Journal Entries
It's show time again!
Posted May 14, 2006
It is time once again for something simultaneously exciting and scary that crops up in my life from time to time: production week for a theatre show that I'm involved in. 
My recent experience as an actor has made me familiar with the whole production week ritual of technical rehearsals, sorting out the lighting, the sound and the cues, the dress rehearsal and the days of the shows. But this is a bit different in many ways. It's a play that I feel particularly strongly about: so much so that I advocated it when my University theatre group was choosing this semester's shows, and volunteered my services as assistant director. It's called 'Welcome To Paradise', and it's a viciously funny satire by a local Bradford writer set in a parallel (but oddly familiar) reality in which excesses of drink, drugs and sex are legally compulsory. You *have* to do your share of drinking, drugging and shagging, or a nasty bunch of thugs called the Credit Police will pay you a visit. The play was performed for the first time at another Bradford theatre in 2003. I saw it and loved it then, but I truly feel that our production is on course to take what was already a great play to new heights. 
In my unfamiliar role as co-director, I have played a large part in choosing the incidental music for the show; and I am now very proud of our highly eclectic soundtrack. How many shows can there be in which a Nine Inch Nails track is immediately followed by a children's choir singing 'Halfway Down The Stairs'? We also have music by The Beatles, Aphex Twin, David Bowie, Air, Elvis Costello, Green Day and Buzzcocks among others. And we have great performances of a very witty script that says a lot about peer pressure and the cruelty of enforced conformity. There is social comment and there is very funny sex comedy; I am hoping that I won't get in trouble over the unusual use that is made of a Dostoevsky 
I borrowed from the Uni library. 
There is also an acting contribution from me; but I won't have to feel nervous about that next weekend, because it's already been recorded. I appear on a screen as a sinister announcer, making some rather unusual public service announcements. One of my announcements has a distinctly Hitchhiker flavour: 'You are in a theatre. You are sitting down. This is not the interior of a large and oddly well-furnished fish. Hold on to that thought...' 
All of this can be yours for the absurd bargain price of £4.50 (£3 concessions) if you can make it to the Theatre In The Mill, Bradford University, for 7:30pm next Friday or Saturday (May 19 & 20). Don't come if you're under 16 or very conservative in your tastes, as there are a few 
words and a couple of extremely funny scenes of a sexual nature. But to everyone else - be there or, very likely, be somewhere less interesting! 
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Latest reply: May 14, 2006
Grant McLennan 1958-2006
Posted May 10, 2006
I've just been listening to one of my all-time favourite songs and shedding a few tears. 
The song is 'The Wrong Road', by The Go-Betweens. It appears on a truly magnificent album called 'Liberty Belle And The Black Diamond Express' that should be owned by everyone with an appreciation of the very best alternative rock music and a glimmer of romance in their soul. It is sung by Grant McLennan, who, I have just found out, died peacefully in his sleep at the weekend: see http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/4984002.stm for the background. 'The Wrong Road' is an achingly lovely song about regret and yearning, and some of its words now seen terribly poignant: 'Bouquets of flowers/Lesson's over...' 
The chances are that you have no idea who and what I'm talking about, because The Go-Betweens were arguably the definitive cult band. Though they wrote ravishingly beautiful melodies, they didn't become mainstream stars because they didn't dumb down. They kept releasing albums full of songs that somehow took the regular subject matter of pop music - love, thrills, loss - and made it all seem new and magical again. To hear them was to know that someone else found life simultaneously sad and scary and bewildering and marvellous. Grant and his songwriting partner Robert Forster never resorted to comforting cliches, which was why their records always got rapturous reviews, but is also why Take That's reunion and Britney's pregnancy are bigger news than Grant's passing.
The Go-Betweens split in 1989, shortly after releasing what I consider to be one of the loveliest records on this earth: '16 Lovers Lane'. McLennan and Forster pursued solo careers for a decade, and then reconvened in 2000, going on to give us three more great Go-Betweens albums that won them yet more rapturous reviews. Last year's 'Oceans Apart' was one of their finest creations; it's hideously sad to realise that I will never now see how they would have followed that, or see one of their wonderfully warm and friendly live shows again. 
