Category: Other

I’m very much on a “new year, new me” hype. As part of this strange near wanderlust with life, my joie de vivre (yes, I had to look up the spelling), I have discovered the gym at which I have been a member for over a year, offers free classes. Realising that I had been missing out on a fantastic opportunity to get something for nothing, I signed up for a Pilates class.

I woke up this morning to discover I had booked the class for yesterday and am a fucking idiot. Seeing how I was already awake, I decided to go to the gym and join whatever class was going down. The reason I didn’t fancy my usual workout is that Sunday was leg day and it still hurts when I cross my legs like I’m in Basic Instinct.
There would be no alarm and no Pilates,
No alarm and no Pilates,
No alarm and no Pilates, please.

There are two “zones” of the gym in which I have never stepped. One is the closed off area for classes, the other is the “ladies only” zone. I went to a ladies night on a Philippines beach and ended up shouting at backpackers and vomiting Mai Tai. I assume the same would come of entering the ladies zone in the gym. I wouldn’t get in without a Some Like It Hot makeover.
I stepped into the class and waited for someone to stop me. Classes are available to book online. You have to snap them up real quick because everyone is trying to be a better version of themselves in 2018. If there were too many people in the room I would back out and do some other gym stuff. I sat on an exercise bike at the back and checked the class on my phone. It was called Indoor Cycling. I quickly booked myself in after finding there were only six of us taking the class. How difficult could Indoor Cycling be anyway? I’ve done Outdoor Cycling.

It turns out that Indoor Cycling is fucking Spin. Spin is just a brand name. I’m comfort eating a pack of Aldi’s Cookies ‘n’ Cream right now to get over it. They’re fucking Oreos. Oreos are just a brand name. The difference is that I like Oreos. Oreos are kind to me. Spin was not.
Five minutes in, I discovered that I wanted to vomit. Then the instructor said we weren’t done with the warm up and I fainted in a way that would make an actress in an infomercial blush.

I think the key lesson is that women are fucking tough. There was one other guy in the class. He was wheezing too. The women were hardcore as fuck. I was struggling to keep pace with the changes and so busy trying not to vomit that I couldn’t reach to turn up the resistance or to give it 100%. I don’t give anything 100%. I’m certainly not going to make that change for Spin.

As we stretched out and warmed down and I realised that I had survived the worst ordeal of my life since shitting myself on the Inca trail, I wondered why anyone would ever put themselves through such a traumatic ordeal. I went through all the stages of grief; denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance through that forty-five minute class. On the way home, I wondered if I was dead. Now, as I sit typing and stinking up the joint, I want to go again. Fuck you Spin.

Last week I was lucky enough to appear on Saint FM with Sarah Banham. We had a lovely chat, most of which we were able to air. I got lost on the way to the studio, which Sarah wasn’t going to let me forget. It’s also worth remembering that the last time I was on the radio, the hosts had to make a public apology after I made a comment about urinating on a lover.

I am pleased to announce that my fifth book, I’ve Got Sol, is available now.

Detailing the fine adventures I had whilst trekking the Inca trail to Machu Picchu, it’s a fun forest romp for the whole family, featuring themes of love, overcoming obstacles and poop.

Read an excerpt from the first chapter below:

Annie looked at me, her eyes already shrink-wrapped in tears by whoever had offered kind words into her tiny, elf-like ear, poking through her grown-out ginger hair. It had returned to its natural colour after years of peroxide abuse. As a result she looked like a completely different girl. I was drunk, but didn’t feel as far gone as she looked; a scale I used to justify my own binging.
We were in Agenda, one of the far-too-many trendy city-boy bars populating the golden mile of London. It was the kind of place where boys with smarmed over undercuts threw Ralph Lauren jumpers over their shoulders, thinking it was an acceptable look and not the uniform of the basic dick. I did not feel at home in Agenda, in my flapping flannel shirt, washed-out skinny jeans and cracked Converse. Give me personality and attitude, give me sticky carpets and the roar of the jukebox – not all those clean surfaces for coke, remixes of songs that shouldn’t ever be touched and overpriced cocktails.
‘I wish I could come with you’ I said, biting my lip in the hope it would prevent tears from accumulating.
‘You can come and visit me anytime, just book a flight and I’ll come and meet you.’ She seemed so much stronger than me, so much better too. She was really doing it. She was getting out.
It was no good. It was too much. I was going to cry.

Shortly after Annie and I returned from the Sahara she told me she planned to go travelling for a year. As a friend I supported her but reserved strong doubts it would come to anything. I know a league of people who said they would go travelling and see the world, shopping in the 9–5 in order to experience something. There were so many vague self-made promises and world maps littered with push pins hanging on the walls of rented bedrooms. I gave Annie my full support because I didn’t fully believe she would go through with it. I was naïve.
When we returned from our desert adventure I already had my next step booked. The same group who had organised the Sahara trek had announced the following year’s trek, traversing the Inca Trail in Peru to the ancient lost city, Machu Picchu. I booked my place. Annie didn’t have anything to look forward to. When I signed up, she told me she would love to go but had her own plans and needed to see them through. She promised me she would see South America, but that it came later, after her own plans. Annie’s wanderlust was admirable. I should have known I could only anchor her for so long before she made that next leap, like Sam Beckett.

