenting on my little story with such passion.
Miss Henshall herself has told me it will help raise awareness to cafe owners and guide dog users so they can discuss this grey area of the law more openly.
Incidentally, the photographs, which made the story, were taken by our Newsquest 'snapper' Seana Hughes. In many ways the photograph enhances the story.
(And it was her idea for a GV of the coffee shop).
On Tuesday I received a phone call from Susan Henshall.
She is a lady from Dovercourt with only ten per cent vision in her left eye and uses guide dogs to get around.
She informed me that she had just been evicted from the White Coffee House in Kingsway, Dovercourt, for trying to take her latest guide dog, two-year-old Usef, in there.
She was offered a seat outside and refused, opting instead to report the cafe to the Guide Dog association and to call me.
Refusing to speak over the phone, Miss Henshall invited me to her bungalow where we discussed the details, I met Usef and invited a photographer along to grab a snap of them together.
I put the story together, spoke to the cafe regarding their side of events, stood it up with legislation from the Guide Dogs association and told my newsdesk I thought it was a strong contender for our front page that week.
It ran as a page three lead for the Daily Gazette and, sure enough, was promoted to a front page splash for the weekly Harwich Standard.
The following day I was in court covering District Judge day, when I got a call from my news editor, James Wills, informing me the Daily Mail wanted to buy the story.
And so it began to run nationally.
The next day I received a call from the Jeremy Vine show asking if they could use the story and asking me to contribute on air.
I handed the honour to my editor, Brendan Hanrahan, who took the interview in our office while we listened to the live broadcast through headphones.
(37 mins in).
It has now been on Daybreak, Anglia TV and Miss Henshall contacted me the day after to thank me for the piece and offered me an exclusive follow up for breaking the story.
I fielded a call from the son of the cafe owners who was unhappy at the level of the coverage but we came to an agreement that the article was only representing the truth of the matter and represented his parents comments to me well.
As well as being hugely self congratulatory, this post is more about the way a good story can be universal.
I've been reading, with amusement, the vitriolic comments under the Daily Mail story. People from all across the country commenting on my little story with such passion.
Miss Henshall herself has told me it will help raise awareness to cafe owners and guide dog users so they can discuss this grey area of the law more openly.
Incidentally, the photographs, which made the story, were taken by our Newsquest 'snapper' Seana Hughes. In many ways the photograph enhances the story.
(And it was her idea for a GV of the coffee shop).
Friday 5 August 2011
"Dance" A short stoy by James Cox
DANCE
It plays the song, the radio does,
And as it plays she sings along.
She learnt the words when she was young,
The song came on the radio and slammed the breaks on her day.
Her Pavlovian response was to squeeze shut her eyes and smile.
Without consent her body began to sway and her arms extended around the space where he no longer was.
If he were to fall out the sky at that moment, Jim would have slotted perfectly into the gap between her cheek and flattened palms just as he had done all those years ago.
The snare played a sassy shower. A trumpet blew a glassy melody.
She was twenty years old and at the Corn exchange home guard dance.
Jim was a taut 23 year old cutting a fine figure in his de-mob suit, with his thick tanned wrists and perfect nose.
He lead her to the shiny wooden floor with little more than a smile and they stayed there until the MC raised the lights.
When she opened her eyes she was 78, and wearing every year.
She wiped away the swell of a tear.
“You old fool,” she said aloud.
“This is a dedication,” read the announcer, “from Jim to Matilda. He says thanks for the memories and being you, even when I was barely me.”
The music played on and a nasal crooner with a geometric voice began to sing.
For a moment the tune was drowned out by applause as Jim span her into his arms and kissed her.
The claps were from the swathes of well wishers at their wedding, sealing their whirlwind affair after just months of courtship.
The man they hired to sing with the band that day wasn’t quite as good as the guy on the record – she had never cared for singers’ names – but the instruments played just about as close as the recording.
