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Stanley McHale is a single man rapidly approaching thirty who loves and dreams of the same things he did when he was seventeen. But the band was never formed, the novel never finished, and the ill-chosen career in stand-up comedy is giving him more headaches than headlines. With the self-imposed deadline of his thirtieth birthday to either make an international success of himself or go and work in Woolworths, why not pull yourself up ringside seats for the tragically inevitable descent into mania and psychosis by reading his increasingly inane, pedantic, desperate, harrowing and wretched daily diary. It'll make you feel a whole lot better about yourself.

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September 2005 Archives

Friday 30th September 2005

Posted by on September 30, 2005 4:01 AM

My bounty of good post continues to flood in. Today I tentatively checked my post box for any juicy nuggets and found, amongst the litter and stupid demands, another e-bay delivery (a DVD I’ve been trying to get hold of for months bought for £3) and a package from the good people at The Modern Drunkard containing a stash of back issues. That’s a bumper crop by my puny standards and pretty much took over the afternoon.

I enjoyed the DVD (nerdily, it was an off-the-tele recording of a Morrissey documentary shown a couple of years ago – yes, I’m sad and obsessive, and yet I hurt no-one so leave me alone) but reading the M.D. back issues was wonderful. It’s the funniest, classiest and most pro-active refuge for drinkers that can be imagined. Find out for yourself by visiting their website at www.drunkard.com.

I hope they like the film… Talking of which, here’s my dull daily update on that front. Today was perhaps the most tedious yet as I had to manually log each shot in the rough cut, in sequence, including it’s duration down to the last frame, so that I can start gathering the master footage and doing the final widescreen edit. It was so dull, in fact, that I only made it through the first 100 cuts (about the first 10 minutes) before deciding it was best left until tomorrow.

Most things tend to be best left until tomorrow. Most things except road trips, a night out, or a practical joke.

Thursday 29th September 2005

Posted by on September 29, 2005 6:31 PM

I enjoy poking my head around the door of the kitchen the morning after I’ve been entertaining to see how much mess has managed to manifest itself during the night whilst I’ve been asleep.

Surely it’s impossible for me to have made all that carnage by myself over the course of an evening? First of all, I’ve clearly cooked for twelve people, not the three whom I remember sat around the table, and for another those twelve people seem to have walked back into the kitchen with their meals and thrown them against the wall.

The plot thickened as I loaded six (six?) dirty wine glasses into the dishwasher and then slammed that door shut on a good night.

Life isn’t all coffee and After Eights of course and it was back upstairs to tackle the technological hell of cutting edge DVD authoring software. Sometimes I’m so glamorous it’s painful. I’ve got manuals on this software a thousand pages thick and it’s a real challenge just to find the relevant chapter. I see there are thousands of deluded idiots rushing to churches all over the world looking for the ‘clues’ left in Dan Brown’s work of FICTION, The Da Vinci Code. I personally believe the bible’s secrets are more likely to be found deep in the impenetrable depths of the DVD Studio Pro 4 manual.

Wednesday 28th September 2008

Posted by on September 28, 2005 2:20 AM

Made the mistake of writing yesterday’s Blog last night before bed, instead of the following morning over a carefully brewed pot of tea, which was wrong because firstly it was a tired rant and secondly because smashing at a keyboard is hardly the equivalent of a mug of Horlicks and so then couldn’t get to sleep.

By 3am, I got up and started sending off e-mails. My friends (or shall I say contacts, as I sent out more e-mails than I have friends) will probably assume I sent the messages drunk, having just got home from a night on the pop. Nothing could be further from the truth. It’s been a week almost exclusively spend staring at a screen, trying to make a clearly 40 minute documentary fit into 29 minutes to drastically increase the chances of it being aired.

I normally like being up in the small hours – the time is yours, all the boring people are safely in their beds, here alone you can plan your domination over their stupid lives! – but last night I started to feel tetchy because I had to be up at the same, annoying time as the boring people and drive R to Manchester Airport for a lecture she was giving near Munich.

Yes, yes, I did enjoy the fact my friend is off to give a lecture in Munich. Especially as she’s a Polish beauty who gets her male students a little hot under the collar – it brings me a tiny shuffle forward on the twenty seven thousand mile march towards being Bond.