As the months leading up to my Peru adventure shortened, her plans snowballed. Annie saved up; she started cutting nights out with friends from her regular agenda. She ordered travel guides that she read and highlighted during our lunch hours together. One payday she told me she had booked the first in her series of flights. A stone dropped into the well of my stomach. The ripples caught me. It was very real. She was going and without her, I wasn’t sure what I would do.
People we worked with asked if something was going on behind the scenes, a clichéd will-they-won’t-they romance. Annie and I were never Ross Gellar and Rachel Green. We’re not Harry and Sally. The truth is I was at a stage in my life when I was struggling with a number of things and she popped up. I’m a cynic at heart. I don’t believe in ghosts or Gods or fate, I struggle to understand exactly what, if anything, placed me on this planet. There was something about Annie and the way she came into my life I am thankful for. If a force of some kind brought her about then I owe it a humble respect. She’s the little sister to a boy only ever stuck with brothers.
There were no romantic intentions between the pair of us. Annie knows too much to ever consider me a worthy adversary. She always had that gun to my head.

Annie eventually handed in her notice, having kept quiet for so long about her plans. She sent out an invite to a leaving do. Far too many people asked what I was going to do without her. I’m still not entirely sure.

‘You can come and visit me anytime, just book a flight and I’ll come and meet you’ she said. Tears collected at the corners of my eyes. I failed to blink them away. One rolled down my cheek.
‘I’m really going to fucking miss you’ I said and I grabbed her in a hug. I was drunk I realised as the Woo Woo-infused tears disappeared into her hair. ‘I’m jealous of you and I’m going to miss you but I’ll come and see you, I’ll come and see you.’
I stayed clung to her until I could compose myself and then I sat back. Annie dabbed at her eyes with the back of her hand. I ground my teeth.
‘I don’t know what I’m going to do without you’ I said, while a voice in my head informed me I had said far too much and should hone it in a little. My damn sense of consciousness and self-awareness stepping in, knowing I had crossed a line.
‘I know, but I’ll be back’ she said. We hugged again.

Annie had booked her flight to Thailand before Bali and Indonesia. She planned to see how things went from there.
‘Don’t worry,’ said one of the women who worked on Annie’s team, ‘she’ll be back before you know it.’
‘That’s the problem,’ I said. ‘I don’t think she’ll come back at all.

This week in my bizarre little double life, I have been lucky enough to stay up through the night working on re-drafts of a script, drunk whiskey in Ving Rhames’ favourite London pub and talked about guns, opera and the most effective way to simulate brain matter with a university lecturer.

We are still hard at work on the Delectably Dead project which has its opening night in about three weeks. Scott and I sat up all night playing around with the script and doing silly voices. We then read it to George and were all happy with what we had. Then I slept for the longest time.

When I came round, I caught up with one of my best friends at the OKH in London Bridge before heading to GBK and eating my weight in sweet potato fries. I have since become addicted to abbreviations. Over the course of our catch up we talked about love, money and zombies, the key topics which had changed since we last spoke. There’s something daunting about the idea of turning 30 so it was good to try and hash out some kind of plan for that with one of my nearest and dearest.

On my night off I hit the gym and then spent an hour on the phone to my dad explaining what a zombie dinner show is. Despite the fact he gets scared when Zombie Pete comes out of the shower curtain in Shaun Of The Dead he has agreed to come and see the show. I am so excited about it that I could vomit. In fact, I did, just last night, but that was because I got a little overzealous with the tongue scraper.

Scott, George and I met with a special effects director, fight choreographer and all round awesome guy who works locally and agreed to give us some pointers for the show. Without seeming pious in any way, shape or form he provided a list of things we needed to work towards pulling off as well as pulling out some of the most incredible anecdotes for us to enjoy. He has even said he is interested in coming to see the show and giving us lessons in stage combat. I’m a lover, not a fighter, but that is not to be missed.

With enough juice down us to satisfy our five a day we headed back to the unit and prepped some of the additional work required for the play. We want the project to be as immersive as possible so there are all kinds of tricks and games going on behind the scenes. I don’t want to give anything away but at midnight I was running around a car park with a Nerf gun, pretending to be a girl from above the Watford gap.

As I have mentioned recently, I am really enjoying where I am at currently. It’s sometimes surreal, often tiring, but I would not give it up for anything. Scott says you have to throw enough shit at a wall for something to stick. I’m trying to throw enough Schiernecker.

While I try and work out what having an album out means, here’s the YouTube stream of the album for those of you who are into that sort of thing.

