Category: Other

Tom Hardy is the kind of mental older brother you always wanted at school, the kind who would kick the shit out of anyone that gave you a hard time for wearing a Nirvana hoodie. He’s equal parts animal and machine and I bet he’d give an amazing cuddle.

The winning thing about Hardy is that he is quite forthright about his misspent youth. He will happily open up about his joyriding, subsequent arrest, drug problems, rehabilitation and eventual sobriety. He’s not another cookie-cut leading man, he’s a bit different and comes across as being on the edge constantly. His portrayal of characters like Bronson and Bane reveal a man who is completely comfortable with appearing right on the brink of crazy, a mass of muscle but with brains to see him through.

I think the appealing thing about Hardy is that he gets completely sucked into what he is doing, you’ll see him interviewed one week and he’ll be twitchy and closed and the next he can be open and hilarious. There’s an obvious talent to it and it could be described as ‘method’ which in recent years has just been used to describe Christian Bale’s ability to gain and lose weight for a role, or to shout at people he wants off the set.

Hardy gets so encapsulated that it comes across, at no point during Dark Knight Rises did I think I was watching a man, it was a comic book creation and I hope he has many more, and many different roles to come.

Yesterday I received my first ever piece of fanmail as a writer, that’s what I’m considering it to be anyway. Somebody I do not know personally took the time to say how much they had enjoyed my writing and it was very sweet of her and it couldn’t have come at a better time.

Trying to find a literary agent or publisher is a gruelling task, there’s very little sense of achievement and it takes far too long to do, I like to get things done but for some reason compiling manuscripts, finding an agency, finding the correct person within that agency, writing a cover letter, trying to work out what should be in a synopsis, whether it’s worth paying a reading fee…. it’s all just thankless.

I appreciate it whenever anyone shows any interest in my writing, I really do, and friends and family and particularly my girlfriend give me a lot of support but I feel, and this is one of my many faults, that I don’t deserve that support or congratulations or whatever else, or that they are obliged to provide that support through their proximity to me and my life. It makes it hard to accept good feedback and creative criticism knocks more than it should but that’s my own thing and I’m dealing with it.

I think what I’m trying to say is that it’s a very lonely existence being ‘creative’ so anyone that reaches in is very much appreciated in turn. One of my friends recently told me that if she enjoys a book she will write to the author and tell them so. It’s something I had never considered (possibly because I read Salinger, Orwell, Hemingway, Kerouac) but I think it’s an amazing idea.
What I propose is that if you enjoy someone’s output whether that be a story, a poem, a song, photography, painting, an essay, whatever, please let them know, we all crave recognition.

My thoughts this morning have been consumed with my project, an attempt to bring together all my efforts. For some reason I’ve lost focus in the last couple of weeks but we will see what comes of it. I’ve got one of my songs on a loop in my head which I always take as being a positive thing.

I had an excellent weekend but don’t feel rested enough to be headed for work again. I wonder how the buzz of the Olympics has really effected London, I’ve already caught wind of people growing tired of the constant slow traffic of tourists across our capital but I take that as a given considering the size of the event.

Went for a run this morning. Calculated that I should be eating about three thousand calories a day to balance out the amount I burn running. So far I’ve eaten nothing.

Sorry, that was a bit all over the place today. I’ve got a new book to read which I’m happy about, I’ll let you know my progress.

Gummy mouth and scratchy eyes,can’t work out if it’s a two day hangover or hayfever or both. I got to spend last night with some of my favourite people in all the world and it’s caused me to wake up full of the joys of Spring.

The wonder of these friends is that we haven’t been together for a year (almost to the day) and yet as soon as that first round is placed on the table it is as if no time has passed at all, as if we are in Bar One, as if we have finished lectures for the day. The dynamic is just as good if not better with the wonder of hindsight. We tell each other stories that we had kept secret or that the others had blocked for various reasons, we laugh at some of the other characters and at ourselves and we make promises to get together more often.

In an ideal world there would be a small village that we could all live in, like we did five years ago but unfortunately lives move on and people have to move on but when we are together we regress in the best possible way.

X.

It’s sort of like when you accidentally start fancying your friends dad isn’t it? Some of you may think I’m scraping the bottom of the barrel with this weeks man crush but Neeson is a force to be reckoned with so hold your judgement for another two hundred words.

Here’s Neeson’s CV:
– Saved over a thousand Polish Jews from Nazi concentration camps.
– Trained Obi Wan (Ben) Kenobi and Batman.
– Was a magical lion with Christ/Doctor Who like regeneration powers.
– Killed the population of a small European country whilst on the hunt for his kidnapped daughter.
I know people will say ‘Oh they are just films’ but quite frankly I won’t stand for that kind of nonsense. I believe that Liam Neeson did those things, which were somehow captured on film, and they built the rest of the story ( or in Phantom Menace’s case the lack of story (Ooh ZING!)) around that. Neeson gives off the air that he could do anything. I imagine he could erect a flatpack wardrobe without using the instructions, or break a man’s neck with a pipe cleaner. He’s just cool as fuck and that’s why I’ve got a crush on him.

