www.paulcoia.com
I’m going to Portugal for a week’s holiday on Saturday and I want you all to say to yourself “that’s nice, Paul deserves a bit of a break”, because when I mentioned my vacation to a pal the other day he laughed and said “but your whole life’s a holiday”.
I guess I can’t complain about “my life” as I am indeed lucky, but a continual holiday? It’s hard work looking this good and being so popular, and you don’t want to know the frustrations I’ve had over past two weeks just going about my business. Actually, if you’re reading this blog, then perhaps you do.
I’ve interviewed a lot of celebrities over the past few weeks and I guess the knack is to make them feel appreciated and loved so that they relax and “give good interview”. The only way to do this, apart from my natural charm and charisma of course, is to show the interviewee respect by doing a lot of homework on them. There can be nothing more brain numbing than getting asked the same questions day after day.
The young actress Kristen Stewart, from the new mega successful movie Twilight, has said that she kept getting asked “What’s it like to kiss a vampire?” on the movie’s publicity tour, and it made her want to scream so much that when someone actually asked a novel or interesting question her brain had shut down and couldn’t cope.
A couple of weeks ago I interviewed Hugh Cornwell who wrote all the big hits for The Stranglers and now has a new album out. The last time I interviewed Hugh and the rest of the band I found them impossible to cope with and many swear words hit the airwaves of Glasgow, so much so that I was fired from presenting that particular show. This time, I studiously listened to the CD and did my research hoping to make amends, only to find as he arrived that I’d left all my hard worked questions at home. I rang my wife Debbie and asked her to email the notes but, as she makes Wilma Flintstone look at one with technology, I gave up and had to wing it. “I like the album’s diversity”, I started and soon cringed as Hugh came right back with “Really? Can you expand on that because I don’t think it’s diverse at all”.
I then interviewed singer Will Young for a network radio piece that was to be spread over five days, so you’d think his record company would appreciate the publicity and just let us get on with it. But no, they told me I had five minutes to do the whole thing. I was on the point of walking away when they relented, grudgingly, and upped our time to ten, constantly breaking in on my headphones to tell me to hurry up. Not at all relaxing.
The same happened with Mr T, my hero from The A Team, who I was asked to talk to last week. The PR people from Snickers had flown him over and said I could have five minutes. How kind. We started, only for them to interrupt as he and I discussed cancer, saying I was getting too personal. Credit Mr T who told them to shut up and promised they’d send me some Snicker bars for their bad manners. I’m still waiting.
Next day it was Michael Ball who is starring in Hairspray in the West End and has a new album out. I asked him to prove he really was partly Welsh and he sang their national anthem right through. Not being Welsh myself, it could have been Esperanto or Saturday Night Geordie he was singing, but the tune was right and the words seemed to scan.
Mick Taylor, the former Rolling Stones guitarist was next up but, despite all my homework, he appeared with someone I’d never heard of and I had to interview them together. As I staggered to the end, pretending I knew Mick’s friend, I was coincidentally forced to rush off to interview former Rolling Stones’ squeeze Marianne Faithfull, so Mick asked me to give her his love and say he’d been to a recent gig of hers in Holland. I later passed on his kisses and hugs to Ms Faithfull and told her he’d been to her gig. “What a lovely man he is, but why didn’t he come backstage and say hello?”, she asked. As she smiled, she then said in her husky, very upper crust, English accent, “what a c**t”.
Simply Red were on the agenda for interview the next day but, as Mick Hucknall’s in South America, the time difference meant me hanging around our studios till nine at night waiting for his call. I read all the papers, watched TV and wrote my autobiography in three volumes waiting for the call that never came. Mick had been given the wrong number and I went home empty handed.
I realise that detailing these banal frustrations of the past two weeks shows that I don’t have enough to worry about but I also hope it shows I’m not permanently on holiday. Every night while you are out clubbing or drinking champagne with super models, I’m at home researching for an interview and hoping not to put my foot in it. Along with all these interviews, throw in a daily radio show, my coaching of executives, flying off to record TV pilots in Sweden and waddling round the gym when I can get the time, and I hope you agree I really do need a wee holiday.
If you fancy taking over while I’m away then let me know, but don’t get too comfortable. When I return I want my job back because, the truth is, despite smelly old PR people and record company jobsworths, I’m having a ball.
Tuesday, March 17, 2009
Tuesday, March 10, 2009
War
www.paulcoia.com
Last weekend I flew to place I love. Stockholm is the home of snow and thermal underwear at this time of year and my pampered, hot blooded, body was dragged shivering over there to record a TV show.
The week before I arrived the temperatures had dropped to minus fifteen degrees, so you can see why The Swedes have to be ever more inventive in keeping themselves amused over winter and trying to keep up their spirits. When the killjoys banned smoking in public spaces, for example, the Scandinavians quickly found a way round this inconvenience and they can now get their nicotine fix without anyone knowing about it. And it’s all thanks to tea bags.
In Sweden, men and women carry small round tin cans in their pockets filled with little, rectangular tea bags which are stuffed with tobacco. They don’t boil them up with a kettle full of hot water however but, instead, stuff them whole and entire in their mouths and lay them over the top gum so that the area below their nose bulges out like a bad day at the dentist. They all look like they have a hair lip.
I can’t tell you how surprising it is the first time to see men taking out their used, saliva filled old tea bags while talking to you and stuffing a new one in there without breaking their conversational flow. Perhaps “surprising” isn’t the right word, but I’m trying to be polite here.
Anyway, brown teeth, cancerous gums and breath like the remnants of a trawlerman’s pipe doesn’t stop the Swedes from being very nice and kind and I looked forward to meeting many of them at dinner on Saturday evening. But, as we drove to the restaurant, the streets of Stockholm were deserted, almost as if the population knew I was coming and had decided to hide.
You may think I’m exaggerating but I promise you that the roads looked as if they’d been closed by a film company who were shooting Armageddon 2, all the bars were empty and the restaurants seemed filled with only echoing footsteps. Sweden had stayed at home on Saturday night and it was very eerie.
I later found out that the reason the capital was emptier than Paris Hilton’s head was because of a TV show. Everyone was at home watching A Song For Europe.
In the UK we find that completely unbelievable, but it’s true. Now I realise that for those of you reading this outside Europe the joys of A Song For Europe are a land of ecstasy and passion yet to be explored, so let me explain. And please don’t snigger.
Each year the countries that make up the continent of Europe recognise that there hasn’t been a Europe wide war since the nineteen forties so, like weekend warriors who dress up and recreate battles of the past, they remind themselves of the good old days by trying to beat the living daylights out of other countries by hurling unsettling and dangerous songs at each other.
The battlefield is usually a concert venue somewhere in Yugoslavia or Scandinavia and the event is hosted by two borderline local care in the community presenters who watch as each country’s songs explode on stage, the collateral damage inflicted on our ears leading to casualties on a massive scale, and you can almost hear shouts of “Incoming, Incoming” as one dreadful sheep herder after another takes to the stage to sing songs about the glories of cheese or inter marrying, with a chorus along the lines of “Fa, la la, la la, la lee”, while his partner plays a solo on the accordion.
