Slim Palmer - Home

Barnacles Be Buggered!

2010-07-26T19:46:00Z

Had a dive down to the doctors this morning to get a check on some moley type things that have been appearing on my bod.

“Nothing to worry about.” I’m told. “Just a few seborrheic keratosis.”

Sebby what osis?

“Blistering barnacles!” as Cptn Haddock would say. Seems it’s something you get after you turn 50. They are known as ‘senile warts’ or the ‘barnacles of old age’. NO F * * * * ER TOLD ME THAT IN SCHOOL BIOLOGY!

Never mind… just a few years ‘til a bus pass / pension credits and being even more grumpy.

More Updates

2010-07-25T17:03:00Z

Following on from The Famous Five update… Jane Austin.

Nobby, Dick And Fanny

2010-07-23T23:24:00Z

I see that publisher Hodder is to update the Enid Blyton Famous Five series to bring it into the 21st century.

So no more ‘jolly japes’, eh? According to The Guardian: ‘Starting next month with 10 Famous Five novels, Hodder is “sensitively and carefully” revising Blyton’s text after research with children and parents showed that the author’s old-fashioned language and dated expressions were preventing young readers from enjoying the stories. The narrative of the novels will remain the same, but expressions such as “mercy me!” have been changed to “oh no!”, “fellow” to “old man” and “it’s all very peculiar” to “it’s all very strange”.’

The character Nobby from Five Go Off in a Caravan is to be changed to Ned but they are not to do anything about Dick and Fanny. As Zoe Williams comments in her Gruniad blog: ‘Dick? In 2010? Do they have no idea how entendre-savvy today’s five-year-old is?’

How gay it will all be.

Spain v Holland

2010-07-10T22:28:00Z

From Angel Boligan, El Universal newspaper, Mexico City. One of the best cartoons I have seen in a long while.

Gazza And...

2010-07-10T21:19:00Z

Don’t know what Gazza thought he was doing turning up at the Raoul Moat siege in Rothbury but from one of the pix in this mornings news it looked to me like Michael Caine and Prince William had turned up in uniform…

Pingu! Balls!

2010-06-17T08:30:00Z

Following on from my last post I notice the lack of sub editing in two more stories. More Penguins…

And celeb chefs in the DTeleg…

In the old days they would have just sent him to the Tower of London.

Got The Bird

2010-06-14T08:21:00Z

A Juxto over at Booktrade

Theatre Biz Buzz - Been Busy

2010-06-08T08:16:00Z

I’ve not updated this blog for a couple of weeks because of various things and the fact that I’m helping in the effort to save a local theatre from the bulldozers.

Just down the road from me is theatre, built in 1909, that has lain dormant for about five years and has got to the point of being used as a pigeon cree.

We found out a couple of things, history-wise, about it. It was managed at one point by the father of Stan Laurel (yes, that one) - they lived just down the road - and when it was used as a recording studio the likes of Sting, Lindisfarne, Mike Harding, Rod Clement’s Brethren, Dick Gaughan, Bob Fox, Raven, Venom and the Angelic Upstarts all recorded there.

So, like I say, I’ve been busy with meetings, local councillors, our MP, and phone calls to various bodies.

It is somewhat ironic that ‘Great Art for Everyone…in North Tyneside 2009-12’ is the Council’s arts development strategy and we note that the NTC (online) Housing Development database say that it will be costly to demolish.

The Theatres Trust is, understandably, concerned that this building is to be demolished and were contacted by our local paper here

Onward and upward…

Times Jux

2010-06-08T07:26:00Z

From todays Times

Karoshi

2010-05-26T13:26:00Z

In Japan the parents of a 24 year old restaurant worker have been awarded 78.63 million yen (£607,000) because the man died due to ‘overwork’ (Karoshi).

It is claimed that ‘Motoyasu Fukiage worked more than 112 hours of overtime a month for the four month period of his employment at the restaurant, in addition to his regular 40 hours a week – making a total of around 272 hours a month.’ He died in bed of heart failure.

Sounds like a lot of hours, doesn’t it? So break it down… 40 hours a week = 5.7 hours a day (based on a 7 day week); 112 hours of overtime over a month = 3.7 hours a day; QED… 272 hours over 30 days = 9 hours a day.

