SONGS AND SCRIPTS AND DUNKING BISCUITS

Every day tales of a winging-it creative

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about

I’ve written bits and pieces on BBC Radio 2, 4 and 5 comedy shows, worked in the script team for two series of Channel 4’s comedy-drama ‘Shameless’ and am currently working with The Royal Court Theatre in Liverpool as part of their script development programme. I am also a songwriter with songs on all major platforms.

  • WHEN CHANGE FEELS SCARY AND SCARY FEELS GOOD

    Forgive me WordPress, readers and bloggers, it is two months since I last posted.

    I have no excuses, but I do have reasons. First off, I didn’t have anything to post about, but I knew you’d muddle along without me. Given the sporadic nature of my posts, I wouldn’t think you’d probably even notice.

    But I have been dipping into other people’s posts as often as I can, so I haven’t been completely invisible.

    I’d like to say the world has improved in the last two months but if anything it has got worse. Anyway, that’s not why I’m posting today, that’s for future ramblings.

    As I was saying, my reasons for not posting are because I had nothing pressing to post about, but my main reason was to indulge in some housekeeping about life and creativity. Things had got to a point where I felt I needed to make some quite radical changes and this needed my full attention.

    THE SCRIPT FACTORY

    I felt my writing needed an overhaul. It needed a fresh outlook following a year or more of personal stop and start upheaval. So I signed up for an intensive five-week Script Reading course with The Script Factory based in London. This involved five two-hour Zoom sessions each Tuesday night breaking down for the first three weeks selected film scripts and spending the next week breaking them down into Synopsis, Premise, Character, Structure, Dialogue and so on, then submitting them through each Sunday to be assessed and critiqued.

    The course was run by Justine Hart and Christine Bogard-MacLeod, creators of The Script Factory and both with long experience of working in the UK Film history and involvement with BAFTA. Together they run several courses for people hoping to break into film and television either as a script reader, writer or producer.  

    In the 4th and 5th week we did similar breakdowns for television series. It was a genuinely enjoyable course with some excellent fellow participants and a lot of hard work that took discipline, thought, preparation and time. But it was very satisfying, and I came out of it with greater understanding that I aim to take with me into any future projects.

    SCRATCHING THE SURFACE

    The other change I felt was needed was more on an everyday personal level. In the last couple of years some of the people I knew locally are no longer around, for varying reasons. As a result I had become something of a stranger in my hometown since moving back. The first four months of my house move were taken up with decorating, switching energy suppliers and all of the long-winded processes involved with updating details blah-blah and then I got to the point of what next?

    I have my long-term friends but with their own lives and families there can be weeks or even months in-between meet-ups. My family the same as they all live two and half hours away, and all work long hours. As much as I enjoy my creative pursuits much of it is taken up within my own home.

    I had already joined The Scratch Network in Liverpool, who showcase scripts in development and on May 9th had part of my developing script ‘The Stop-Off’ performed downstairs at The Everyman Theatre in the city, a theatre fundamental in the early development of actors like Stephen Graham, Pete Postlethwaite, Bill Nighy, Julie Walters among many others.

    An excerpt of my play ‘The Stop-Off at The Everyman Theatre

    Packed full of about 150 writers, actors and directors I had to get up and introduce the piece, which thankfully went down extremely well. But I wanted more of the same, not just a one-off. This meant not just on a creative level, but on a social one as well.

    Beyond going to the gym three times a week and the cinema once a week, I needed to get out. But to where, and in what way? So one Sunday morning I lay in bed and realised I needed to get out and about and meet new people. This would involve a major change in outlook and approach, more than at any point in my life.

    ACTING IT OUT

    As a natural introvert, being around lots of people in a social situation can be, well, exhausting. But I knew I needed to turn that on its head to avoid hearing the same conversations, many of which were going on inside my own head, and falling down that step from being alone, to being lonely. There is a big difference, but the line between the two is a thin one.