When they slow danced chest to breast, she could hear Jim whispering each word to her.
Each face that swirled into view over his shoulder, the beaming bridesmaid, her teary mother, vanished into insignificance at that moment and she wished she could trade the elation for privacy.
But still he whispered and still they danced, under the parasol of that song.
Matilda caught herself wearing a grin and shook it away.
“Old fool,” she repeated and filled the kettle.
She turned to kill the wireless but caught sight of the cracked, matt photograph on the shelf. The one of her and Jim suspending their boy between them as he shrieked with laughter.
Harry fell asleep much faster when Jim sang to him.
She would listen through the door and would hum along with the melody.
Without that sassy shower of snare and slippery trumpet melody the words were raw and aching.
When Jim’s volume tapered off she knew Harry had fallen asleep and knew it was time to creep off into the front room.
“It’s funny,” she thought looking at that photograph “how something as simple as a song can crop up so often.”
The photo was bleached from years of being on display and the colour had faded, apart from the flash of Harry’s red wellingtons and Jim’s navy suit.
He loved that suit.
He even looked dapper in that stubborn, double breasted suit when they buried him in it.
He laid perfectly still looking calm and grey.
The song played over a poorly amplified sound system and the snare was lost to the sniffles from the chapel.
Harry didn’t blink, not once during the service.
She stood beside Jim and said goodbye, kissed her finger tips lowered them onto his perfect nose.
She mouthed the last few lines of the song and prayed he would do the same. But of course he refused. It was the first time she had cried that he had not come to her.
The song finished and she found herself sitting at the table in her yellow kitchen staring at her thin hands.
She wondered how many times she would hear that song between now and her own death.
“Wasn’t that lovely,” said the announcer “Something nice and breezy to start the show, now for something all together more serious…”
It plays the song, the radio does,
And as it plays she sings along.
She learnt the words when she was young,
The song came on the radio and slammed the breaks on her day.
Her Pavlovian response was to squeeze shut her eyes and smile.
Without consent her body began to sway and her arms extended around the space where he no longer was.
If he were to fall out the sky at that moment, Jim would have slotted perfectly into the gap between her cheek and flattened palms just as he had done all those years ago.
The snare played a sassy shower. A trumpet blew a glassy melody.
She was twenty years old and at the Corn exchange home guard dance.
Jim was a taut 23 year old cutting a fine figure in his de-mob suit, with his thick tanned wrists and perfect nose.
He lead her to the shiny wooden floor with little more than a smile and they stayed there until the MC raised the lights.
When she opened her eyes she was 78, and wearing every year.
She wiped away the swell of a tear.
“You old fool,” she said aloud.
“This is a dedication,” read the announcer, “from Jim to Matilda. He says thanks for the memories and being you, even when I was barely me.”
The music played on and a nasal crooner with a geometric voice began to sing.
For a moment the tune was drowned out by applause as Jim span her into his arms and kissed her.
The claps were from the swathes of well wishers at their wedding, sealing their whirlwind affair after just months of courtship.
The man they hired to sing with the band that day wasn’t quite as good as the guy on the record – she had never cared for singers’ names – but the instruments played just about as close as the recording.
When they slow danced chest to breast, she could hear Jim whispering each word to her.
Each face that swirled into view over his shoulder, the beaming bridesmaid, her teary mother, vanished into insignificance at that moment and she wished she could trade the elation for privacy.
But still he whispered and still they danced, under the parasol of that song.
Matilda caught herself wearing a grin and shook it away.
“Old fool,” she repeated and filled the kettle.
She turned to kill the wireless but caught sight of the cracked, matt photograph on the shelf. The one of her and Jim suspending their boy between them as he shrieked with laughter.
Harry fell asleep much faster when Jim sang to him.
She would listen through the door and would hum along with the melody.
Without that sassy shower of snare and slippery trumpet melody the words were raw and aching.
