tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25059945505405777492024-03-12T19:55:13.503-07:00Fergus CraigFergus Craighttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01328581625574279849noreply@blogger.comBlogger148125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2505994550540577749.post-44800136016658341862019-09-12T08:53:00.001-07:002019-09-12T08:58:04.380-07:00Hitting Partner<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica"; font-size: 12pt;">‘Look at his haircut. It’s embarrassing. It’s fucking em-ba-rra-ssing!’</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "helvetica"; font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica"; font-size: 12.000000pt;">Gaby’s been going at me for a full forty five minutes now. She started on my serve and
then, as she does at least once every two days, went into a rant about how I had the worst
forehand in the developed world. Now she’s onto my haircut, a new means by which to
humiliate me.
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "helvetica"; font-size: 12.000000pt;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "helvetica"; font-size: 12.000000pt;">She is Gaby Prio, the former world number one, current world number eleven tennis player
and the winner of nine grand slams. I am her hitting partner - a job I have done and hated
for ten years.
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "helvetica"; font-size: 12.000000pt;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "helvetica"; font-size: 12.000000pt;">There are no more than a hundred, probably fewer, full time professional hitting partners in
the world. Not that it’s an elite job, no one wants to be a hitting partner. The moment you
become one is the moment you accept defeat, that you will never be a tennis player. Now
you’re just an imitation of one, a kind of shitty tribute act. Worse than that in fact. A tribute
act still performs in front of an audience. They still do what they set out to do, just not as
successfully as they had hoped that they might. A prep cook still cuts carrots that end up in
the dish, they just don’t get the credit. What a hitting partner does is cut carrots, cut carrots
all fucking day, just so that the chef can cut carrots. Unless you cut carrots, the chef can’t
even practice cutting carrots.
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "helvetica"; font-size: 12.000000pt;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "helvetica"; font-size: 12.000000pt;">Now that I’ve basketed the sixty balls around the court, I hit one to Gaby, in hopes of a
brief break from the abuse. She forehands it back, the ball lands inside the service line.
Rather than stepping in and putting her under pressure, I wait and simply knock it back
with a little more pace and keep her at the back of the court.
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "helvetica"; font-size: 12.000000pt;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "helvetica"; font-size: 12.000000pt;">It’s December in Fort Lauderdale. There’s rain forecast for right now but, to my
disappointment, it’s still a sunny 85 degrees and we have to keep on playing. With no
competitions, this month is usually about conditioning. This year is different because she
lost in the second round at the US Open to some ‘big chinned fucking lesbian’ (Gaby’s
words) Belgian doubles specialist who only got a singles wild card out of sympathy when
their partner pulled out through injury. The resulting rankings slip meant that for the first
time in eight years Gaby missed out on the WTA Finals in Singapore for which only the top
eight qualify.
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "helvetica"; font-size: 12.000000pt;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "helvetica"; font-size: 12.000000pt;">In those eight years she’s never got close to missing out on the WTA Finals but this has
been a bad 12 months. At 29, with a shitty back and four cortisone injections in the last two
years, people (most of all Gaby) are wondering whether she can still compete at the top.
That’s why these few weeks are about confidence as much as they are about fitness. That
puts more responsibility on me.
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "helvetica"; font-size: 12.000000pt;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "helvetica"; font-size: 12.000000pt;">She hits a cross court backhand and I hit one straight back and this is what we do for the
next ten strokes or so. This is where Gaby is most comfortable - on the baseline, hitting
cross court top spin backhands. Now I hit one up the line to get her moving. I’ve done this
a million times. When she’s playing well, I’ll go for a winner - not today. I hit it flat, relatively
short and a foot inside the tram lines so that she has the time to play it how she likes.
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica"; font-size: 12.000000pt;">She plays the right shot but badly. Gaby crouches down, rotates her hips and uses all the
strength from the big Sicilian American arse that led her to three grand slams in 2011. But
her timing isn’t right. There’s a stiffness this year that won’t budge. At first that caused her
to get to the ball too late, now she’s rushing it. The power is there but it lands two inches
past the baseline. Deciding not to call it out means that a bad shot has the effect of being a
good shot. I get there but I’m stretching and play a defensive wristy forehand that hits the
tape of the net and drops my side of the court.
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "helvetica"; font-size: 12.000000pt;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "helvetica"; font-size: 12.000000pt;">‘FUCK MARCUS! FUCK!’
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "helvetica"; font-size: 12.000000pt;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "helvetica"; font-size: 12.000000pt;">She’s stood, feet spread, shoulders back, ready for a fight. Her racquet looks like a
baseball bat with me the intruder on her lawn. Gaby turns to Slavo, her Croat coach.
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "helvetica"; font-size: 12.000000pt;">‘You gotta help me out Slavo. I need someone new. Eva’s not hitting easy, fucking </span><span style="font-family: "helvetica"; font-size: 12.000000pt; font-style: oblique;">EASY
</span><span style="font-family: "helvetica"; font-size: 12.000000pt;">fucking shots into the net. How am I supposed to practice? Can’t I just hit balls against a
fucking </span><span style="font-family: "helvetica"; font-size: 12.000000pt; font-style: oblique;">WALL</span><span style="font-family: "helvetica"; font-size: 12.000000pt;">?’