    Photo from The Merseyside Academy of Drama

    So armed with a new sense of purpose, I signed up for an 8-week Acting for Beginners course at The Merseyside Academy of Drama in Liverpool. What could be scarier for an introvert than that? But scary suddenly felt good. Just days later The Shakespeare North Playhouse, just three minutes walk away from my front door, launched their own Acting for Beginners course, running for 9 weeks. So I plunged into that too.

    Am I insane, I asked myself as I drove into Liverpool on that first night? Then I stepped into a room of about 30 people of all ages and ethnic mixes all asking themselves the same question. Two hours later the room was buzzing with chat and laughter. We are now half way through the course, the same at The Shakespeare North.

    Few of us have any pretensions to be actors or believe we have any ability but we are having the best time finding out. In that week I must have met and laughed continuously with about 60 people I would normally have walked past in the street.

    I am already looking at what I will be doing next, but it won’t involve sitting at home staring at the same four walls. I feel as though something fundamental is changing that is having a really positive impact on my life overall.

    And (yes, there’s more), the more eagle-eyed amongst you will have noticed that now I’m actually putting out a blog I’ve changed the look a little. Inspired by blogging legend Hugh Roberts at Hugh’s Views and News I have gone from a Classic theme to a Block theme. It was a lot more straight-forward than I imagined it might be, though I do plan to make more changes to its appearance as I go along. They won’t be as radical as walking into a room full of strangers and acting like an idiot but it’s all part of the same thing. So cheers Hugh.

    I’m sure you’ve all had instances when you have chosen or been forced to make changes that may have been daunting at the time, but have been beneficial in the long run. If you’d like to share any, it would be great to hear about them.

  • HOW THE BURDEN OF SORTING MEMORIES BECAME A VIDEO TRIBUTE

    In the last few months I have had the unenviable task of working through a huge pile of old family photographs and items that needed to be either kept or thrown away.

    Anyone who has ever been in this position knows how the responsibility can weigh heavily. This can be extra difficult when you are downsizing and there is the need to cull as much as possible. It can be an emotional ride that can at times feel like a burden. I have two sisters but as they live over a hundred miles away a lot of the decisions on it needed to be left to me.

    There were several occasions when I would start then put it away for a few days. There were one or two periods when I would just lie down on the floor surrounded by it all. Other times I would make an excuse that something more pressing would need doing such as cleaning the bathroom/kitchen/loft or reading the complete works of Charles Dickens. In short, any excuse I could find to put off the decision.

    A small selection of old photographs and letters

    But with the clock ticking on leaving my old house I simply had to get on with it. I was quite ruthless on items but on photographs I largely avoided the decision. Also on paperwork that I didn’t even realise we had, such as letters to my grandmother from the Admiralty in late 1943 saying my Grandfather was missing from a ship that had been hit by a German air-attack, followed by another short letter in early 1944 saying he was now presumed dead.

    These are life-shattering pieces of correspondence. But it was also over 80 years ago, is there any point in keeping these as all those directly affected have now passed away? And what about the letters from my grandfather sent months before when he had been on a different ship altogether, planning their life together once he got home?

    Also birth certificates, marriage certificates. For me these are not things that can comfortably just be placed into recycling. But if I didn’t deal with it then, is it just kicking it down the road for someone else to deal with later?

    I imagine many of you have been faced with the same dilemma.

    I must confess, in regards to the paperwork, I have kept them. In contrast to how I found them, I’ve put them all together in one place. It could be that sometime in the future I simply let them go.

    As for the photographs, I’m systematically having them copied online by a local photo printer and I’m storing them on my desktop. At some point I may also let the originals go.

    But a way I dealt with the pressures of the process was by picking up my guitar and writing a song about it. As the weeks went by I refined the song which I titled, quite concisely I suppose, ‘Looking Through The Past’. The song was put out on streaming platforms on March 20th and so far has been well received.