Tuesday 27th September 2005

Posted by on September 27, 2005 12:51 AM

I’m getting quite fed up with being taken advantage of in public.

I consider public etiquette to be important – I mean things like not jumping to the front of a taxi rank queue, holding doors open, smiling and saying thank you, tipping where appropriate, managing to walk in a way that doesn’t cause others to suddenly stop or trip over you, gladly giving good directions, equally being courteous to tourists to create a good impression, not littering, not urinating, and not eating if it can be helped, which it normally can, not shouting, not catcalling, and definitely not spitting.

Just a few little basic ones there – not hardcore gentlemanly manners, just a simple level of courtesy that should, if universally adopted, make a walk around town or a trip to the shops a reasonably pleasant experience.

But people don’t have a blinking clue. Not an iota. The level of rudeness on the streets is quite capable of turning a quick trip to the shops into a thoroughly disheartening experience. Now, I know I’m in real danger of sounding like the Daily Mail’s Columnist Of The Year here, wishing for a Britain long gone, but I’m not.

I like modern Britain on the whole. I like the diversity. I’m amused at how quickly culture rolls on, taking up new strands and trends seemingly weekly – although obviously not always approving of it.

But there’s one thing that needn’t be left by the wayside because there’s no excuse or good reason for it to leave – and that thing is common courtesy. Three times in the last three days I’ve been the victim of staggering discourtesy. All three times have been at tills.

Monday 26th September 2005

Posted by on September 26, 2005 10:22 AM

Walked up to the Spar shop at the Esso garage this afternoon to get some milk. My tea drinking has gone through the roof and I need to keep a ready supply of the white gold handy.

I don’t mind the occasional walk to Spar because it affords me the chance to listen to my favourite radio station, Spar Live. I heard a new jingle of theirs today too; ‘The radio station of your favourite convenience store… Spar Live!’

I do tend to give slightly too much thought to the presenters that work on Spar Live. As I’ve mentioned in a recent entry here, it must be quite difficult to build up any sort of following considering people only listen to you for about two minutes as they grab a bottle of Fanta and pay for their petrol.

But I wonder if there are people who are particular fans of one of the Spar Live presenters? That would be especially inconvenient (an inconvenience thanks to a convenience store… that’s a thick dollop of irony right there) because you can only listen to Spar Live in Spar shops, you can’t pick it up using a normal radio. So if you became a fan of the presenter who does the 3pm-5pm shift, you’d have to go to your local Spar and just hang around for a couple of hours every afternoon, pretending to look at stuff to buy.

Sunday 25th September 2005

Posted by on September 25, 2005 4:31 PM

That show The X Factor was being shown on TV this morning. I’ve not watched it properly before, mainly because I can’t stand to watch people humiliate themselves. It’s like slowing down to look at a car crash.

But as I lay there in bed lazily looking at it any pity I might have had for these deluded people turned to frustration and a slight anger.

I was shocked at the ones who started crying and saying “this is all I’ve ever wanted to do with my life… Please, Please, Please….. This means so much to me…�

The problem I have with this is that I believe these idiots do want to become pop stars but the problem is they feel that appearing on a reality TV show is the only way to achieve this. Indeed, they believe it is now the standard way of achieving this. How do they imagine people became pop stars before reality TV became popular? Do they assume heats were held in local villages, with the unlucky losers dunked in the duck pond?

It should be pointed out to these lunatics that traditionally the way to be a success in the music industry is either through stage schools, or through writing some SONGS, leaning to SING them, recording a DEMO, playing lots of GIGS, and getting some AR PEOPLE to come and see those GIGS who you give your DEMO to as well as sending it to lots of RECORD COMPANIES and then HASSLING those companies and proving you are SERIOUS.

Saturday 24th September 2005

Posted by on September 24, 2005 1:17 PM

Today something wasted far more of my time than was sensible.

I’m wary of going into details as it seems all I’ve done over the past few Pathetic Lot entries is hark on about computers, specifically Apple computers, and how I don’t have an unhealthy interest in them at all. I don’t.