In case you think I’m looking down on the whole event let me state clearly that, in this annual war, Britain bravely conjures up the Churchill spirit and gallantly loses every time. And we lose big. We can’t even win a song contest where being bad is good. We’re so bad, we’re just bad.
Our entry this year has been written by Andrew Lloyd Webber who has put together some off cuts from Cats or Phantom of the Opera and given these to Diane Warren, an American who has written more hit songs for Celine Dion and others than I have acne scars. She’s a star and should be above all this, but I can only assume Webber has threatened to kill her cats as she’s flown over to the UK and has had to adapt to the musical trench warfare. Webber and Warren have both now given us a song that is so bad it would have been removed by the publishers from a “My First Piano Book”, and I can promise you that kids would turn their noses up at any kindergarten recital and refuse to bang their tambourine and xylophones to this one.
Last year we came last, as we did in 2003, but at least we’re not political losers. Georgia has selected as its entry this year a disco band called 3G who echo the sentiments of their whole country by taking a swipe at the event’s hosts this year. Quite what Russia’s head Vladimir Putin will make of their song We Don’t Want A Put In, where they manage to rhyme Put In with Shoot ‘em, is anyone’s guess.
Countries vote tactically for other, friendly, countries and so Norway’s entry, a band called Wig Wam who look like Seventies glam rockers led by a transsexual fat lady with big sunglasses, came to Stockholm to beg for votes, saying the Swedish entry has no chance.
And this is just the start. The contest isn’t until May but before then, if I’m exposed to much more of this Eurovision stuff, I’ll have to take up smoking to calm my nerves. Or chewing tea bags.
Last weekend I flew to place I love. Stockholm is the home of snow and thermal underwear at this time of year and my pampered, hot blooded, body was dragged shivering over there to record a TV show.
The week before I arrived the temperatures had dropped to minus fifteen degrees, so you can see why The Swedes have to be ever more inventive in keeping themselves amused over winter and trying to keep up their spirits. When the killjoys banned smoking in public spaces, for example, the Scandinavians quickly found a way round this inconvenience and they can now get their nicotine fix without anyone knowing about it. And it’s all thanks to tea bags.
In Sweden, men and women carry small round tin cans in their pockets filled with little, rectangular tea bags which are stuffed with tobacco. They don’t boil them up with a kettle full of hot water however but, instead, stuff them whole and entire in their mouths and lay them over the top gum so that the area below their nose bulges out like a bad day at the dentist. They all look like they have a hair lip.
I can’t tell you how surprising it is the first time to see men taking out their used, saliva filled old tea bags while talking to you and stuffing a new one in there without breaking their conversational flow. Perhaps “surprising” isn’t the right word, but I’m trying to be polite here.
Anyway, brown teeth, cancerous gums and breath like the remnants of a trawlerman’s pipe doesn’t stop the Swedes from being very nice and kind and I looked forward to meeting many of them at dinner on Saturday evening. But, as we drove to the restaurant, the streets of Stockholm were deserted, almost as if the population knew I was coming and had decided to hide.
You may think I’m exaggerating but I promise you that the roads looked as if they’d been closed by a film company who were shooting Armageddon 2, all the bars were empty and the restaurants seemed filled with only echoing footsteps. Sweden had stayed at home on Saturday night and it was very eerie.
I later found out that the reason the capital was emptier than Paris Hilton’s head was because of a TV show. Everyone was at home watching A Song For Europe.
In the UK we find that completely unbelievable, but it’s true. Now I realise that for those of you reading this outside Europe the joys of A Song For Europe are a land of ecstasy and passion yet to be explored, so let me explain. And please don’t snigger.
Each year the countries that make up the continent of Europe recognise that there hasn’t been a Europe wide war since the nineteen forties so, like weekend warriors who dress up and recreate battles of the past, they remind themselves of the good old days by trying to beat the living daylights out of other countries by hurling unsettling and dangerous songs at each other.
The battlefield is usually a concert venue somewhere in Yugoslavia or Scandinavia and the event is hosted by two borderline local care in the community presenters who watch as each country’s songs explode on stage, the collateral damage inflicted on our ears leading to casualties on a massive scale, and you can almost hear shouts of “Incoming, Incoming” as one dreadful sheep herder after another takes to the stage to sing songs about the glories of cheese or inter marrying, with a chorus along the lines of “Fa, la la, la la, la lee”, while his partner plays a solo on the accordion.
In case you think I’m looking down on the whole event let me state clearly that, in this annual war, Britain bravely conjures up the Churchill spirit and gallantly loses every time. And we lose big. We can’t even win a song contest where being bad is good. We’re so bad, we’re just bad.
Our entry this year has been written by Andrew Lloyd Webber who has put together some off cuts from Cats or Phantom of the Opera and given these to Diane Warren, an American who has written more hit songs for Celine Dion and others than I have acne scars. She’s a star and should be above all this, but I can only assume Webber has threatened to kill her cats as she’s flown over to the UK and has had to adapt to the musical trench warfare. Webber and Warren have both now given us a song that is so bad it would have been removed by the publishers from a “My First Piano Book”, and I can promise you that kids would turn their noses up at any kindergarten recital and refuse to bang their tambourine and xylophones to this one.
Last year we came last, as we did in 2003, but at least we’re not political losers. Georgia has selected as its entry this year a disco band called 3G who echo the sentiments of their whole country by taking a swipe at the event’s hosts this year. Quite what Russia’s head Vladimir Putin will make of their song We Don’t Want A Put In, where they manage to rhyme Put In with Shoot ‘em, is anyone’s guess.
Countries vote tactically for other, friendly, countries and so Norway’s entry, a band called Wig Wam who look like Seventies glam rockers led by a transsexual fat lady with big sunglasses, came to Stockholm to beg for votes, saying the Swedish entry has no chance.
And this is just the start. The contest isn’t until May but before then, if I’m exposed to much more of this Eurovision stuff, I’ll have to take up smoking to calm my nerves. Or chewing tea bags.
Tuesday, March 3, 2009
The Name Of The Game
www.paulcoia.com
I came home from work yesterday in floods of tears and asked my wife to console me. So she hit me over the head with an Xbox.
Yes, I know that didn’t really happen but I thought that, after last week’s serious tone, I’d lighten the mood this week by starting with a joke, no matter how weak. In truth there’s been a lot of jokes and fun around these past seven days and it’s been reminding me of carefree, credit crunchless, times.
I once worked with a producer called Josephine King, which is not, in itself, worthy of comment but, as she preferred to be called Jo, making her Jo King, I’ll mention it anyway as it’s a very silly name and gives problems on the old credibility scale. I was reminded of her this week when a baby clothesware retailer released details of stupid names given to kids and I was intrigued to find that some people hate their parents because of the name they were given at birth.