When Jim’s volume tapered off she knew Harry had fallen asleep and knew it was time to creep off into the front room.
“It’s funny,” she thought looking at that photograph “how something as simple as a song can crop up so often.”
The photo was bleached from years of being on display and the colour had faded, apart from the flash of Harry’s red wellingtons and Jim’s navy suit.
He loved that suit.
He even looked dapper in that stubborn, double breasted suit when they buried him in it.
He laid perfectly still looking calm and grey.
The song played over a poorly amplified sound system and the snare was lost to the sniffles from the chapel.
Harry didn’t blink, not once during the service.
She stood beside Jim and said goodbye, kissed her finger tips lowered them onto his perfect nose.
She mouthed the last few lines of the song and prayed he would do the same. But of course he refused. It was the first time she had cried that he had not come to her.
The song finished and she found herself sitting at the table in her yellow kitchen staring at her thin hands.
She wondered how many times she would hear that song between now and her own death.
“Wasn’t that lovely,” said the announcer “Something nice and breezy to start the show, now for something all together more serious…”
Sunday 10 April 2011
Spiders Nest
Photographs of a spiders nest in my parents greenhouse. They ran when you blew on them, otherwise they just looked like seeds.
Thursday 17 March 2011
"When You Are Old" by W.B. Yeats
Found this poem while perusing Waterstones.
Rushed home to find it. Heartbreakingly beautiful.
WHEN YOU ARE OLD
by: William Butler Yeats (1865-1939)
WHEN you are old and grey and full of sleep,
And nodding by the fire, take down this book,
And slowly read, and dream of the soft look
Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep;
How many loved your moments of glad grace,
And loved your beauty with love false or true,
But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you,
And loved the sorrows of your changing face;
And bending down beside the glowing bars,
Murmur, a little sadly, how Love fled
And paced upon the mountains overhead
And hid his face amid a crowd of stars.
Rushed home to find it. Heartbreakingly beautiful.
WHEN YOU ARE OLD
by: William Butler Yeats (1865-1939)
WHEN you are old and grey and full of sleep,
And nodding by the fire, take down this book,
And slowly read, and dream of the soft look
Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep;
How many loved your moments of glad grace,
And loved your beauty with love false or true,
But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you,
And loved the sorrows of your changing face;
And bending down beside the glowing bars,
Murmur, a little sadly, how Love fled
And paced upon the mountains overhead
And hid his face amid a crowd of stars.
Saturday 30 October 2010
Another Dead Hero Podcast parts 1, 2 and 3
These are linked to the direct files so should be working better than the last lot.
ADH's Radio show whittled down to a 45 min podcast with all their songs included.
ENJOY
PART 1
PART 2
PART 3
ADH's Radio show whittled down to a 45 min podcast with all their songs included.
ENJOY
PART 1
PART 2
PART 3
Tuesday 5 October 2010
Buried...and why I wish cinema audiences were
By James Cox
"Buried"
As far as Jungian, collective fears are concerned, being buried alive is a banker.
It is a perfect mix of innately terrifying elements: darkness, claustrophobia, restriction, isolation.
The act of burial, of course, is so deeply rooted in our social consciousness as being the final stanza of a funeral that the fear is positively theological. You are being buried, descending to hell, beneath a ton of earth where no one will hear your last breath.
In "Buried" director Rodrigo Cortés, shows us, with a vivid lack of mercy, just how horrific an experience that lonely hell would be.
Paul Conroy (Ryan Reynolds) wakes up in a wooden coffin beneath Iraqi soil.
He is a contract truck driver whose convoy was ambushed by put-upon insurgents hell bent on teaching the West a lesson.
The main selling point of this film is the narrative decision not to leave the coffin, at all.
It is the ultimate single-location, situation concept.
The specially designed "set" allows Cortés the ability to make frenetic use of his limited space.