This naturally makes all six of you think that I do have an unhealthy interest in them, otherwise why would I be protesting so strongly that I don’t? You probably imagine that I tend to walk awkwardly into newsagents and pretend to browse around the shop for a while looking at everyday items whilst any other customer leaves and then motor over to the magazine rack, pick up a copy of Mac Format (if there is even such a magazine, I don’t know. There is? Lucky guess) and speedily pay for it without making eye contact with the shopkeeper before carrying it home in a brown paper bag. I don’t.

And to all of you who like to imagine I have an unhealthy interest in Apple Computers, I ask you this… Who’s worse, me with my fictional unhealthy interest in an inanimate calculating machine, or YOU sat at home picturing me having an unhealthy interest in them? It is you.

Friday 23rd September 2005

Posted by on September 23, 2005 4:23 PM

The last couple of days have seen good progress on the film. It’s called Things To Do In Denver When You’re Drunk so I’ll perhaps just refer to it as TTDIDWYD from now on. That not look like much of an acronym, but is in fact a small Welsh fishing village in Northern Dyfed.

It’s a documentary about the 2nd Modern Drunkard Convention which took place in May. The event was over three days and I’ve now finished putting together days two and three, and the title sequence of day one, so there’s about ten minutes left to edit, as well as filming the very opening scene in The Lion, here in Liverpool.

Then, as I’ve already banged on about this week, I’ll have to redo the whole thing because all the film currently in the computer is in the wrong format. But redoing it, now I know where everything goes, will take a fraction of the time. So the end’s in sight and I’m really happy with it so far. It’s funnier than I expected too – it was never meant to be a comedy.

There are many positives and a few negatives about the editing process, or editing in general. On the plus side the results are pretty instant, rewarding and surprising, but on the negative side you just sit in a dark room for hours on end doing precious little exercise and eventually go a little bit stir crazy.

Thursday 22nd September 2005

Posted by on September 22, 2005 1:01 PM

For the past two years, I’ve been on the end of a series of malicious pranks and practical jokes. What started as a bit of harmless fun gradually got out of hand, until it got to a point where I was being persecuted on a weekly basis.

Thankfully, I never suffered from bullying at school. There were some kids that did, but only the stupid younger, smaller, weaker ones who’d cry if you so much as smacked them around the head with a hardback folder or put a drawing pin through their ear lobe. It’s no wonder they ended up getting bullied if they couldn’t even put up me doing that.

No, the bullies left me alone until my twenties, when one gang of strangers started picking on me, ruining my work, and making me feel stupid. That gang of strangers were called British Telecom.

It all started when I wanted to connect my computer to the internet. They laughed at my nerdy wishes but said they’d do it for me if I paid them twenty five pounds dinner money a month, which I coughed up because I was scared. But that’s only when the trouble started, they didn’t just want my money, they wanted blood. And so soon, the torture began… My e-mail would be torn up just before it was supposed to be handed in, the connection to the World Wide Web would be intermittently switched on and off… It was their way of holding my textbooks just out of reach whilst I jumped and flailed at them.

One day the BT Gang pushed me into the girl’s toilets and ran away laughing. The following day they insisted I upgrade to BT Broadband – and that if I didn’t they’d tell everyone I wore a ladies bra.

Wednesday 21st September 2005

Posted by on September 21, 2005 12:55 PM

I’ve got a hot new tip for anyone who always seems to struggle to get enough done during the day. I've discovered that if you wake up at 5.30am and work solidly until 8pm without so much as a proper meal your output can be sensational.

If I was in charge of the World this would be my new rule, just to see how productive it’s possible for my lazy subjects to be. Has this ever been attempted? I’d be like Ming The Merciless I would.

Well a healthy 15 hours sat in front of the computer is precisely what happened today and so I’ve made great progress with the film. It’s really starting to take shape now.

The infuriating thing is that I’ve discovered all the footage that I spend DAYS logging and putting into the computer is in the wrong format. The film is shot in widescreen and the footage I've incorrectly put into the compuiter has been transfered in standard 4:3 (not widescreen for all of you not familiar with the interesting technical workings of television – are you all simple or something?).

Tuesday 20th September 2005

Posted by on September 20, 2005 10:51 AM

When I was last in Tesco buying my middle-class, full of seeds, rip-off food, I noticed that by 5pm several of the shelves had been nearly cleared of stock entirely, and that the line for the ‘express’ check-out tills snaked around the shop.

