Jim Bywater

After a lull.....I spend four days getting my Steinberg MI4 system to work - one click on the correct parameter option and, WHOOF, it all comes to life. 10th April:- Jeni's at work , not normal for Mondays, so I park my car in the garage where she would normally park, (she's got a soft top - doesn't want the vinyl to rot). That night we get heavy, wet snow. A tree falls over with the weight of snow, right where my car would have been parked. Simultaneously, a friend asks me to record a voice-over for a film he's made at college. I need to clear the 'dead' tree but there's too much to do. I do four hours making sure that the procedure for audio recording is clear and in my head. Then I clear the tree. Three days later we record the voice-over and all goes well. Everything rounded off with a pub lunch, old fashioned English roast beef, and creme brullé. So now I can hardly walk or lift me pint. But me mate comes back from filming in Canada and we're back on the golf course. I don't do too well this round - 57 on a nine-holer. However, we talk about my latest contribution to our book, wot we are writin'. Result, I have to dismantle a section that was built on pure blood and sweat, but, I think he's right and so I'm clear where I'm going next. Three days later we're back on the course at Seaford Head, playing a round with an 'homo trouvé', a bailiff for the electricity board who lives in Eastbourne. I make the longest drive of the game, knock one out of a bunker from forty yards with me lob wedge to within two feet of the hole, and I do the back nine in 48. COME ON! You see, it's not all shit.

Posted by Jim Bywater at 6:02 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Sasha, one of the most beautiful women I have had the good fortune to count amongst my friends, is due to drop her first-born any day now, a girl I believe. We're waiting with bated breath. Her partner, Jamie, is, at present, entertaining me on the TV in 'WATERLOO ROAD'. I can't give any names without permission so he will have to remain anonymous.
I'm really enjoying it. Some aren't, I am reliably informed but, it sounds to me like middle class arty farty quibbles. Who cares whether it's an accurate portrayal of a secondary school; it's drama and is, therefore, allowed to conflate (good word that, 'conflate') any events reported to have taken place in secondary schools into an episode, or a series, in order to excite the viewer, highlight the human condition and promote discussion.
I am impelled to say that my wife is one of the other beautiful women in my life. ESPECIALLY AS IT'S HER BIRTHDAY! (see Birthday posting).

Posted by Jim Bywater at 6:47 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I was just refining the composition of my BIOGRAPHY when I remembered a story from the tour of the Trackers with the RNT.
Tony Harrison (we christened him T' Bard) wrote the play which, at it's heart, contained a fragment of an old Greek play about Apollo and Dyonisus and the Satyrs who found Apollo's bulls. He also translated some ancient greek for a champagne producer. The fee for the work consisted of an unlimited supply of champagne. Thus, before each performance of the play the cast stood in a circle and passed round a shallow dish of champagne to cries of, "Yamass (spelling?) ya bastard," etc. The dish was a genuine greek 'vase' produced in the year that the Greek fragment was written. You should have seen the looks on the faces of the actors in the canteen when they heard over the tannoy system, "Will the cast of Trackers of Oxyrhyncus please assemble on stage. This is your champagne call." I digress.
This ritual was followed assiduously in every venue in every country we visited. The final performance took place in Denmark, in a theatre which had been created inside a disused gas storage cylinder, I forget what they're called; it'll come to me later. The foyer contained a steam railway locomotive, which had obviously been used for the transport of coal to and from the gas production facility (gas works to you and me). Funnily enough, the train had been built in Leeds - from whence came T' Bard, Jack Shepherd (Apollo) and Me (a clogdancing Tracker). Now then, we did the ritual before the last performance. When the show was over, as we were leaving the building T' Bard gave the ancient vase to the Wardrobe Mistress to carry out in one of her bags. She was passing through a swing door when it closed, quite wilfully, on the bag, smashing the ancient artefact into smithereens. There was an enormous intake of breath from all present. The WM didn't know what to do with herself. The horror! The embarassment! T' Bard seemed pleased. ''Don't worry, love,'' he said, ''It's the gods telling us that it's the last performance. '' My neighbour at the time was an antique dealer. He told me that those vases were ten a penny, well, about £14 actually. Still, it's a good tale and, it wasn't the only time the gods put in an appearance. But that's another story.

Posted by Jim Bywater at 12:42 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Hello everybodypeeps. Is it warm out there in Espana? You're on the phone at the minute talking to your Aunty Jeni. I'm of now. Love to you and Brad and Dom.

Posted by Jim Bywater at 8:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I get a phone call from Neil, who's making an honest woman out of Louise and wants my address for the posh invitation card. He's ringing from Bournemouth - where he doesn't live - to say he's been called in to stand-in for an actor in the tour of LITTLE BRITAIN. The actor in question was mugged recently and can't do the whole of his part because of cuts and bruises sustained in the attack. So Neil is being vomited on, nightly, by David Walliams. God, some people have all the luck!
But that's not all. From '78-'81 I worked with a stage manager called Tony Harpur whom I haven't seen since, and, bugger me, if he isn't working on Little Britain too. Oo, le petit monde.

Posted by Jim Bywater at 1:53 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)