    To accompany the song came a lyric video. To construct this I found short pieces of film from online video archives that I could use and felt reflected the tone of the track, but interspersed these with many of the photographs that I was sorting through.

    My father’s beloved Agfa Isolette camera

    Most of the photographs were taken with my father’s beloved  Agfa Isolette camera he bought in a camera shop in Hong Kong in 1956 or ’57. He used the camera to take photos of my mother and of myself from just a day or two after being born and the weeks ahead. It is a beautiful camera that accompanied us all through the next couple of decades on seemingly every family occasions and holiday.

    So now many of the photographs I agonised over are on a video on You Tube and will be widely seen. I have only just begun to promote the video but I will use it as intended, as a promotional tool for the song but also as a way of honouring the memories of those who have meant so much to us.

    This year, indeed this month, is the fiftieth anniversary of my mother passing away and more than anything, this is, I hope, a fitting tribute to her. The song was released on her birthday.

    So it’s nice to know that something that felt so difficult and was emotionally such a strain, has been turned into something positive.

    If you would like to take a look at the video, here it is:

  • Daffodil Days #WordlessWednesday

    All photos by Paul Ariss. No AI used in production of any images.

  • HOW NOT TO FEEL OLD IN A MUSIC WORLD DICTATED BY THE YOUNG

    Yesterday at the Liverpool Philharmonic Hall in Hope Street, Liverpool, between the city’s two iconic Anglican and Catholic cathedrals, I attended the Music Career Industry Festival.

    The festival, being organised and run by Sentric Music, a music publisher founded and based in Liverpool but also with an office in London, is mainly for people planning to build a career in the industry which included information on how to build live events, work in publishing, studio production; indeed most aspects of the mechanics of a sustainable music career, all of which covered the mornings speeches and separate presentations.

    The opening of the afternoon events at Musicfest (photo by Paul Ariss)

    I attended the afternoons events which was for those more in the musically creative area, such as bands and artists. Armed with my all my massive symptoms of Imposter Syndrome I wondered if I would stand out because as is often the case at such events, be it festivals like this or workshops, I am often the oldest, or at least one of the oldest attending. And I’m not your A-Typical musician either, so I wasn’t sure how I would fit-in.

    How will I be viewed by the fresh faced, bushy-tailed muso’s? Will I be afforded a patronising ‘aw bless’ smile by the young turks fronting the query desks at Sentric?

    What helped a little was the afternoon’s keynote Q&A was with Guy Chambers, producer and songwriter for such musical luminaries as Robbie Williams, Tina Turner, Kylie Minogue, James Blunt, Scissor Sisters, Rufus Wainwright and Mark Ronson. As a musician he was also a member of The Waterboys and World Party.

    However it is his work with Robbie Williams he is best know for, working on several albums with him and co-writing massive UK hits such as ‘Rock DJ’, ‘Feel’, ‘Millennium‘ ‘Let Me Entertain You’, and ‘Angels‘.

    And quite settling for someone like me, with Guy being only five years younger than myself!

    Guy Chambers (on right) being interviewed yesterday

    As someone who’s main enjoyment in making music now is in the actual opportunity to do it, any streams anywhere from anyone is a constant joy. However when  I started out seriously as a lyricist in a writing partnership with composer Bob Mouat in my late teens to late 20’s we were very driven to get our songs published and recorded, ensuring many trips to pound the streets of London to record companies were undertaken.

    Now of course people do all the work via their computer screen at home, or on their mobile phone, building social networks to get known amongst the noise of social media. And yes, most of the panellists yesterday were in their 20’s and 30’s but as those most skilled in this field, it was interesting to hear how they progress, and the path is not as linear as you might expect.

    Michael Aldag for instance, a young musician from Liverpool has built an Instagram following of over 308,000 by trial and error, but hit gold by doing little comedy pieces on his ‘platform’ (you hear that word a lot ) and as he explained, he hoped by doing this it would act like a trojan horse to sneak his music in without forcing it.