This wasn’t because people had heard talk of a nuclear strike and wanted to stock up on Mr Kipling cakes in case they were going to be confined to a shelter for the next few months, but simply because this is how Tesco always is, every single day. I started to wonder just how much money Tesco must make, seeing as each of their shops gets pretty much emptied by greedy customers on a daily bases before an enormous lorry comes along at night and fills it up to the ceiling with pies and pizzas again.

Well today the Breakfast News gave me the answer. Tesco made one billion pounds worth of profit in the last year. A billion! And that’s PROFIT, not turnover. It’s an inexcusable amount of money!

If I was in charge of a company making one billion pounds worth of profit every year, I’d have fun wasting that money on expensive publicity stunts, or even just pointless projects. I’d open a new store and stock it only with figs. It could be called Tesco Figs. Or Figs R Us. Or Figland, FigWorld, Everything A Fig. Figsavers? Fig-U-Like.

Monday 19th September 2005

Posted by on September 19, 2005 1:42 PM

I’ve not been exercising as much as I was a week ago because I’ve got a slight pain in my left knee. For example, if I go to stand up from the sofa, I have to get up putting my weight on my right knee otherwise it hurts, and I can’t bend the left one all the way either.

Two things are annoying about this. Firstly, I would like to go running this week to work off the weekend’s excesses and now can’t. Secondly, I’m living up to a very male stereotype by complaining of an incredibly minor sports-related ailment.

Men do this quite frequently. If you go to a 5-a-side pitch and watch men playing football (which I have done, in passing, not out of any sort of strange gay curiosity) you’ll notice quite a lot are wearing knee or ankle supports. I believe these men wear them almost like military medals, recognition for bravery in the field, or ON the field in their case, being footballers. Do you see what I did there?

The major difference though between military medals and ankle supports bought in J.J.B. Sports for £6.99 is that military medals are there to signify that the bearer has fought with outstanding valour for their fellow soldiers and country, whilst the ankle and/or knee support from J.J.B. Sports signifies that the wearer has turned a bit sharpish on the astroturf whilst trying to emulate a professional player and then not cooled down sufficiently after the game.

Sunday 18th September 2005

Posted by on September 18, 2005 5:45 PM

I’m quite an old person now and so, as tediously mentioned a few times in the past month, can’t shake off a big night out as quickly as I could in more youthful times.

I think it depends a lot on how you’re woken up. Given your own time, some fruit, and some soothing music it’s not always such an ordeal, but this morning I was awoken by a fog horn. And then a second fog horn, booming over the first, which was then followed by a third, fourth and fifth until my room – through an open window – was full of the sounds of an entire Navy flotilla stuck in a New York traffic jam.

I live by the Mersey and the occasional sound of a ship’s horn is quite pleasant. The ferries that travel daily to and from Belfast, Douglas and Dublin can often announce their arrival or departure with a drawn out honk and no-body could possibly object; it’s the sound of the sea.

But this morning, the drone of dozens of mysterious horns had forced me and my headache to withdraw under the duvet in disbelief. The sound was then backed up by two (count ‘em!) helicopters that came and hovered outside my window. No nightmare this – it was definitely real and eventually, cursing the heavens, I got up and went to the window to see what the Hell was going on.

Saturday 17th September 2005

Posted by on September 17, 2005 5:42 PM

The second day of A’s weekend visit started when she knocked on my door to wake me up and tell me it was 2pm and we should perhaps think about doing something. She was right, it’s no good festering – so on with the coffee and onto the sofa for an afternoon of rubbish Saturday afternoon TV.

I say rubbish because it generally is, but there’s one notable exception in the shape of You’ve Been Framed. I’ve always been a fan of this programme, right back to days of Jeremy Beadle’s reign. It suffered when that large girl from Emmerdale took over – the scripts were mind numbing and the canned audience laughter insulting. The programme was still only notable for it’s brilliant clips when Jonathan Wilkes took the helm – he’s only famous because he’s mates with Robbie Williams and reasonably good at football.

What it really needed was a complete revamp and some genius producer realised that you don’t need a stupid presenter at all, the clips of chorus lines falling off the back of a stage and kittens spinning around on record players are what the public want, so just show those without interruption and have someone do a voice over. Then, get someone genuinely funny like Harry Hill to do the voiceover, write sardonic, sarcastic and brilliant scripts, and you’ve got a winner.

