Blog

  • Touching base.

    Last night I went out for cocktails with friends, I am aware that is an extremely wanky London commuter type thing to do but I am an extremely wanky London commuter type. They’re friends I’ve known since school, which means up to twenty years ago, and it’s an amazing thing to do, it’s like the Child Of Our Time documentary series, I honestly feel like I’m Robert Winston, but without the ability to even fathom a moustache.

    It’s interesting to see what guys you’ve known for so long have become, how we have all found love, we have all found careers (or at the very least jobs), we have all learnt so much and come so far together and yet we are still very close as people. We don’t just sit and talk about when a year seven was thrown in a bin or how we would set off fire extinguishers down the halls, we talk about current affairs, and music, and what we are all doing now, and our plans for the future, and it’s good to know that only one of them is married, and that only one of them has a baby on the way and that there is nothing wrong with being twenty-five years old and not really knowing exactly where your place is in the world, we can just be, and we are slowly getting our shit together but the age of being married and having a career and a home at eighteen/nineteen are dead and gone to us, we are the continuing teenagers, we are not quite there yet, but we are all working very hard, we were just coiled ready to attack for a lot longer than our predecessors.

    Peace.

  • Back to improvising.

    Last night was the second in a new season of the Improvised Comedy Workshop I attend. For those out of the loop improvised comedy is where you get up with no script, no characters, no idea and your audience give you the setup and you derive humour from it – like Whose Line Is It Anyway?

    It’s been a couple of months since I felt that energised, that ready to just commit myself to dashing about and acting stupid and it is so much fun. Once you get over the hurdle of any embarrassment you realise that nine times out of ten you are performing to people who are with you, they want to be entertained, they’re on your side. It’s a wonderful feeling to have when your self esteem tends to wain for no reason at all.

    Sitting in the pub with them afterwards I realised what a good group I get to perform with, and how really it’s a shame that we only have those few hours together on a Thursday night, they’re all so funny, all such characters and so supportive of whatever each other have going on, it’s a brilliant environment to operate in and I feel privileged to be a part of it.

  • Residue – a flash fiction piece.

    Detective Frank Horowitz entered the room like he owned it, and for all anyone else knew he may well have done, he wasn’t one for photos of family on his desk or requesting days off for school plays, that is, if he even had a family.
    Holloway walked over to the desk, pulled out his Parker and dug it into the mouth of Martin Yale (recently deceased).
    ‘This is foul play’ he declared.

  • Chuffed.

    I am overwhelmed by the response so far to my fundraising. I hoped people would catch on quickly but the generosity and messages have been lovely.

    I would like to personally thank Kate, Emily, Terri, Mex, Luke, Antony, Jade, John and Stephanie for their donations. I won’t forget where that first £120 came from and I hope there’s more to come from others.

    I’ve set the ball rolling on a couple of ideas to organise different things to raise funds, one of which I am particularly excited about but it’ll have to wait for confirmation.

    In the mean time go here to get in on the action.

  • Sahara Trek 2013.

    Sorry for the delay on the big announcement, I think I’ve told most people anyway. The thing is I’ve been accepted to go on a trek across the Sahara desert next October for charity.

    We will be walking across 100km over a week and I need to raise a minimum of £500 for the chosen charity (The Prince’s Trust). I decided rather than just expect people I know on my blog, on Twitter, on Tumblr, on Facebook or whatever other format I choose to spam your lives upon, I would offer up something in exchange for donations. I spent the weekend recording an EP that I’m calling Get Me To Marrakech, I’m really pleased with it and there’s a link to download it for anyone who sponsors me for my trip.

    Click here to help.

  • Normal service resumes.

    Sorry, I’ve been very busy this weekend, there’s a perfectly logical explanation for it which will all be revealed in time, just be patient avid readers.

    I went to see Anna Karenina last night which left me in an odd mood, it’s a very bleak film and having never read any Tolstoy I wasn’t sure what to expect. I was squirming in my seat by the end, it was like the Ludovico treatment.

    For the time being though I’m back on the train, back on my commute, but with a spring in my step.

  • Square eyes.

    I’ve spent this weekend sat at my computer with a guitar and microphone plugged into it, right now my Mac feels like it could just explode, it’s never been this hot, I’ve never had such a surge of work on. It’s taken just over twenty-four hours but I’ve recorded a five track EP that will be available as a download soon. I’ve just burnt it to a CD so I can go for a drive later and listen to see if there’s any adjustments I want to make and then you can all hear it.
    It’s part of a bigger thing I’ve got coming up, but like a good Jewish boy I need to tell my Mum before I can tell anyone else.
    I’ll speak to you later, when all will be explained.

  • Too much to do.

    I’ve turned my little bedroom into a studio. I’m working on some new songs (and some very old songs). I’m hoping that you will all get to hear them soon because I’m going to offer them up as an EP that you can download.

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  • The end of Mancrush Fridays.

    As I stood in the bathroom this morning brushing my teeth I realised that it was Friday and I felt burdened to write my usual Friday blog.
    I couldn’t think of anyone to write about, having covered pretty much everyone in the last couple of months, I think I’m just going to put the idea to rest and that’s all I’ve got to write today.
    I apologise that it isn’t more exciting but I’ll have news after the weekend

    X

  • 50 Shades of Red

    You’ve probably had enough of Christian Grey whether you’ve read about him or not. The fact of the matter is that he’s not a very interesting guy, he’s obscenely rich (private jet rich) but he doesn’t do a lot for me as a character, but then again neither does Anastasia Steele, or Katherine Kavanagh, or token Mexican friend José, the characters in 50 Shades Of Grey fall flat in every single way and I find myself wincing at the things they say and the way they act and their supposed thought processes and hoping that it’s just because I’m a man and I’m reading ‘erotic literature’ intended for women.

    The fact is that Anastasia Steele is not a good character or role model for women. Considering her penchant for classic British literature and feminism she is quick to fall foul of the man who buys her expensive first editions, a laptop, a Blackberry and a car. The virgin at the start of the book who wants to find her prince ends up falling for this monster who is painted as being so troubled that it’s hard to believe he isn’t institutionalised. The fact of the matter is that both leading characters are bullet point copies of fictional characters, they have no real warmth or depth, they are just fuck puppets, and that end of the bargain they serve up in abundance, in a number of clichéd and mundane ways. I thought I was going to be slightly put out by the content of 50 Shades but the fact is that none of the actual sex scenes are that graphic, or maybe that’s just me. They’re also not long enough or descriptive enough and end as quickly as I did my first time. The closest I came to embarrassment was when a greying man in a suit happened to look over my shoulder as I was reading the list of soft limits (which includes the delightful terms vaginal fisting and butt plugs). That was about it. He quickly moved seats.

    E L James really needs to get hold of a thesaurus; her obsession with the same words caused me more tension than the supposed sexual tension between the characters. Every escaped hair was a ‘tendril’, every kiss left Ana ‘breathless’ and every other page she’s biting her lip and Christian is getting a lob on over it. There’s really nothing new going on in 50 Shades

    The fact of the matter is that I was more embarrassed about what other people think the books is about than the actual content, it’s not anywhere near as violent and despicable as everyone makes out, it’s been painted as a monster, but really it’s just a ridiculous bit of escapism. I’ve read better sex scenes in Murakami and Palahniuk. I’ve read better dialogue, characters, plot and setting in near enough every book I’ve picked up since Postman Pat’s Rainy Day and I’m just left feeling a little underwhelmed by it all.

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Paul Schiernecker

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