A lady with the surname Snokars was relieved to get married and change her name after years of being teased. When you realise her full name was Norma Snokars and you say her name out loud while thinking of her very large assets, you understand why.
The survey also had a Justin Case, a lady named Barb Dwyer and a poor, picked on man called Stan Still. Joining them were Terry Bull, Paige Turner and Ana Sasin.
Remember, these aren’t characters from a comic or a bad children’s joke book. These people had to go through life carrying these names and leaving themselves open to mockery at all times. Job interviews must have been excruciating, business cards an embarrassment and name plaques an invitation to any graffiti artist. How these people ever get a date is way beyond my understanding.
Stan Still used to be in the RAF and he says his life was made a misery. His commanding officer used to shout “Stan Still, get a move on”, and roll about laughing. But 51 year old Rose Bush says her name has been nothing but fun and that she always gets comments that are positive. Whether she’s ever met Alastair Phid I don’t know, but a Rose Bush and an A Phid don’t normally get along famously.
Some names make it difficult for kids to consider any other career. In the States there’s a Dr Leslie Doctor, a Dr Thomas Surgeon and a dentist in San Francisco called Les Plack. Canada has a member of the forestry board called Tim Burr and in Scotland there’s a textile lady with the name Annette Curtin. And in England – you can Google them if you think I’m making this up – a young couple, known as Susan and Robert Mee, have problems. Sue Mee is a lawyer and Rob Mee is a banker.
Some titles, of course, don’t look silly in their own language but seem ridiculous elsewhere. Lotte Flack lives blissfully in Germany unaware of the lot of flack she’d get in Britain, and Mr Willy Dangles, who works for the HSBC Bank in France will probably never know the stick he gets from his UK colleagues behind his back. The Frenchman Olivier Moron gets no ridicule at home but has a miserable time from the moment he arrives at any English speaking border, and I have no idea if the American ambassador to Denmark has any embarrassing problems that could get in the way of his diplomatic meetings, but I do know his name is Dick Swett. He once ran for the Senate in America where his campaigners turned down the slogan “No one can lick Swett”. Wisely.
With some other names you have to work hard to understand why the person concerned says they get such a terrible time. A girl named Jenny Taylor says she is always being picked on for her name and I genuinely couldn’t understand why until I said her name out loud and instantly understood.
As if all this nonsense isn’t enough to cheer anyone up this week, I’ve discovered a web site called Ancestry.com which contains over eighty three million records of American citizens who have passed on to that celestial place where names mean nothing. Using a search engine on the site you can waste many hours at work finding ridiculous, but real, names and wondering about their lives. It could become a new internet phenomenon.
Being a boy, of course, I had to search the rude ones first and I found a Julius Pooh, who lived in Sussex, New Jersey, a Mae Bumm who died in 1993 and lived her life in happy ignorance of immature British schoolboy humour in Newtown Pennsylvania, and I can only hope that transport being what it was in the Nineteen Twenties, the Chicago resident named Miss Fartt didn’t get about much. Her first name, should you wish to check up for yourself, was Fannie.
On this wonderful site, my silliness also led me to great Americans like Ruperta Colon, Willie Manky, Frank Twitt and just under three hundred and twenty four thousand lives blighted by the real, and wonderful, name Donald Duk.
So, that’s how I’ve spent this week, cheering myself up by laughing at others. Not very laudable, I know, but fun nonetheless. Occasionally I have found myself pausing and sympathising, especially over a name I found that’s been attached to over four hundred and seventy three thousand Americans who went to their graves not knowing that, one day, someone would bring shame on their name. That moniker, should you wish to check it out on Ancestry.com, is Paul Coia.
Now that really IS a silly name.
I came home from work yesterday in floods of tears and asked my wife to console me. So she hit me over the head with an Xbox.
Yes, I know that didn’t really happen but I thought that, after last week’s serious tone, I’d lighten the mood this week by starting with a joke, no matter how weak. In truth there’s been a lot of jokes and fun around these past seven days and it’s been reminding me of carefree, credit crunchless, times.
I once worked with a producer called Josephine King, which is not, in itself, worthy of comment but, as she preferred to be called Jo, making her Jo King, I’ll mention it anyway as it’s a very silly name and gives problems on the old credibility scale. I was reminded of her this week when a baby clothesware retailer released details of stupid names given to kids and I was intrigued to find that some people hate their parents because of the name they were given at birth.
A lady with the surname Snokars was relieved to get married and change her name after years of being teased. When you realise her full name was Norma Snokars and you say her name out loud while thinking of her very large assets, you understand why.
The survey also had a Justin Case, a lady named Barb Dwyer and a poor, picked on man called Stan Still. Joining them were Terry Bull, Paige Turner and Ana Sasin.
Remember, these aren’t characters from a comic or a bad children’s joke book. These people had to go through life carrying these names and leaving themselves open to mockery at all times. Job interviews must have been excruciating, business cards an embarrassment and name plaques an invitation to any graffiti artist. How these people ever get a date is way beyond my understanding.
Stan Still used to be in the RAF and he says his life was made a misery. His commanding officer used to shout “Stan Still, get a move on”, and roll about laughing. But 51 year old Rose Bush says her name has been nothing but fun and that she always gets comments that are positive. Whether she’s ever met Alastair Phid I don’t know, but a Rose Bush and an A Phid don’t normally get along famously.
Some names make it difficult for kids to consider any other career. In the States there’s a Dr Leslie Doctor, a Dr Thomas Surgeon and a dentist in San Francisco called Les Plack. Canada has a member of the forestry board called Tim Burr and in Scotland there’s a textile lady with the name Annette Curtin. And in England – you can Google them if you think I’m making this up – a young couple, known as Susan and Robert Mee, have problems. Sue Mee is a lawyer and Rob Mee is a banker.
Some titles, of course, don’t look silly in their own language but seem ridiculous elsewhere. Lotte Flack lives blissfully in Germany unaware of the lot of flack she’d get in Britain, and Mr Willy Dangles, who works for the HSBC Bank in France will probably never know the stick he gets from his UK colleagues behind his back. The Frenchman Olivier Moron gets no ridicule at home but has a miserable time from the moment he arrives at any English speaking border, and I have no idea if the American ambassador to Denmark has any embarrassing problems that could get in the way of his diplomatic meetings, but I do know his name is Dick Swett. He once ran for the Senate in America where his campaigners turned down the slogan “No one can lick Swett”. Wisely.
With some other names you have to work hard to understand why the person concerned says they get such a terrible time. A girl named Jenny Taylor says she is always being picked on for her name and I genuinely couldn’t understand why until I said her name out loud and instantly understood.
As if all this nonsense isn’t enough to cheer anyone up this week, I’ve discovered a web site called Ancestry.com which contains over eighty three million records of American citizens who have passed on to that celestial place where names mean nothing. Using a search engine on the site you can waste many hours at work finding ridiculous, but real, names and wondering about their lives. It could become a new internet phenomenon.