This weekend I had something of a blip in my mental health. I just thought it was worth mentioning as a reminder that this shit doesn’t just go away and is something that I continue to battle like that bowlcut-headed twerp in The NeverEnding Story.
Depression and anxiety are a total bitch. I wish there was any other way around it. I got home on Friday and I felt good about things. I woke up on Saturday and I thought my entire body was going to get sucked into a black hole in my chest. That’s just how it presents itself in me. I can’t speak for anyone else. I sat with that awful feeling all day and although I was able to get on with a project I’ve been working on, I didn’t want to see anyone, I couldn’t leave the house and I found myself breaking down into tears and having to tell my mum that I was struggling.

It’s hard for people to get their head around. Nothing has to happen. Nothing necessarily kicks it off but then I get sick and I feel rubbish for a couple of days and then I’m alright again. It’s horrible when you’re in the midst of it.

Fortunately I had a very good friend turn up and sit with me and the sadness on Sunday evening so by Monday at 11am I was actually able to leave the house and get further than a couple of miles from my sofa.

I just wanted this to serve as a reminder to myself as much as anyone else that there are times when it sucks and there are times when everything seems awesome and that life is a constant back and forth between those two with plenty of leeway. It’ll get better again. It might get worse again. Fuck it. Enjoy the ride.

I would like to thank Steph, as well as my mum, my dad, my brothers, Jill, and anyone else who reached out to me when things went dark.

“Don’t start a fresh on your head, start it in your head” said my brother, in a move that was both unusually profound and advice I would ignore. I’ve always been very protective over my hair, my curls. Only yesterday I went for drinks with a friend who hadn’t seen me since the bold move to shave it all off, to lose it all.

“Where are the curls?” she asked immediately, rubbing her hand over my scalp, looking both enthralled and disgusted, like when you pet a naked mole rat. Here is the story of how and why I shaved my head and why it isn’t that big a deal and makes me feel like a superficial little idiot.

This year has had its ups and downs. Every year has its ups and downs. It’s not really possible to blame it on the year or to say that you can’t wait for a given year to be over to start. There are positives that come from a new year but essentially time is an invention of man and you have to make your own decisions and are responsible for your own destiny etc.

I’ve said for a long time that something boldly cathartic I would like to do is shave my head. It felt like a cool thing to do, like when JT left N*Sync and shaved his head or when Zayn Malik left One Direction and shaved his head. I wanted that sort of going it alone after life in a boyband vibe. Didn’t quite achieve it but nevermind.

There’s a lot to be said about siblings. I said to my therapist this week that siblings are able to say exactly the right thing to undermine you in a way that you thought you had grown out of. I feel like a strong confident man who don’t need no thing. My brothers are able to chip that charade away with the expertise of a marble cutter and say just the thing to make me feel like a skinny little twerp once more.
“You’ve got a funny shaped head”.
Oh no. It stings. I want to hide in my bedroom and read about Narnia. Aslan wouldn’t cuss my scalp. He’s got a glorious mane. He’s like a Jesus for the new age.

I was in Singapore. It was hot. Unbearable heat and humidity and this flop of new romantic fringe kept getting in my way and I figured the best thing I could possibly do is just shave it off and it could be part of me finding myself while I travelled across Asia with my friend Adam. It seemed like a cool thing to do. It would be bold. It would be shocking. Then again, on a trek through the Grand Canyon last year I went for a dip under a waterfall and when I crawled out with my hair stuck down on top of my head the guide said “you’ve got a head like a peanut”.

I told Adam I was going to shave my head. It seemed like it would be the answer to all of my problems. It helped with some of them, sure, but there’s no such thing as a solution to all my problems. Maybe there is but the Oedipal stuff is pretty deep set.
My friend Luke worked in Geylang as a barber for eighteen months. He lived in the Pinnacle Tower. He told me that while I was there I should visit his old shop and see his buddies and they would sort me out. I decided that would be the time when I would take the plunge and shave my head. We arrived hungover on the Monday and found it was closed. It obviously wasn’t meant to be. I would keep my hair for another day. We got some questionable buffet food and continued to tour around.

When we checked into our Air BnB in Malaysia I told Adam the time had come for him to shave my head. He seemed sadistically keen on the idea. I sat on a towel topless and gave him my beard trimmer. He turned it on and ran it through the middle of my head. There was no turning back.

Fifteen minutes later I was bald. Adam told me I looked dangerous. With my tattoos and shaved head there was something of the This Is England look about me, something proved as we pranced across Thailand together and got strange looks.

It had the desired effect. I felt different. I had one less thing to worry about. I’m not going to keep it this short and can’t help but notice how high my hairline now is but fuck it, it’s only hair. It’s aged me a little but at the moment that’s not a bad thing.
The only thing I did realise is that the whole Justin/Zayn thing didn’t happen. What I had done was have a 2007 Britney Spears style breakdown. I went away to find myself. I wasn’t there. I did however get my happy ending.