Friday 16th September 2005

Posted by on September 16, 2005 5:40 PM

Got a phone call this morning from the people who run my NVQ course wondering why I’ve not been in recently. I knew I was probably due a call from them at some point and should have sent an explanation saying I’d been busy or hospitalised with something.

The trouble is that today was the day they had to file my NVQ application which costs them £70 and so needed to know they wouldn’t be wasting their time by forking out for it. I assured them that they wouldn’t, apologised, and promised to be in next week.

The guilt gave me extra determination to do something constructive with my day and after a good session working of the film, I realised there were some household tasks that could do with some attention. With A arriving from London at nine, I had to spend the day creating the illusion that I can look after myself at home in what most people would accept as an adult and responsible way.

Thursday 15th September 2005

Posted by on September 15, 2005 11:26 AM

I’ve been making good progress editing the documentary I made about the Modern Drunkard Convention I visited in Denver last May. Thankfully this means I feel less guilty about having delayed the project and far more enthusiastic about it in general. It might even be quite good.

Editing can be frustrating and infuriating at times but can also be a very, very rewarding process when it’s going well. You start with hundreds of clips that don’t seem to have much relation to one another but simply sticking them together creates the illusion of things being in the same room that weren’t when you filmed them, or things being done at the same time when they happened days apart, or even – if you’re being cheeky – people talking to one another who’ve never met.

Editors are the unsung heroes of radio, TV and film. You never hear of who won Best Editor at the Oscars but Best Director and Best Actor get showered with compliments. Without the Editor, they’d both be made to look like amateurs.

Wednesday 14th September 2005

Posted by on September 14, 2005 10:43 AM

Today marked the second initially confusing phone call in two days. When I answered, there was silence for a few seconds before I said ‘Hello’ about three times.

Then, from inside what sounded like a cave, a very muffled voice said something I couldn’t understand. I asked him to repeat, and – after a long pause – he said something that I made out to be my name. ‘Yes…’ I said, deciding not to hang up yet with the thinking that if this was a prank or obscene phone call, it’s unlikely they’d be formal enough to ask me to confirm my name first.

There was again some noise down the line, like someone re-arranging their coat. I temporarily thought perhaps it was someone in peril trapped up a mountainside or something but, again, they were unlikely to address me as Mr McHale when they rang, or indeed phone me at all.

Tuesday 13th September 2005

Posted by on September 13, 2005 2:33 PM

Last night the phone rang at about 3am and I had that odd experience when the sound of it ringing becomes part of your dream. I must have been in a deep sleep because when I did sit up I was still only semi-conscious and couldn’t understand where the noise was coming from. I picked up the handset but must still have been asleep as I didn’t say anything in until a few distant ‘Hello’s?’ came from the speaker.

I remember complete confusion then a slight panic at what it was I was supposed to be doing.

I wonder if I always sleep that deeply? I rarely get woken up so I can’t judge. If I do I’d be hopeless on a warship or nuclear submarine. According to Hollywood, which is the most accurate source of information in the world, the sailors are constantly being woken up by alarms and flashing red lights in the middle of the night for some emergency or other.

Monday 12th September 2005

Posted by on September 12, 2005 1:24 AM

I’m split between focusing on two different bits of news today, getting addicted to pulling out my nasal hairs, or the re-launch of the left-of-centre national newspaper, The Guardian.

This is all also countered by having to trim down my Pathetic Lot entries. I’ve noticed I’ve been putting more effort into all of this over the past month than is rational, sometimes up to 2,000 words a day. Seeing an average novel is between 70,000 and 90,000, this means I’d be writing one book every couple of months and I’m damned if I’m doing that without substantial reward from a top publisher.

I’m quite aware that my Blog isn’t up to the quality of a published novel, and also that some novels are read by literally millions of people compared to my six people, but I believe it’s TAKING PART that should be appreciated, not boring old FACTS about how I'm not as good as Dan Brown.

Remember to tell your bosses that. ‘Fact’ is nothing and never will be. That argument will theoretically get you out of absolutely any trouble or misunderstanding, ever.

Uh-huh... Play the old 'fact' card. That's got him good.