    And it worked, with over 84,000 listeners a month on Spotify, and TV work for Channel 4 on something completely unrelated to music. Michael is a big personality as well as a talented musician. Social media was made for people like him and it is a natural home, so it would be wrong for someone a couple of generations along to judge.

    Even Guy Chambers said social media is ‘everything’.

    What I did find encouraging was the regular reference to the importance of being authentic. In the world of constant product and the largely unnavigated waters of AI, the requirement for authenticity is becoming more necessary than ever. Don’t try to be like everyone else, seemed to be the mantra from the event, don’t be a copycat, be an original.

    So I’ll try and use social media better but of course I‘m no longer seeing music as a career I can dip my toe in without the pressure to compete. Do I really want to build a personal brand, another phrase often dropped into the conversations of the day?

    But conversely did the day make me feel like a dinosaur? Well it all depends on perspective. I started off in my late teens doing this, in the days of knocking on doors and posting off cassettes. Now I’m here well into my 60’s still learning, still enthusiastic, and getting glee from someone I’ll never meet on the other side of the planet hearing my song, watching my video.

    Back when I was all fresh faced and bushy-tailed myself, I didn’t have the means to do that. I was lucky if I could get my songs beyond the slush pile of a music executive or a mate living in the next street. Now I can reach anywhere and I feel just as incumbent to produce good work in 2026 as I did in 1979. And that’s a really good feeling to have.  

  • A NOWHERE MAN SITTING IN MY NOWHERE HOME

    For those of you about to read this blog beware, I may not be who I say I am.

    I may not even exist.

    I only mention this because over the last couple of months, authorities in my country have yet to be convinced that my identity is genuine.

    In this world of identity theft and scams at every turn I’ve found my quest to update my records to account for my change of address and/or email address fraught with suspicion and doubt.

    I am not here, so don’t tell anyone (image by Rawpixel.com on Freepik)

    Currently I am in the troubled process of informing the Driver and Vehicle License Authority (DVLA) that I now live somewhere other than the place I did when I passed my driving test back when avoiding crashing into a horse and cart was a daily source of danger.

    I have attempted to do this online, but the online system doesn’t allow for people like me who passed my test before a license required a photograph. Back then a piece of official paper that said who you were, where you lived and my National Insurance number was all that was required.

    How recklessly simple.

    The other problem is that my passport, which has always needed a photograph, has ran out. I simply haven’t left the UK for several years. How unfortunate am I? So the main two areas of identity, a passport and ironically a drivers license with a photo, I don’t have.

    So I have to apply for a new, non-parchment, driver’s license. With a photo which had to be signed by a friend saying this is him, I know him, I have drunk alcohol with him on more than one occasion, he is sometimes annoying, but it is definitely him. I wanted him to say he looks much younger in the flesh than in this photo but there simply wasn’t the room.

    But the DVLA returned the form saying they need something like….and then a long list of things most of which didn’t relate to me such as a EU Citizen card (thanks Nigel Farage and your misguided Brexit army of fools), or copies of my immigration papers. When I immigrated to the UK from Hong Kong I was three months old and I left the paperwork to my parents, I was too busy defecating and dribbling down my chin, thank you very much.

    And besides I was born on what was then British soil thanks to our tendency to imperialise huge areas of the world, including China. Say what you will about our shameful brutality in the 18th,19th and early 20th century, we knew how to punch above our weight.

    But I digress.

    I am now on my third attempt (my paperwork has been returned to me twice) to prove to them I am a person of reliable heritage. Watch this space. And if you do see a space, it’s because I haven’t filled it in properly.

    Which brings me to the Department of Work and Pensions (DWP), a monolith of a government department which has basically, all information about anyone. With the exception of me, it would seem.