Nine hours a day! Is that all? Sheesh!

I, at first, had some sympathy having ended up in hospital, some years back, with exhaustion after working twelve hours a day, seven days a week, for eighteen months. I did feel somewhat tired after touring a heavy theatre show for twenty-one weeks, non stop, and slept for a couple of days afterwards.

The average Brit works 40.5 hours a week (then add overtime) but some, like theatre workers, do 50+ and some construction workers and taxi drivers work 60.

Nine hours a day? Wuss! … and, I would suspect, another case of ambulance chasing lawyers.

Paper v Batteries

2010-05-26T09:18:00Z

Just read a tongue in cheek piece over at ereads by Richard Curtis entitled ‘Quaint Brits Cling To Paper’ and why we, unlike our American cousins, won’t grasp the tech that is ereaders (This follows on from a survey reported last week in the DTeleg).

Perhaps it is because we like the feel of a proper book/newspaper and… If you drop a book earthwards from the 10th floor it still works; books don’t need batteries; if you’ve run out of fag papers you can’t tear a strip off an ereader; if you burn an ereader you’ll get a god awful smell but it won’t keep you warm; you can’t keep food warm wrapped in an ereader and you can’t wipe your ar*e on a Kindle!

Then again it may be that Big Brother won’t delete my copy of 1984 and Animal Farm overnight from my library - that and the fact I do not want to pay £200+ for something that will be outdated in a couple of years.

Americans? Phuh!

Times Jux

2010-05-25T11:33:00Z

Juxtaposition from today’s Times.

Gene Genie Gems

2010-05-23T17:31:00Z

“What I call a dream involves Diana Dors and a bottle of chip oil.”

Suspect: “I want a lawyer!” Gene: “I want to hump Britt Ekland - what you going to do?”

“She’s a nervous as a very small nun at a penguin shoot.”

“Don’t move! You are surrounded by armed bastards!”

“She’s been in front of more beaks than Daffy Duck at a family knees up!”

“Drugs, eh? What’s the point? They make you forget, make you talk funny, make you see things that aren’t there. My old grandma got that when she had a stroke.”

“So we’re looking for a bloke who’s done time? That narrows it down to most of planet Earth and the whole of Sunderland.”

“You killed the Quatro you dyke digging tosspot!”

Who is the man on the roof?

Hang The Blacks And Kill The Workers*

2010-05-19T11:47:00Z

I was chatting, t’other day, to a former work colleague about our early days in the theatre and what the ‘boys’ have to put up with now. Ah, those heady days of theatre before the stupidity of overly enforced PCness, the raging armies of Elfin Safety got their grubby mits on being sensible and ambulance chasing lawyers.

You were allowed to go for a pie and a pint at lunchtime (but go back drunk and you were sent home) and normally with cast and crew from the visiting show and, I believe, that this gave a good feeling of repartee between the inhousers and the visitors. Gone.

If you wanted to climb up a stepladder you did - if you fell off… well, shouldn’t have overreached, should you. Gone - Working At Height Directive - a pal of mine has just been sent on a 2 day course to teach him about climbing ladders. He’s 54 and been doing it all his life with no mishap.

The time I was told by an official H&S bod that the crew on stage had to wear hard hats whilst the scenery was moving - I informed him that I would let the director and the actors know as well. (berk!)

The days of being able to send an apprentice out for ‘a long stand’ or ‘a short weight’ or ‘the key to the grid’ (no such thing); ‘tartan paint’; sky hooks; a fallopian tube to fix that light… the list went on but now it would ‘breach their human rights’.

Mind you… I did find out you can now buy Sky Hooks - like the ad says ‘…what use are these?’

*”Hang the blacks” is a reference to putting up the black serge cloths that back off many a production and “Kill the workers” means going to the show state whereby working lights are turned off.

Onward & Onward

2010-05-18T10:03:00Z

The next book ‘Men In Blacks’ is done but not quite dusted as it is with my editor and should be published in November.

As there are only a couple of theatres in the world that have retained their Victorian understage machinery I was doodling in Illustrator t’other day and thought it might be good to include elevations of what is known as a bridge in said book.

Then I got carried away and continued with a Genie trap…

Onward I go… the following book is to be ‘Circus-Circus’ and words have been started…