Sunday 11th September 2005

Posted by on September 11, 2005 8:16 PM

I’ve made a conscious effort when writing this Blog not to really dwell on self-inflicted moods or ills such as hangovers. I don’t want it to read like a juvenile celebration of ill-behaviour and heavy drinking and I certainly don’t want it to become repetitive. Hangovers by their nature are repetitive.

Not only because they happen repeatedly, but because they are all largely similar and therefore pretty much indistinguishable from one another.

They have one main common characteristic however, and that is that the one you happen to be suffering at present will be the worst you’ve ever had. There is no hangover as painful as the current one.

Saturday 10th September 2005

Posted by on September 10, 2005 8:14 PM

Woke up late and half-cut in the Manning’s Heath Hotel and hoped I’d not missed the bride and groom leaving for their honeymoon. I believe they’re off to Kenya for 3 weeks – excellent choice, I would love to go to Africa.

Up on my feet I knew that the day was going to be one hell of a struggle without a hair of the dog and found a mostly full bottle of red beside my bed. Tipped a glass back, showered, and carried the remainder downstairs.

I was told that Monica and Mark had left ten minutes beforehand which was deeply infuriating because obviously it would have been nice to wish them well but also because I’ve no idea when I’ll see them again. I doubt they get the chance to visit Liverpool much but apparently they live in London now so I suppose I could arrange something.

Friday 9th September 2005

Posted by on September 9, 2005 8:06 PM

Was at Victoria Station for half nine and, after yesterday’s debacle on Virgin Trains, decided to definitely buy my ticket on the concourse for the trip to Horsham.

There was a cue that snaked back and forth for the ticket office so decided to use my initiative and get one from one of the automatic machines. The way these work is you type in the name of the station you want to go to, then select your ticket type, then pay, and then bugger off. It’s simple. But due to an oversight of perplexing proportions, you can’t buy any tickets that aren’t singles, day returns, or weekly travel cards. This means that if you want to return the following day, as I did, you can’t get a suitable ticket – but would have to buy a single and another single tomorrow, which is hugely more expensive. I despair! I don’t understand why it’s so complicated to happily carry out a task of child-like simplicity in our automated world.

Thursday 8th September 2005

Posted by on September 8, 2005 8:12 PM

I suppose I could say I am a shameful capitalist, what with being entirely reliant on everything purchasable and virtually nothing God-given, apart from air, conversation and views.

So, being a self-confessed capitalist, it should come as no shock or surprise to me when this mode of living comes and smacks me back in the face as hard as a pigeon flying into helicopter blades.

I’d decided to go down south to Monica’s wedding a day early and stop over in London, it being impossible to get all the way from Liverpool to Horsham in one trip in time for a 2pm service tomorrow.

Wednesday 7th September 2005

Posted by on September 7, 2005 5:37 PM

I’m really looking forward to Monica’s wedding on Friday and in anticipation today made one of the most adult purchases of my juvenile life. It was a suit bag from John Lewis. A smart one made by Antler too – hardly the sort of object to excite the younger me (it’s not got breasts) but one that the 28 year old me took enormous satisfaction in unwrapping and investigating.

To fill it, I picked up a suit from the dry cleaners (my suit, not just a random one, don’t EVER do that, it’s stealing and quite likely won’t fit anyway) and once home carefully inserted it into it’s new travelling home. I then took a short walk around the flat holding my new bag, even stopping to look at myself in the full-length mirror and thinking / pretending how snazzy I looked.

I used my considerable acting skills to pretend I was a successful business man entering the foyer of a Geneva hotel. I imagine a successful businessman entering a hotel foyer in Geneva would carry a suit bag very similar to mine.

Tuesday 6th September 2005

Posted by on September 6, 2005 5:22 PM

I do enjoy the phone ringing – especially when it’s the home phone which, unlike mobile phones, doesn’t display the callers name and therefore still retains an air of mystery. Seeing as most people contact me on my mobile phone, the home phone ringing is quite exciting. It’s a bit like receiving post.

Recently though, answering the home phone has become a frustrating business, especially as – as I have made clear – hearing the home phone ringing is an event for me.

It’s become frustrating because I’ve obviously done something to really impress somebody at a company called Norton Finance. So impressed are they at whatever I did that they’ve taken to giving me a friendly call about once a day.

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