Being a boy, of course, I had to search the rude ones first and I found a Julius Pooh, who lived in Sussex, New Jersey, a Mae Bumm who died in 1993 and lived her life in happy ignorance of immature British schoolboy humour in Newtown Pennsylvania, and I can only hope that transport being what it was in the Nineteen Twenties, the Chicago resident named Miss Fartt didn’t get about much. Her first name, should you wish to check up for yourself, was Fannie.
On this wonderful site, my silliness also led me to great Americans like Ruperta Colon, Willie Manky, Frank Twitt and just under three hundred and twenty four thousand lives blighted by the real, and wonderful, name Donald Duk.
So, that’s how I’ve spent this week, cheering myself up by laughing at others. Not very laudable, I know, but fun nonetheless. Occasionally I have found myself pausing and sympathising, especially over a name I found that’s been attached to over four hundred and seventy three thousand Americans who went to their graves not knowing that, one day, someone would bring shame on their name. That moniker, should you wish to check it out on Ancestry.com, is Paul Coia.
Now that really IS a silly name.
Tuesday, February 24, 2009
Farewell Is A Lonely Sound
www.paulcoia.com
I guess if you’ve read this blog even once before you’ll have expectations of coming here again this week and finding my spirits up as usual, as I try to find some sort of fun in the things around me, and generally have a good time, even if I have a go sometimes at life’s absurdities. Well, sorry to change the plot line but you find me feeling I may have been wrong all along.
I’ve always banged on in this blog about staying positive and how I hate being dragged down by people who are the “glass half empty” type. I even devoted one blog to several reasons to be cheerful in this awful, world wide, recession. But I confess that I have found this week very difficult. The smile is gone, the spirits low, the voice not as confident and the jaunty walk just a little bit less John Travolta because, for the first time, I have been present when job losses have hit people I like and work with.
I realise I may sound innocent and naïve in saying this but I just wasn’t prepared for the feelings that bubbled up when one company I work with announced last week that, due to the worst recession in living memory, people would have to leave.
I suppose for anyone faced with a similar experience the first thought, selfishly, would be whether they were going to be one of the ones to go, but then this gives way pretty quickly to sympathy and empathy as, one by one, friends are called in and given the bad news.
Ever since I left school I have been freelance, going from one contract to another in a solo fight through the employment battlefield with no security and no possibility of sickness pay, annual leave or fringe benefits. This self obsession has meant me blithely, and self absordedly, moving on from places while forgetting that many people devote their adult lives to one company, putting their faith, and their family’s future, in the hands of a few people who they need to trust.
In the past I have, of course, seen individuals after they have been taken aside and told that they have to walk the plank and it has always been painful, but this week I saw what seemed like a never ending series of calls and meetings as people waited to find out whether they had a future with the company. It was truly dreadful and still, a few days later, occupies my every thought.
Speaking to some of those who had to make the decision I know just how agonising it has been for them and how upset they have felt at breaking the news, so it seems there is misery on both sides. But while those delivering the bad news have been universally subdued and sensitive, I have been surprised, in my inexperienced way, by the different ways people have reacted when receiving the kiss off.
At one end of the spectrum are the ones who are very philosophical and understand it is not personal but simply a way of saving money and keeping the company going in the hope it will prosper after the crunch is over and welcome them back with open arms. But others are bitter and feel betrayed, a natural reaction to their new worry of survival.
So I’m thinking that now I personally know people who are caught up in this mess, how dare I possibly carry on glibly in my weekly musings here telling all and sundry that we should be cheerful? If you had lost your job would you react well to someone saying “well, at least you’ve got your health” or “perhaps this is the kick in the pants you needed to find something you really like”?
In the UK we have currently around two million people unemployed, a rate not seen for twelve years and it is tipped to reach over three million, or ten percent of the population, by the end of the year. Just pause for a moment and think of all the people who currently have no job, and then picture another fifty per cent joining them by Christmas day. The last time we had three million unemployed here was in 1982, and before that, it was the Depression of the Thirties. It’s as if the politicians and economists have learned nothing.
And prospects for new jobs are bleak with vacancies at the lowest since records began. With banks hovering like desert vultures over people who can no longer pay their mortgages the whole economic situation is about to go even more horribly pear shaped. Statistics show that, during periods of high job losses, crime increases and the next generation loses hope of finding work and they then become resigned to the fate of their parents.
So, why should I carry on being positive? Why should I return here every week and try to raise a smile while pretending that I’ve never grown up?
I believe the answer is that it’s because it is my layer of protection from the bad stuff out there, an overcoat against the draught of misery that’s blowing so many away. You may be more practical, mature and capable of dealing with these times but I’m afraid that I’m not. I’m fighting the temptation to disappear, as I do each week, back to the days of my comic books and warm bed time drinks, of real fires, flannel sheets and felted tartan dressing gowns. I want to pretend that I’m being looked after and have nothing to worry about except which premier league football team I’ll play for in my school holidays, which Top Ten band I’ll sing with at weekends or whether I’ll ever be tall enough to reach the pedals of a Ferrari.
Next week it’s back to the frivolity and nonsense that’s usually here but, for this week only, I feel I should grow up. And I don’t like it one little bit.
I guess if you’ve read this blog even once before you’ll have expectations of coming here again this week and finding my spirits up as usual, as I try to find some sort of fun in the things around me, and generally have a good time, even if I have a go sometimes at life’s absurdities. Well, sorry to change the plot line but you find me feeling I may have been wrong all along.
I’ve always banged on in this blog about staying positive and how I hate being dragged down by people who are the “glass half empty” type. I even devoted one blog to several reasons to be cheerful in this awful, world wide, recession. But I confess that I have found this week very difficult. The smile is gone, the spirits low, the voice not as confident and the jaunty walk just a little bit less John Travolta because, for the first time, I have been present when job losses have hit people I like and work with.
I realise I may sound innocent and naïve in saying this but I just wasn’t prepared for the feelings that bubbled up when one company I work with announced last week that, due to the worst recession in living memory, people would have to leave.
I suppose for anyone faced with a similar experience the first thought, selfishly, would be whether they were going to be one of the ones to go, but then this gives way pretty quickly to sympathy and empathy as, one by one, friends are called in and given the bad news.
Ever since I left school I have been freelance, going from one contract to another in a solo fight through the employment battlefield with no security and no possibility of sickness pay, annual leave or fringe benefits. This self obsession has meant me blithely, and self absordedly, moving on from places while forgetting that many people devote their adult lives to one company, putting their faith, and their family’s future, in the hands of a few people who they need to trust.
In the past I have, of course, seen individuals after they have been taken aside and told that they have to walk the plank and it has always been painful, but this week I saw what seemed like a never ending series of calls and meetings as people waited to find out whether they had a future with the company. It was truly dreadful and still, a few days later, occupies my every thought.
Speaking to some of those who had to make the decision I know just how agonising it has been for them and how upset they have felt at breaking the news, so it seems there is misery on both sides. But while those delivering the bad news have been universally subdued and sensitive, I have been surprised, in my inexperienced way, by the different ways people have reacted when receiving the kiss off.