According to 6Music's news story ( http://www.bbc.co.uk/6music/news/20060507_mclennan.shtml ) Grant was in love, delighted at the acclaim for 'Oceans Apart', and generally the happiest he'd been for ages at the time of his sudden death. The words of 'The Wrong Road' resonate again: 'Lucky in love/That's how life ends'. We should all be so lucky; but as the tributes piling up on the band's official website attest, 48 years still seems far too short for a life that touched so many others in the best of ways.
When I was at my most troubled, Grant McLennan's songs spoke for me and made me feel less alone. I'm deeply grateful, and I know I'll be listening to him for as long as I'm able to appreciate great music.
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Latest reply: May 10, 2006
Nemi 4 Ormy
Posted Mar 27, 2006
I feel that it's time I introduced you, my h2g2 friends, to the woman I love. True, there may be some barriers to our relationship: she is much younger than I am, for one thing. For another, I'm a human and she's a drawing. But even so, Nemi represents my feminine ideal. She has a mischievous wit, a sharp and questioning intellect, and a stubborn, glorious resistance to the acceptance of adult responsibility. She is loyal to her friends, libidinous, bibulous and beautiful. And you can meet her here: http://www.metro.co.uk/nemi . 
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Latest reply: Mar 27, 2006
They walk amongst us...
Posted Mar 7, 2006
When I was a lad, night raids on student campuses tended to involve noisy 
-fuelled parties being stopped at 2am, or enquiries about missing road cones. Now I read that four of my fellow University of Bradford students have been arrested at the Halls of Residence on suspicion of terrorist activities. 
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4777472.stm
This isn't mentioned in the above report, but the word in the Union bar is that the guys being questioned are chemistry students. If so, no doubt their practical work will be getting thoroughly examined... 
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Latest reply: Mar 7, 2006
15 minutes of fame
Posted Feb 1, 2006
I have achieved a long-held ambition today. I am the subject of a feature article in the February 1 edition of my local newspaper, Bradford's 'Telegraph & Argus' (page 14, for anyone with access to a copy).
Under the headline ' A change of beat for Dave' and sub-header 'How music scribe penned a brand new chapter in his life', the article tells the story of my days in the music press and my new life as a student. There is a nice, big photo of me posing outside the University of Bradford in my Uni scarf, with a .
The story is pretty accurate. I was surprised that the 'T&A' reporter relied on shorthand notes, a technique which may explain why some of the 'quotes' attributed to me don't seem to me to be my exact words. I certainly don't remember saying that I would recommend the Combined Studies course I'm on to anyone, and I suspect the hand of the University's PR department there - especially as we did the interview in their office. But I am glad that I managed to get in a dig at the way Jobcentres push unemployed people towards taking absolutely *any* job, no matter how wildly unsuitable; and I would certainly recommend taking Combined Studies or any other Uni course as an alternative to putting up with that.
I was also happy that the 'T&A' ran a plug for the theatre auditions we're having at the University on Saturday. We're auditioning actors for three plays being staged at the Mill in May and June: 'Welcome To Paradise', 'Prodigal Son' and 'How Love Is Spelt'. I'm going to be assistant director for 'Welcome To Paradise', a wonderful satirical piece written by a local playwright named Andrew Crowther, about a society in which substance abuse and sexual excess are compulsory, because the economy needs them. Which, when you consider that the Blair administration recently allowed 24-hour alcohol licences in Britain after pressure from the booze industry, doesn't sound all that far-fetched. Be at the Mill at 1:30 on Saturday (Feb 4) afternoon if you'd like to help bring this or one of the other two fine shows we're staging to life. No previous acting experience required!
Anyway, I particularly liked the way the paper ran a great big picture of me with a tiny picture of Tom Jones inset (because I once interviewed him). It shows that they could see which one of us is the real .
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Latest reply: Feb 1, 2006
Ormondroyd
Researcher U95721
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