I would applaud the tight composition that heightens the claustrophobia and tethers you to Conroy as his temperament waivers between calm acceptance to frenzied panic, but it's difficult to see how you could fail to apply a cramped feel when you've opted to shoot an entire 94 minute movie in a box.
And it's in this decision that it really earns it's stripes for commitment to a premise.
It pips "Phone booth", which despite it's limitations still allows itself a ten minute, free roaming prologue around New York before settling into the call box.
It even outdoes Hitchcock's masterful "Rope", which never leaves the studio apartment in which it's based, but which feels positively brimming with activity considering its half dozen party guests and city-view balcony.
For an hour an a half Reynolds lays in a box, and we lay with him.
The miracle here is that it never gets dull.
As the air supply gets low and the gentle trickle of top soil begins to fill the coffin, I found myself captivated by the stark helplessness of the situation.
And just as in Reynold's core dilemma, time becomes irrelevant when you're buried underground.
Much has been made of his performance and he deserves the plaudits.
Fast carving himself a respectable body of work, Ryan Reynolds is a sympathetic and charming every man, comfortable in his role as the narrative fulcrum.
He even manages a little of the Van Wilder cheekiness to break the unbearable tension with a few, close to comedic phone retorts.
Unfortunately the film isn't a complete success.
Strangely, it is only when the script tries to inject narrative urgency, peripheral to the immediate threat of suffocation, that it falls flat.
Paul has a mobile phone, and it is through this that the details of his imprisonment are revealed.
The phone brings a lot of bonus points to the production with the ever decreasing battery life and fading signal, it is a tool of annoyance that ratchets up the tension at crucial moments.
But it also relegates the supporting cast to voice acts, and here it fails miserably.
Quickly we are introduced to a game of cultural stereotypes as we purvey a myriad of global accents each a little over eager to paint us a picture.
It is detrimental to the political message, that appears to have been shoe horned into the background, that the Middle Eastern antagonist sounds like an Aladdin henchman.
There is a bizarrely misjudged critique on American bureaucracy that has Ned Ryerson from Groundhog Day (incidentally a strong voice actor with a poor role) delivering an indictement of red-tape America which verges on embarrassing.
That the film manages to break free of it's sodden confines and deliver any succinct plot is a triumph.
But ultimately the film is at its best when forcing us to face the terror of the central premise.
Everything else is window dressing for an impressive Hitchcockian set piece.
Reynolds may just have earned his "serious" credentials and if Cortés can be this captivating in a box, imagine what he can achieve above ground.
ADDITIONAL:
"Buried" relies on a very personal empathy to create the lonely, claustrophobic atmosphere that heightens this conceptual nightmare.
It is purposefully restricted to a 3 x 6 ft wooden box, and although director Cortés manages to milk every twist and turn out of that narrow crate, and deliver impressive light trickery, it is not a picture with mainstream appeal on it's mind.
It's not that this film is intellectually or culturally challenging. It's a suspense thriller and Panic Room sold well enough, right? But it will test the patience of "pop-corn" audiences who demand thrills, spills, and (almost forgivably) more than one character.
Having said this, "Buried" for all it's positives, was one of the most trying cinema experiences of my life. And I do not refer to the purpose built claustrophobia.
Instead a young audience who failed to connect to the subject matter, and thus failed to commit to a challenging premise, got restless and chatty.
They became uncomfortable with the unusual cinematic cues, because they haven't learnt how to react to five minutes of darkness at the movies before.
This is not a critique of them as people, it's a challenge to the entire cinema system, to change it's policy to protect movie experience for seasoned film fans who view going to the pictures as more than a recreational pass-time, but as (arguably sadly) a genuine interest. An interest in the way I suppose book fans enjoy reading groups, or art fans peruse a gallery.
That this experience must be shared by a populist cross section of the general public who are intolerant of challenging cinema and have formed the opinon that it is socially acceptable to fraternise mid-movie is not just a mild irritant to me, but the central thesis of my next blog post!
Let the ranting commence...
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