At one end of the spectrum are the ones who are very philosophical and understand it is not personal but simply a way of saving money and keeping the company going in the hope it will prosper after the crunch is over and welcome them back with open arms. But others are bitter and feel betrayed, a natural reaction to their new worry of survival.
So I’m thinking that now I personally know people who are caught up in this mess, how dare I possibly carry on glibly in my weekly musings here telling all and sundry that we should be cheerful? If you had lost your job would you react well to someone saying “well, at least you’ve got your health” or “perhaps this is the kick in the pants you needed to find something you really like”?
In the UK we have currently around two million people unemployed, a rate not seen for twelve years and it is tipped to reach over three million, or ten percent of the population, by the end of the year. Just pause for a moment and think of all the people who currently have no job, and then picture another fifty per cent joining them by Christmas day. The last time we had three million unemployed here was in 1982, and before that, it was the Depression of the Thirties. It’s as if the politicians and economists have learned nothing.
And prospects for new jobs are bleak with vacancies at the lowest since records began. With banks hovering like desert vultures over people who can no longer pay their mortgages the whole economic situation is about to go even more horribly pear shaped. Statistics show that, during periods of high job losses, crime increases and the next generation loses hope of finding work and they then become resigned to the fate of their parents.
So, why should I carry on being positive? Why should I return here every week and try to raise a smile while pretending that I’ve never grown up?
I believe the answer is that it’s because it is my layer of protection from the bad stuff out there, an overcoat against the draught of misery that’s blowing so many away. You may be more practical, mature and capable of dealing with these times but I’m afraid that I’m not. I’m fighting the temptation to disappear, as I do each week, back to the days of my comic books and warm bed time drinks, of real fires, flannel sheets and felted tartan dressing gowns. I want to pretend that I’m being looked after and have nothing to worry about except which premier league football team I’ll play for in my school holidays, which Top Ten band I’ll sing with at weekends or whether I’ll ever be tall enough to reach the pedals of a Ferrari.
Next week it’s back to the frivolity and nonsense that’s usually here but, for this week only, I feel I should grow up. And I don’t like it one little bit.
Tuesday, February 17, 2009
Love Me Do
www.paulcoia.com
So, that’s another St Valentine’s Day over and I really hope you had a good one. I think I did all the right stuff, ordering flowers and booking an expensive dinner at a posh restaurant. I even managed to write a card and, as a sign of my growing maturity, for once it wasn’t written to myself.
I confess that I used to send Valentine’s cards to my own address a lot when I was younger so that I’d look popular at school and, to disguise my handwriting and keep up the pretence, I wrote them with my left hand. To this day I’m convinced my schoolmates believe I was dating a dyslexic with Parkinson’s.
I hope your loved one remembered to give you a card/flowers/hug/dinner this year or that you were as lucky as I was and received a huge chocolate heart. Call me a romantic, but the heart seemed very appropriate because the biggest, and longest living, love interest in my life has always been chocolate. Nothing says I Love You quite like a box of cocoa calories.
If you did have the perfect romantic day then consider yourself lucky because I’m told Valentine’s is not only a great day for love but it’s also one of the biggest days for couples looking afresh at each other and deciding enough is enough. In short, the expectation of waking up next to Brad Pitt, and the reality of seeing his brother Cess instead, makes the day that’s dedicated to love a popular one for break ups too.
Perhaps you are like me. I was always useless at having that final “we’re through” conversation and ended up too often carrying on relationships way beyond their pity and sympathy date, either hiding from the telephone or spending too much time working out where to place the “it’s not you, it’s me” line in my speech. I used to prepare these break ups for days, having once learned an important lesson after I decided that I should hold nothing back and just go with the flow. I got punched.
So I’m with Neil Sedaka - breaking up is hard to do, especially on Valentine’s Day, and I was interested in the newspaper letters pages this week where readers agreed that Valentine’s days are tough for singletons or those who want to be single again. Someone asked if it’s good manners to bin your partner in Valentine’s week or should you wait? The letters of reply suggested the latter but then moved on to the more interesting topic of what happens if you are the one being chucked. In other words, how do you get revenge?
Well, one girl had a novel approach. She used the key to her exes flat while he was at work and removed all his clothes, taking them to several dry cleaners around London and, as she travelled a lot with work, a few cities abroad too. She then posted him the receipts and left him to work out how to get his suits back. Another wrote a letter to her former boyfriend’s mother saying she would miss their talks but hoped she’d understand how expensive it had become replacing the lacy pants and bras from her underwear drawer that her perfect son had been stealing to wear to work.
Yet another handed her key back to her boyfriend only after copying it, and then waited a couple of months for him to go on holiday and sneaked in and soaked his carpets with water. Now, on its own, that’s not clever and it might seem to be simple vandalism, but what raised it above mere pettiness was that she then sprinkled watercress seed all over the top. I would have almost given up chocolate to see his face when he returned from holiday.
I guess anyone can cut the bottom off their former lover’s trousers, hack the sleeves off their blouses or write fake letters to their place of work stamped Clap Clinic Results, but to get a great feeling of revenge it seems to me there must be a bit of thought and intelligence in there.
A friend of mine was very clever at getting his own back on a girl who, if I’m honest, none of us liked. She was a snob and a lawyer but wanted everyone to treat her as a minor royal, expecting everyone to run around after her. She chucked my pal by text, leaving him distraught, but when he calmed down he remembered that he still had a key to her posh flat. He let himself in and sewed a handful of frozen prawns in to the lining of all her curtains where they would never be discovered. I can only guess at the smell after a week or two.
I have only ever taken revenge in affairs of the heart once and, after the initial hilarity, I felt disappointed in myself. I found out that my girlfriend was seeing someone else and, as the rage subsided, I got my own back by hiding her coat and bag. Teacher found me out and made me stand outside kindergarten for the whole of break.
I think that to save hurt in this whole romance thing then, perhaps we would all be better off if our attitude was the same as the young girl who sat near me on Friday. I was on the train going home when a girl of about five or six got on with her mum and they were obviously finishing a conversation about Valentine’s Day. The mum was saying something like “so then you send a card but don’t put your name in it, and perhaps send some chocolates or flowers.”
The girl looked at her as if she was mad, going very quiet while mulling it over, and then said sadly “What, no cake? No balloons? No jelly?”. With a shrug of her shoulders she said, “Is that it?”.
So, that’s another St Valentine’s Day over and I really hope you had a good one. I think I did all the right stuff, ordering flowers and booking an expensive dinner at a posh restaurant. I even managed to write a card and, as a sign of my growing maturity, for once it wasn’t written to myself.
I confess that I used to send Valentine’s cards to my own address a lot when I was younger so that I’d look popular at school and, to disguise my handwriting and keep up the pretence, I wrote them with my left hand. To this day I’m convinced my schoolmates believe I was dating a dyslexic with Parkinson’s.