    I just wanted to tell them I had moved. Moved about a mile and a half, as it happens. So again, with no photo ID that was permissible – despite having a Proof of Age Citizen card issued by the National Police Chief’s Council with a photo– they asked me for my bank details including account and sort code, and my National Insurance Number, which I duly supplied.

    I waited for completion. But no. Even with all those details they informed me they were unable to confirm my identity.

    This leaves me with the glaring possibility; do I actually exist?

    My birth certificate isn’t acceptable even though it is written evidence I did exist at one point. But then what? Did I just fade away to a barely contained memory? Am I just a rumour? And if so, does this clear any credit card debt?

    Have I been living on this island for all these decades like Bruce Willis’s character in The Sixth Sense?

    Does this explain why my blog output is so low? Am I really writing this one?

    I await my email from the DWP to inform me of my next move. If I get the email, maybe it is proof I did send it and this may convince me at least, that I’m here. Wherever here is because, you see, I’m not allowed to give you my new address….

  • THE DAY I DISCOVERED JAMES DEAN HAD BEEN STAYING IN MY SPARE ROOM

    For about 15 years a painting by Alice Dalton Brown hung on the wall in front of me in the small bedroom where I did all my writing. The painting is called Tomorrow Morning. It is a large print, 24” wide and 84” long,  and with a nice frame that was of course slightly larger still.

    I like the painting, it instils a feeling of calm, space and optimism. Despite it’s size, when I moved to my new property I brought it along with me. I found a nice spot for it, not central as before as I wanted something new in its place, but in an alcove in the new room where I write, and I would still see it most days.

    However, when I came to hang the painting in the alcove I was moving in a tight space and as I positioned it on the wall my hand slipped and the painting fell and the glass smashed, ruining the frame.

    Fortunately the print itself wasn’t damaged and I have been able to hang it on the space as I wanted, just now without the frame, poster style.

    I carefully wrapped the glass in bubble wrap and was about to take it to the local tip a few days ago along with the frame and the full size hard cardboard frame that provided the support for the print. But as I turned the cardboard support around I was shocked to discover on the other side was a full-size print of James Dean.

    The print is Gottfried Helnwein’s painting of Dennis Stock’s famous photo of Dean in Times Square in 1954, originally called ‘On Times Square’ but later renamed ‘Boulevard of Broken Dreams’. Dennis Stock was working for the Magnum agency at the time.

    Though obviously surprised that it had been chosen as a backing for another photo, I was amazed to think that for about a decade and a half it had been hanging directly in front of me for all that time without me being aware of it.

    So now what to do with it? I’m not a James Dean fan, so I’m not going to hang it up. I’ve felt the whole rebel icon thing about him was so overused it became cliché, though I do recognise his major cultural place in that period.

    Looking online prints smaller than this of ‘Boulevard..’ are fetching decent money, so I’ll probably sell it as some point. After all, he does owe me rent.

    Or it may grow on me, and I’ll keep it because me and Jimmy Dean do go back a long way, even if I didn’t know it.

  • Cross If You Dare To #WordlessWednesday

    Photograph by Paul Ariss

  • THE EMBARRASSED CONFESSIONS OF A HIGHLY IMPRACTICAL MAN

    I often wonder when gripped by one of my regular feelings of severe inadequacy whether there are two types of person in this world -those who can do DIY and those who can’t.

    I’ll take it further; is it possible that there are those who can do ‘stuff’ ,such as build a garden wall, fix some rendering, repair a dodgy piece of guttering, ‘cut-in’ perfectly when they paint between ceiling and wall, change a car tyre with smooth and swift efficiency…and there are those who simply can’t and just pay someone who can.

    By now you will have guessed which category I fall into, as there is little point to this blog if I’m just going to say how good I am at all of those things and more. Then it just becomes a Boast Blog, and who wants to read those except the person who writes them?

