The City

My whole intention is to make an impression

Words are my tools and this verse my invention

I want you to focus and know this, G,

Put down your mobiles and notice me

won't let you forget me or file this indefinitely

fade into the past like a minor celebrity

I'll do what I can to stake my claim

Shout from the hilltops to make my name

A struggling writer, not angry or bitter

Not yet well known but still handy on Twitter

Dispensing what you need like a pharmacy

that's why I'm being followed by Clara G

and Amy Reid and David Dunne

Names familiar to maybe some

Another appearance in Inside the M60

spinning my name out like a digital frisbee

I look at my life with a different framing

Every weekend, this city is changing

Last weekend I rolled to Bar 38

I needed a drink, I was thirsty, mate

When I got to the door, the bar was all new to me

The name of the place had changed to Purity 

Punters arrived and lots of them swarmed

The bar is a shelter like a rock in a storm

On house music once the city had thrived

then in 2011 the scene all but died

Only this bar was still pumping out tunes

The DJ performed in the underground room

Bini's a legend, her views are insightful

She claims Peter Street is due a revival

The rest of the road is just units for let

Didn't go long ago, no? You missed the best

Beautiful women, relaxed atmosphere,

Easy to pull if you didn't have no fear

I won't shed a tear over the way the era faded away

I want it back is all I can say.

Failure

Haiku

Nothing deafens more

than the sound of your own tears

hitting the pillow

Advert for Crunchy Nut

Here's a script I wrote for a TV advert, when I was 18 at college. The campaign was for Kellog's Crunchy Nut breakfast cereal. The project was for my course, and it didn't go past the storyboard stage. I bit off more than I could chew in terms of production, but someone out there might like the screenplay. The advert's closing strapline was being used as an actual campaign by Kellogg's at the time- around 2000-2001.

EXT. PRISON GROUNDS- NIGHT

Prison Guard #1 walks the perimeter of the building, with his dog on a leash. A scratching noise comes from behind the wall. The dog turns to the brickwork and begins to GROWL. The guard becomes panicked, expecting a breakout.

INT. PRISON CELL

A convict in stripy attire leans forward towards the camera with a spoon in his hand and a determined look on his face.

INT. PRISON CORRIDOR

Prison Guards #1 and #2 run down the corridor towards the suspect's cell. Guard #1 reaches the door and swings his baton around. He opens the cell door and shines the torch in...

INT. PRISON CELL

The convict, lit by the torch, sits with a bowl and spoon at a small table. At his side is a box of Kellogg's Crunchy Nut.

CU CRUNCHY NUT BOX

Text Banner: “Good at any time.”

Being a Poetic Bastard

At Writers Connect this week organizer Oz brought in a selection of small intriguing ornaments as prompts for a ten minute exercise. This session was- as usual- the morning after the night before, being on a Sunday, and I'd had kind of a weird night out in Manchester involving a group of very drunk Welsh girls. Not as good as it sounds. But anyway, I was feeling kind of melancholy. There was something about this sculpture

that struck a chord with me. I felt like being a poetic bastard.

Unison

She puts a cheek against his face

and brings him to a warm embrace

his view of her is now distorted

nomadic plans are all but thwarted

becoming one, a human boulder

with his hand upon her shoulder

he is there for her to hold

and soon enough, they start to mould

into an almost rock-like feature,

no longer separate, now one creature

his gratitude for having met her

has turned him to an oaken texture

he starts to think of when he met her

and how his life became much better

he plans to live in pure monogamy

alone with her, cast in mahogany.

Meeting Irvine Welsh

Irvine Welsh's new novel Skagboys is on sale now. The prequel to Trainspotting has just been released by publishers Jonathan Cape.

Mr Welsh did a signing in Waterstones Manchester on Friday 20^th. I booked it off and got down there. A good day was had by all I think! And if Trainspotting and its sequel Porno are anything to go by, Skagboys should be a winner of a book.

“Pad Thai” Stir Fried my Noodle

Okay, this recipe book is getting weird. The first few meals were really tasty and proved to me that there were more types of food that I like than I thought there were. It also proved to me that I can cook for myself- something I was convinced I couldn't from about age 11 onwards.

I didn't see the point of recipe 25: “Spaghetti with Tomato Sauce”. It's basically boiling spaghetti and adding the sauce, which I already made for the pizza. 

I had no enthusiasm for Spinach and Squash Lasagne. I'm not a big veg eater, although I know how important greens are. But there's actually nothing but veg in the recipe. I can make a salad if it comes to that.

I turned the page straight over for “Pasta with Lemon and Cream”. Tesco's Carbonara sauce would do fine for that kind of dish. I'm not a cream fan, and seeing as cream is fat, why should skipping this one be a problem?

And that led me to the noodle dish. This was a semi-successful venture. The cooking of it was fine, but finding the Goddamn ingredients, not so. The shelf stackers in Tesco were convinced they stocked tofu, although not one of them could fucking find it on the shelves. Neither could I. I also came up short when looking for spring onions, which according to the book look a bit like carrots, although I'd never seen or heard of these things before in my life. I stuck with regular onions.

I used chicken as a substitute for tofu, seeing as chicken goes in stir fry. Here's Tesco's mint sprigs supply:  

 

I substituted this with a sprinkle of “Chinese Five Spice”. Due to an apparent case of mental retardation, I also bought a bag of monkey nuts instead of standard peanuts and egg noodles instead of rice noodles. I don't have a nut crusher, so I substituted the monkey nuts with some pine nuts that I had left over from the pesto recipe. Check the creativity!

I was supposed to use a rolling pin to crush the peanuts (now pine nuts). I do have a rolling pin somewhere inside this one-bedroom flat, but I STILL cannot find it. So I used a pestle and mortar instead. Hard work!

I continued through the instructions. There's no further mention of spring onions in the recipe, after all that searching for them, so I ended up with a chopped onion that I didn't throw in.

Keda seems to think you can eat bean sprouts raw. The Tesco packaging suggested otherwise, so this added three minutes to the cooking time.

It tasted good, and not like anything I'd eaten before. It took so long to get all the ingredients together- a number of shopping trips- that I'm not sure all of the elements were particularly fresh. I've been fine though...

A few days later I had another bash. I used roasted peanuts from a packet, chicken again, and some white wine vinegar that I manage to find. It was a lot more flavoursome even though I forgot to put the mint on the plate at the end.

Hard work, but good food.

Positive feedback

A friend of mine, Tomleecee, sent me some words of encouragement recently. Tom is the founder of the million-plus-hit blog The Dreamcast Junkyard, covering all things Sega Dreamcast-related. 

 

In fact, you might recognise this crazy guy in this 2006 post. 

I was also present with Tom for this excursion. 

Last week, Tom texted me to say:

“I read your blog today. It caused a wan smile to dance across my palid, anaemic lips on several occasions. Gratis.”