I hope your loved one remembered to give you a card/flowers/hug/dinner this year or that you were as lucky as I was and received a huge chocolate heart. Call me a romantic, but the heart seemed very appropriate because the biggest, and longest living, love interest in my life has always been chocolate. Nothing says I Love You quite like a box of cocoa calories.
If you did have the perfect romantic day then consider yourself lucky because I’m told Valentine’s is not only a great day for love but it’s also one of the biggest days for couples looking afresh at each other and deciding enough is enough. In short, the expectation of waking up next to Brad Pitt, and the reality of seeing his brother Cess instead, makes the day that’s dedicated to love a popular one for break ups too.
Perhaps you are like me. I was always useless at having that final “we’re through” conversation and ended up too often carrying on relationships way beyond their pity and sympathy date, either hiding from the telephone or spending too much time working out where to place the “it’s not you, it’s me” line in my speech. I used to prepare these break ups for days, having once learned an important lesson after I decided that I should hold nothing back and just go with the flow. I got punched.
So I’m with Neil Sedaka - breaking up is hard to do, especially on Valentine’s Day, and I was interested in the newspaper letters pages this week where readers agreed that Valentine’s days are tough for singletons or those who want to be single again. Someone asked if it’s good manners to bin your partner in Valentine’s week or should you wait? The letters of reply suggested the latter but then moved on to the more interesting topic of what happens if you are the one being chucked. In other words, how do you get revenge?
Well, one girl had a novel approach. She used the key to her exes flat while he was at work and removed all his clothes, taking them to several dry cleaners around London and, as she travelled a lot with work, a few cities abroad too. She then posted him the receipts and left him to work out how to get his suits back. Another wrote a letter to her former boyfriend’s mother saying she would miss their talks but hoped she’d understand how expensive it had become replacing the lacy pants and bras from her underwear drawer that her perfect son had been stealing to wear to work.
Yet another handed her key back to her boyfriend only after copying it, and then waited a couple of months for him to go on holiday and sneaked in and soaked his carpets with water. Now, on its own, that’s not clever and it might seem to be simple vandalism, but what raised it above mere pettiness was that she then sprinkled watercress seed all over the top. I would have almost given up chocolate to see his face when he returned from holiday.
I guess anyone can cut the bottom off their former lover’s trousers, hack the sleeves off their blouses or write fake letters to their place of work stamped Clap Clinic Results, but to get a great feeling of revenge it seems to me there must be a bit of thought and intelligence in there.
A friend of mine was very clever at getting his own back on a girl who, if I’m honest, none of us liked. She was a snob and a lawyer but wanted everyone to treat her as a minor royal, expecting everyone to run around after her. She chucked my pal by text, leaving him distraught, but when he calmed down he remembered that he still had a key to her posh flat. He let himself in and sewed a handful of frozen prawns in to the lining of all her curtains where they would never be discovered. I can only guess at the smell after a week or two.
I have only ever taken revenge in affairs of the heart once and, after the initial hilarity, I felt disappointed in myself. I found out that my girlfriend was seeing someone else and, as the rage subsided, I got my own back by hiding her coat and bag. Teacher found me out and made me stand outside kindergarten for the whole of break.
I think that to save hurt in this whole romance thing then, perhaps we would all be better off if our attitude was the same as the young girl who sat near me on Friday. I was on the train going home when a girl of about five or six got on with her mum and they were obviously finishing a conversation about Valentine’s Day. The mum was saying something like “so then you send a card but don’t put your name in it, and perhaps send some chocolates or flowers.”
The girl looked at her as if she was mad, going very quiet while mulling it over, and then said sadly “What, no cake? No balloons? No jelly?”. With a shrug of her shoulders she said, “Is that it?”.
Tuesday, February 10, 2009
Communication Breakdown
www.paulcoia.com
My main problem with Britain being snowed under this week wasn’t that I couldn’t get to work, or that I had to drive too slowly so as to avoid stranded cars and lost penguins. What really annoyed me about the white out was Facebook.
Far too many of my friends were stuck at home with lots of time on their hands and started to vent their frustrations by going on line and sending messages to anyone who would listen. Forget the motorways, it was my computer that was snowed under tho’, on the upside, I did get sent one good joke.
Stephen Fry disdains Facebook and uses this new thing called Twitter where you blog in real time from your mobile ‘phone, and this week he updated his fans while being stuck in a lift at Centre Point in London. This ability to let everyone know about your every bowel movement is great for the likes of Pixie Geldof who could Twitter at ten o’clock “Getting married”, at eleven o’clock “now standing in front of Father Elvis in Vegas chapel” and by mid day we’d get blow by blow on the consummation. At lunchtime the expected “oops” would arrive followed by “getting divorced” at tea time. England cricket fans could likewise Twitter their teams live scores before losing the match by lunchtime.
As I will never sign up for it, I can wholeheartedly wish Twitter every success in its endeavour to lure the nut jobs away from Facebook and let us get back to normal.
My Facebook screen was jammed on Monday with messages along the lines of “Mary is making herself a cup of tea and wondering why snow is white” and things like “John is going back to bed and trying to carry on his dream with Keira Knightley” though John didn’t say if the actress was actually there. Another asked me to join a group called "Stop Whingeing About The Snow - Its the Winter" which someone with too much time on their hands set up within hours of the cold weather setting in. When they have a bit of slush at the North Pole do explorers start Facebook groups named “Calm down dear. It’s only Spring”? Would Sir Edmund Hilary have started the “While Sherpas watched their flocks by night” thread? What’s the purpose of these on line virtual gang huts?
On Facebook I’m constantly asked to accept and send back pieces of fruit or flowers and even cocktails, and I have no idea why any adult would think it’s a sign of maturity to ask people to send pretend drinks and fruit to each other. If you don’t click on the button then you run the risk of your daft friend thinking that you’ve fallen out with them. And what do they do with these things when they arrive on their page? Do they open a virtual fruit shop or coffee bar?
One boy in America caused uproar this week on Facebook. The poor bloke is still in the closet and, instead of joining the Boy Scouts or embroidering a nice cushion, he opened a web page under a girl’s name using a photo of a female model in her underwear. He then asked guys to send him (or, as they thought, her) photos of themselves in their Y fronts. The poor, confused kid was found out and his mates are in uproar, getting the police involved.
And that’s one of the problems. The photos you use can be of anyone, but people assume it’s you. You are, of course, supposed to only accept friends on your Facebook page who would know what you look like anyway, but I’ve lost count of the number of requests I’ve received from complete strangers to become my friend. If you click on Ignore when the request comes in then you feel mean, but accepting seems just a bit desperate, as if you’re hell bent on getting your numbers up to look popular. When my mum and dad were teaching me manners, they missed out the Facebook etiquette page completely.
Of course, this is all annoying, yet harmless. I’ve renewed contact with many people I haven’t seen in years - some former girlfriends, many work colleagues, a lot of old friends, and an acquaintance named Tony who used to be in the music business but now, to my surprise, owns a chain of lap dancing clubs. I always liked Tony.