    I can’t paint but I can spell…photo by Paul Ariss

    My lack of practical skills has come into sharp focus since I bought a new place. And it’s not all about lack of application. Obviously electrical work is something that would require experience and qualifications. Enthusiasm and a have-a-go spirit can only take you so far, and rewiring an electrical circuit would definitely fall into that category.

    Similarly most plumbing issues, if not all, would most likely be a no-go area. As would replacing loose slates on a roof, complex joinery, negotiating anything remotely to do with gas, or randomly knocking down an internal wall. These are jobs for people who know their subject. They are without exception go-to people who we should pay for their skills, and training.

    No, what I’m talking about is the other stuff, the ‘simple’ stuff, the kind you would find YouTube videos for that last no more than 3-4 minutes. Take painting, for one. How to use a roller on a wall and not end up with large patches that the roller either soaks in paint or leaves it annoyingly bare.

     “Oh you’ve put too much paint on the roller” the annoying have-a-go ‘experts’ tell me, or just as unhelpfully “make sure it rolls as it paints, not slide. Did it slide or did it roll?” Well both as it happens, smart a*se”.

    And that’s where the instructions on paint tins don’t help, as they advise to ‘add liberally’. What I guess they don’t mean however is add liberally all over my hands or hair, but nonetheless that happens. Every time.

    On the said YouTube videos, paint spreads evenly and beautifully from paintbrush or roller onto wall or ceiling. What a doddle, let me have a go. No, I should not be allowed anywhere near an area requiring the smooth and even application of paint. God did not bless me with the decorating gene and that’s all there is to it. It’s not my fault.

    The same can be said for most things to do with a car, such as changing a brake bulb or wheel. I simply would not dare drive on a wheel that I had changed, either for the safety of myself or other road users. Recently I needed to change two brake bulbs that had both gone so I paid £9 extra for the man in the car maintenance shop to do it for me while I stood around awkwardly and uselessly watching. We both understood. Some men can do stuff, and some men do other stuff.

    For example I can write a passable play, short story or song. But be honest, if your car breaks down on a dark road in the middle of the night who are you going to want be your side, someone who can fix the problem and have you moving merrily on you way again, or someone who can make jokes or sing you a tune?

    So there’s the dilemma, if you had to choose between being creative or being practical, which one would you go for? My choice changes depending on the situation, but on pure monetary terms, I think there’s a chance most plumbers make a lot more money on average than most writers or performers.

    But then, most of us can name several famous writers or performers, but how many electricians become superstars? Who does society value most?

    When DIY goes horribly wrong. Photo by Paul Ariss

    The final irony to all of this is at 17 I was offered an apprenticeship as a joiner. How? I recall very casually mentioning to my father that it must nice to be able to make something with wood. I meant it. I didn’t mean I wanted to try it. I’d played truant from school for three weeks when I was 13 because I hated the woodwork teacher.

    However we had a family friend who had his own joinery business and as I was unemployed at the time suddenly I found myself mixing concrete on a Monday morning while the family friend erected fence posts. I lasted two weeks, before packing it in, much to the embarrassment and anger of my parents.

    But I knew I didn’t have what it took. I still don’t, but I’m at peace with it. As long as I put up enough pictures no-one’s going to notice the paint blotches behind them, right?

  • A LITTLE WINDOW INTO A BRAND NEW CHRISTMAS

    Having just moved into my new home just over seven weeks ago and still tripping over boxes – though a lot less than there were – and putting up curtain rails and applying paint (badly) onto walls and making room for new and old furniture, the space available for Christmas decorations is at present somewhat limited.

    However at this very late stage I made a little space on my new writing room window-ledge for something to make the place feel a little bit reflective of the time of year.

    It’s not much, but it makes a difference, and with a couple of tiny trees and a Peace Lily plant it gives me the chance to say Merry Christmas to you all and, please God, a more Peaceful New Year.

  • A SOBER WARNING #WordlessWednesday

    Dog and Gun Public House, Keswick, Cumbria. Photo by Paul Ariss