There’s nothing like the anti-climax of getting on a commenter train to London. Nothing like it. I’m surrounded by shells of men, bloated corpses, this can’t be what it’s all about.

I went for a run this morning. I ran out to the lake beyond the woods at the bottom of my road. I feel extremely privileged to be able to disappear into a little bit of wilderness every now and then, makes you appreciate things a little.

Whilst running I decided I’m going to scrap the recordings I’ve been working on an start anew. I can do better so I will do better. As I’ve previously said, running is my time. I get away and I see things differently to how they seem when I’ve shackled myself to my work.

It’s nice out today isn’t it, make sure you enjoy that instead of complaining about it.

I’m sat in the garden. That’s quite a revelation given the recent outbursts of weather.
This morning I got up and ran five miles.
Then I cleaned the bathroom.
Now I’m trying to get some work done.
It’s hard to concentrate when you can’t see your screen, you can just see your wonderfully pale shoulders glaring back at you in reflection.
I’m struggling to stay focused on anything, I’m pulling myself about way too much. Just need to stay the course, work out what I’m doing and stick to it, otherwise it’ll be another six months treading water and the start of another year where I promise myself that I’m going to get things going.
Yesterday I actually managed to sit down and shortlist ten literary agents that I’m going to send my novel off to. This was a depressing step. It’s quite impressive the number of agents who refuse to accept unsolicited or first time writers. You’d think that defeats the whole object of their position but what do I know. The important thing to note is that in the next week I should be sending my novel off to all of them, and then sitting by the front door like a dog waiting for those rejection letters so I can frame them all.
I’ve sort of sidelined my music for the time being because I’m just not happy with anything I do, which obviously points to the fact that I’m not actually able to create what I want, that it will always fall short and that I need to reevaluate.
In the meantime I’m going to catch some sun because I’m low on whatever vitamin you get from sunlight, and I’m going to drink some whiskey, and think of a time when I won’t have to moan about my first world problems.

After a couple of weeks of drifting I’ve finally started to sort things out, everything is on the move at once and I’m looking forward to the foreseeable future. I can’t go into details because I’m a superstitious little thing and I don’t want to mess it up by jabbering on about it. Rest assured that if things go my way you will all hear about it.

With the knowledge that the film adaptation of On The Road is safely heading our way I thought I’d take today to talk about Sam Riley, the Yorkshire born lad who doesn’t look right without a popped up collar and a cigarette dangling from his lips.

Riley has a habit of picking these characters; Pinky, Milo, Ian, strung out, dark anti-heroes of the purest order but each has their own quips and characteristics. I’ve read that this all had to change to take on Kerouac’s thinly veiled character Sal Paradise and I’m really looking forward to it (despite how disappointing the majority of favourite books to film transfer has been). He attended a beat camp alongside others from the film in order to immerse themselves in the culture of the time, and to bond. I’m hoping the film that emerges still holds that heart.

The important thing to note about Riley is that he hasn’t just jumped on any chance to appear onscreen, he knows he can afford to maintain a certain standard, and that the offers are all there off the back of his role in Control. It’s an artists integrity that is so rare in this day and age and something I greatly admire.

On Friday I got home to find the house was a mess. I know that sounds like the sentence of a mum but that is essentially my role at home. It’s complicated. The problem is that there are four men and only one of them has OCD, the others have twigged this and know that everything will be done to a far greater level than any of their efforts if they just leave it for long enough. I get fed up with stacks of stuff laying about everywhere that we don’t need or use. I believe Ben at Life Rapture is at least partly responsible for opening my mind to minimalist living. While I haven’t gone to the impressive extent he has (I’m sorry Ben, I love paperback books and vinyl too much) it did make me realise that the amount of ‘stuff’ in our lives is disproportionate to the amount we use and need. It’s very difficult proving this to people. I’ll give you an example that I’ve probably used before.
In March I was introduced to Charity:Water who run a campaign where you can donate your birthday to their charity so instead of your friends buying you things that are nice but that aren’t essential to your life you get them to donate to Charity:Water (the standard donation is your age in pounds) and then you get updates with what your money has done. I shared this news with a group of people I work with one lunchtime, and told them how annoyed I was that I’d only learnt about the charity a month after my birthday. One of them said:
‘Yeah, I’d rather have the stuff’.

So that’s the kind of thought pattern I’m up against when I say that we don’t need all of the objects and material items we surround ourselves with, how the stuff you own ends up owning you (thanks Tyler Durden) and so I set to work emptying out the understairs cupboard. My dad hates it when I get in these obsessive cleaning moods because he has to orchestrate otherwise I will literally bin everything and he has a habit of leaving MOT certificates, life insurance documents, money, just laying about and I’ll sweep away the lot if he turns his back.

I am slowly teaching him though, in the same way I was slowly taught. You can just take one small area, and you can clear out 90% of the stuff stored in it. You don’t think about the bigger picture of how to clear out a four bedroom house, you just think of that cupboard under the stairs and everything else will fall into place. ‘No possessions’ as John once said.