But Facebook is constantly abused. Some idiot started a page for people to bet on the day that Jade Goody will die of cancer, with others publishing comments about her predicament that would shame Stalin in their cruelty.
Fifty million people use Facebook, two million of them here in the UK, and most post personal details about themselves which can be used by fraudsters intent on identity theft. Thinking it funny to reveal your tastes in underwear, or swinging, can seem hilarious to your pals who know it’s a joke, but more and more potential employers are checking Facebook, and sites like it, for any hidden flaws in the people they’ve just interviewed.
You have to know the pitfalls as well as the great benefits of this social networking stuff. The various Snow forums and clubs will soon disappear to be replaced by the “Why are Easter Eggs getting smaller” ones and thousands will sign up exchanging views on the best eggs or the nicest freebie that came in the box. Join in at your peril, and if you get a request from a beautiful model asking for photos of you in your underpants, borrow your mum’s big drawers.
But, as I said at the beginning, I did get sent one good joke on the day of the snow so, here it is. I slipped on the ice and got sent to hospital, but the police kicked me out...... they shouldn't have signs up saying 'Stroke patients here'.
My main problem with Britain being snowed under this week wasn’t that I couldn’t get to work, or that I had to drive too slowly so as to avoid stranded cars and lost penguins. What really annoyed me about the white out was Facebook.
Far too many of my friends were stuck at home with lots of time on their hands and started to vent their frustrations by going on line and sending messages to anyone who would listen. Forget the motorways, it was my computer that was snowed under tho’, on the upside, I did get sent one good joke.
Stephen Fry disdains Facebook and uses this new thing called Twitter where you blog in real time from your mobile ‘phone, and this week he updated his fans while being stuck in a lift at Centre Point in London. This ability to let everyone know about your every bowel movement is great for the likes of Pixie Geldof who could Twitter at ten o’clock “Getting married”, at eleven o’clock “now standing in front of Father Elvis in Vegas chapel” and by mid day we’d get blow by blow on the consummation. At lunchtime the expected “oops” would arrive followed by “getting divorced” at tea time. England cricket fans could likewise Twitter their teams live scores before losing the match by lunchtime.
As I will never sign up for it, I can wholeheartedly wish Twitter every success in its endeavour to lure the nut jobs away from Facebook and let us get back to normal.
My Facebook screen was jammed on Monday with messages along the lines of “Mary is making herself a cup of tea and wondering why snow is white” and things like “John is going back to bed and trying to carry on his dream with Keira Knightley” though John didn’t say if the actress was actually there. Another asked me to join a group called "Stop Whingeing About The Snow - Its the Winter" which someone with too much time on their hands set up within hours of the cold weather setting in. When they have a bit of slush at the North Pole do explorers start Facebook groups named “Calm down dear. It’s only Spring”? Would Sir Edmund Hilary have started the “While Sherpas watched their flocks by night” thread? What’s the purpose of these on line virtual gang huts?
On Facebook I’m constantly asked to accept and send back pieces of fruit or flowers and even cocktails, and I have no idea why any adult would think it’s a sign of maturity to ask people to send pretend drinks and fruit to each other. If you don’t click on the button then you run the risk of your daft friend thinking that you’ve fallen out with them. And what do they do with these things when they arrive on their page? Do they open a virtual fruit shop or coffee bar?
One boy in America caused uproar this week on Facebook. The poor bloke is still in the closet and, instead of joining the Boy Scouts or embroidering a nice cushion, he opened a web page under a girl’s name using a photo of a female model in her underwear. He then asked guys to send him (or, as they thought, her) photos of themselves in their Y fronts. The poor, confused kid was found out and his mates are in uproar, getting the police involved.
And that’s one of the problems. The photos you use can be of anyone, but people assume it’s you. You are, of course, supposed to only accept friends on your Facebook page who would know what you look like anyway, but I’ve lost count of the number of requests I’ve received from complete strangers to become my friend. If you click on Ignore when the request comes in then you feel mean, but accepting seems just a bit desperate, as if you’re hell bent on getting your numbers up to look popular. When my mum and dad were teaching me manners, they missed out the Facebook etiquette page completely.
Of course, this is all annoying, yet harmless. I’ve renewed contact with many people I haven’t seen in years - some former girlfriends, many work colleagues, a lot of old friends, and an acquaintance named Tony who used to be in the music business but now, to my surprise, owns a chain of lap dancing clubs. I always liked Tony.
But Facebook is constantly abused. Some idiot started a page for people to bet on the day that Jade Goody will die of cancer, with others publishing comments about her predicament that would shame Stalin in their cruelty.
Fifty million people use Facebook, two million of them here in the UK, and most post personal details about themselves which can be used by fraudsters intent on identity theft. Thinking it funny to reveal your tastes in underwear, or swinging, can seem hilarious to your pals who know it’s a joke, but more and more potential employers are checking Facebook, and sites like it, for any hidden flaws in the people they’ve just interviewed.
You have to know the pitfalls as well as the great benefits of this social networking stuff. The various Snow forums and clubs will soon disappear to be replaced by the “Why are Easter Eggs getting smaller” ones and thousands will sign up exchanging views on the best eggs or the nicest freebie that came in the box. Join in at your peril, and if you get a request from a beautiful model asking for photos of you in your underpants, borrow your mum’s big drawers.
But, as I said at the beginning, I did get sent one good joke on the day of the snow so, here it is. I slipped on the ice and got sent to hospital, but the police kicked me out...... they shouldn't have signs up saying 'Stroke patients here'.
Tuesday, February 3, 2009
Going Underground
www.paulcoia.com
New York is in a mess. The city is going bust and those goddesses of the Big Apple, the Wall Street wives, have had to start an online blog asking for tips on how to cook and clean now that their husbands have lost their jobs. Their servants, like the Swarovski encrusted nail extensions, are a thing of the past and, where greed was good, surviving is now better.
The fur coat and silk knicker brigade are having to adapt to their downmarket move to the suburbs. They may even, God forbid, have to travel on public transport which they must have assumed in the past was only for the disabled and criminal fraternity. The fragrant ladies will be carrying their soya café lattes underground to catch the subway and, horror of horrors, will have to plonk last season’s Dolce and Gabbana on a grubby seat that may be more used to charity shop jeans.
But these ladies who have lost their Saks appeal won’t be picking up the subway train in a brand new station, as you may have seen in the story from New York this week. In case you missed it, the first underground rail station to be built in the Big Apple for over twenty years opened on Tuesday at South Ferry following many years of development and a spend of over five hundred million dollars. But no one is allowed to use it.
It turns out that the designers, architects and engineers built the platforms too far from the trains, meaning a virtual bungee jump from the concourse to reach the carriage. The Health and Safety police took seconds to declare it unfit for purpose under the Americans With Disabilities Act and it currently sits, days after the opening, alone and unloved.
I think the reason I love this story so much, apart from the thought of the Banking Beauties losing their Jimmy Choos down the gap between the platforms, is that I can see myself as the designer, foreman and workman, all of whom should have spotted the potential problem and fixed it, but were about as useful as a lap dancer in a mosque.
Like these tradesmen I’ve learned over the years that when I get involved in building anything, despite my best endeavours, it will end up looking like broomstick debris after Dorothy’s house has fallen from the typhoon.
I first discovered my lack of design talent many years ago at school when I decided that what my bedroom wall needed was a calendar to accommodate my bursting diary full of homework, piano lessons and reminders of Blue Peter competition deadlines. Not yet having any pocket money I decided to make one myself. After all, how difficult could it be? With all the planning and forethought of spontaneous applause, I set to.
I folded a cardboard box end in half and stapled it at the sides, and then came to the tough part. I should, of course, have mixed and matched months, days and dates making up twelve months, thirty one dates and seven days. A total of fifty bits of paper. But I wasn’t clever enough to see the easy way out. I decided to do one piece for every day of the year - that’s three hundred and sixty five bits of paper with writing on. Thank God it wasn’t a leap year.
Apart from the fact it took me weeks to do it, slowed as I was by several clouts around the ear for wasting my mum’s good Basildon Bond writing paper, the sheaf of paper became so thick that it wouldn’t fit inside the cardboard envelope now tacked expectantly on my wall. Like the New York station, on a slightly smaller scale, it was not fit for purpose.
My next “make” was an Aston Martin James Bond car. I couldn’t afford the official Airfix model with the bullet proof screen and tyre shredders, so I made my own by cutting the sides and roof from a shirt box and sticking a spring from my Little Physics Lab under a folded, L shaped, cardboard seat. I forced the seat down, glued the roof on and only then realised that the seat couldn’t pop up and eject any loitering baddie as the roof didn’t have an opening. So I cut a hole and, sure enough, the spring was activated with the seat popping straight out in to my face, leaving me with a pirate’s patch and watery eyes for a week or two.
I tried making my own clothes, tie dyeing T shirts that ended up looking exactly the same as before. I widened the leg of my jeans and looked like an effeminate sailor from some Tintin story, and I even sewed patches on my brand new Sunday jacket and was grounded, only being allowed out by my mum to get married. You can see why I’m now sponsored by Armani. They pay me not to wear their clothes.
This chaotic approach to making things followed me in to adult life. I’m good with flat pack furniture from Ikea, which is simply a time consuming, but logical, jigsaw but when asked to start from scratch and make it up as I go along, the word that sums up my efforts is “laughable”. I‘ve come to realise that some people are made to create beautiful things and others, like myself and New York’s engineering fraternity, are life’s botchers.
So, a word of advice to Manhattan’s elite designers and transport chiefs. Next time you want a new station, just save a lot of heartache and buy it flat packed. I’ll even fly over with my screwdriver to help.
New York is in a mess. The city is going bust and those goddesses of the Big Apple, the Wall Street wives, have had to start an online blog asking for tips on how to cook and clean now that their husbands have lost their jobs. Their servants, like the Swarovski encrusted nail extensions, are a thing of the past and, where greed was good, surviving is now better.
The fur coat and silk knicker brigade are having to adapt to their downmarket move to the suburbs. They may even, God forbid, have to travel on public transport which they must have assumed in the past was only for the disabled and criminal fraternity. The fragrant ladies will be carrying their soya café lattes underground to catch the subway and, horror of horrors, will have to plonk last season’s Dolce and Gabbana on a grubby seat that may be more used to charity shop jeans.
But these ladies who have lost their Saks appeal won’t be picking up the subway train in a brand new station, as you may have seen in the story from New York this week. In case you missed it, the first underground rail station to be built in the Big Apple for over twenty years opened on Tuesday at South Ferry following many years of development and a spend of over five hundred million dollars. But no one is allowed to use it.
It turns out that the designers, architects and engineers built the platforms too far from the trains, meaning a virtual bungee jump from the concourse to reach the carriage. The Health and Safety police took seconds to declare it unfit for purpose under the Americans With Disabilities Act and it currently sits, days after the opening, alone and unloved.
I think the reason I love this story so much, apart from the thought of the Banking Beauties losing their Jimmy Choos down the gap between the platforms, is that I can see myself as the designer, foreman and workman, all of whom should have spotted the potential problem and fixed it, but were about as useful as a lap dancer in a mosque.
Like these tradesmen I’ve learned over the years that when I get involved in building anything, despite my best endeavours, it will end up looking like broomstick debris after Dorothy’s house has fallen from the typhoon.
I first discovered my lack of design talent many years ago at school when I decided that what my bedroom wall needed was a calendar to accommodate my bursting diary full of homework, piano lessons and reminders of Blue Peter competition deadlines. Not yet having any pocket money I decided to make one myself. After all, how difficult could it be? With all the planning and forethought of spontaneous applause, I set to.
I folded a cardboard box end in half and stapled it at the sides, and then came to the tough part. I should, of course, have mixed and matched months, days and dates making up twelve months, thirty one dates and seven days. A total of fifty bits of paper. But I wasn’t clever enough to see the easy way out. I decided to do one piece for every day of the year - that’s three hundred and sixty five bits of paper with writing on. Thank God it wasn’t a leap year.
Apart from the fact it took me weeks to do it, slowed as I was by several clouts around the ear for wasting my mum’s good Basildon Bond writing paper, the sheaf of paper became so thick that it wouldn’t fit inside the cardboard envelope now tacked expectantly on my wall. Like the New York station, on a slightly smaller scale, it was not fit for purpose.
My next “make” was an Aston Martin James Bond car. I couldn’t afford the official Airfix model with the bullet proof screen and tyre shredders, so I made my own by cutting the sides and roof from a shirt box and sticking a spring from my Little Physics Lab under a folded, L shaped, cardboard seat. I forced the seat down, glued the roof on and only then realised that the seat couldn’t pop up and eject any loitering baddie as the roof didn’t have an opening. So I cut a hole and, sure enough, the spring was activated with the seat popping straight out in to my face, leaving me with a pirate’s patch and watery eyes for a week or two.
I tried making my own clothes, tie dyeing T shirts that ended up looking exactly the same as before. I widened the leg of my jeans and looked like an effeminate sailor from some Tintin story, and I even sewed patches on my brand new Sunday jacket and was grounded, only being allowed out by my mum to get married. You can see why I’m now sponsored by Armani. They pay me not to wear their clothes.
This chaotic approach to making things followed me in to adult life. I’m good with flat pack furniture from Ikea, which is simply a time consuming, but logical, jigsaw but when asked to start from scratch and make it up as I go along, the word that sums up my efforts is “laughable”. I‘ve come to realise that some people are made to create beautiful things and others, like myself and New York’s engineering fraternity, are life’s botchers.
So, a word of advice to Manhattan’s elite designers and transport chiefs. Next time you want a new station, just save a lot of heartache and buy it flat packed. I’ll even fly over with my screwdriver to help.
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