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "helvetica"; font-size: 12.000000pt;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "helvetica"; font-size: 12.000000pt;">Eva is the Swiss 21 year old new number one who won both the US and the French this
year. Not an easy double to do. The US is one thing. Eva, like Gaby, like most pros, grew
up playing on the sort of hard courts you get at the US Open. The French is played on clay
and that is something entirely different. Clay is slower, which means longer rallies. The
bounce is higher so the clay game is dominated by players with serious top spin - a slice
goes for nothing on clay. And there’s the fact that the ground literally moves under your
feet. You are running on dirt. To play well on clay you have to learn to spend half your time
sliding along the court. Clay tennis is effectively a sub sport of the rest of tennis. The
French Open is usually won by clay specialists, big South American or Spanish thugs who
grew up with red dirt on their legs. Eva didn’t grow up like that. Eva was raised in a Zurich
country club. While her father made millions looking after the cash of African despots, her
mother made a project of Eva and turned her into what the tennis world is calling ‘the
female Federer’. Not unreasonably either. She has that sort of made in a Nazi laboratory
Arian perfection to her. After picking up a couple of Australians and a Wimbledon as a
teenager, winning the French is a big deal. Completing the career grand slam (all four
majors) with her US Open victory, Eva is already being talked of as someone who could go
on to be the ‘best ever’. The ‘best ever’ ship has most likely departed for Gaby. This is why
Gaby hates Eva. Because she’s better than her. I hate Gaby because I do not like her </span><span style="font-family: "helvetica"; font-size: 12.000000pt; font-style: oblique;">as a
person.
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "helvetica"; font-size: 12.000000pt; font-style: oblique;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "helvetica"; font-size: 12.000000pt;">Every tennis player has their story of a brutally unusual childhood. Mine is the most
common one. An obsessive parent (in my case my mother) decided I was going to make
up for her failings when I was four. Her father, a Harley Street doctor, died and left her half
a million and a big house in Richmond, London. His death and the resulting financial
freedom it gave my mother determined my career path before I knew what one was. Just
days after the funeral she sat in the garden and looked at the tennis court she now owned,
then at her son and knew what the rest of our lives would be about.
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "helvetica"; font-size: 12.000000pt;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "helvetica"; font-size: 12.000000pt;">It never once occurred to me that tennis was supposed to be fun. She never said the word
‘play’. It was always ‘practice’ or ‘work’. I was a four year old with a job. Having been a half
decent junior player herself she was able to teach me the strokes. We’d get up at six,
before my father left for his civil service job, and hit balls for two hours before school. Then
after school it was another two hours before dinner and bed. As the first winter approached
she installed floodlights so that the schedule couldn’t be interrupted by the seasons. As the
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica"; font-size: 12.000000pt;">years went on there was a succession of different coaches but it was always my mother
who drove my ‘development’.
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica"; font-size: 12.000000pt;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "helvetica"; font-size: 12.000000pt;">When I started to enter tournaments a major problem became apparent - I didn’t care
about winning. I had the strokes. Technique wise I was probably one of the best eight year
olds in the world. A match though was just an opportunity to hit balls with another kid
instead of my horrible mother or one of her surrogate coaches. An only child who was now
schooled at home, which meant </span><span style="font-family: "helvetica"; font-size: 12.000000pt; font-style: oblique;">only </span><span style="font-family: "helvetica"; font-size: 12.000000pt;">tennis, this was the closest I got to playing with other
children. Why waste such a chance by stressing about a scoreline?
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "helvetica"; font-size: 12.000000pt;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "helvetica"; font-size: 12.000000pt;">Gaby is different. Gaby would punch her adorable nephew in his adorable three year old
face for a point. Gaby didn’t need the pushy parent. She </span><span style="font-family: "helvetica"; font-size: 12.000000pt; font-style: oblique;">was </span><span style="font-family: "helvetica"; font-size: 12.000000pt;">the pushy parent. Sure, her
mother took her to a tennis summer school at the the age of four but that was only
because it gave her the opportunity for Sauvignon Blanc lunches with other depressed
mothers. It was Gaby who refused to leave two hours after picking up a tennis racquet for
the first time, it was Gaby who spent the next six years hitting balls against the wall in her
back garden and it was Gaby who at the age of eleven, realising that there was no one left
in her small New Mexico town who could beat her demanded that she move to Florida to
join the Steve Maddison Tennis Academy.
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "helvetica"; font-size: 12.000000pt;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "helvetica"; font-size: 12.000000pt;">Gaby, as far as I can see, is unique in the sport. She is a tennis player who actually </span><span style="font-family: "helvetica"; font-size: 12.000000pt; font-style: oblique;">chose
</span><span style="font-family: "helvetica"; font-size: 12.000000pt;">to be a tennis player.
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "helvetica"; font-size: 12.000000pt;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "helvetica"; font-size: 12.000000pt;">I hit her another ball. She hits a soft forehand back. The tension hangs over the first few
shots but gradually we speed up. She signals that we’re at it again by whipping a 110mph
forehand at my feet. Nearly thirty years of hitting balls mean I’m able to half volley it back
to her baseline. The next few shots from each of us could be accompanied by a ‘fuck you’.
We’re both hitting it as hard as we can. John McEnroe just said that Gaby probably won’t
ever win another Grand Slam. Fuck you. Where’s that rain? Fuck you. Her hitting partner
is getting old and deteriorating just as fast as her. Fuck you. Gaby Prio has called me a
prick every day for the last ten years. Fuck you. Eva Merian just got a massive Dior
contract. Fuck you. Fuck you. Fuck you.
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "helvetica"; font-size: 12.000000pt;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "helvetica"; font-size: 12.000000pt;">Thunder and a sudden barrage of heavy Florida afternoon raindrops. Yes! I’m so excited
that I hit a beautiful angled winner that Gaby doesn’t bother chasing. We run under the
covered area beside the court. Slavo walks out into the rain and collects the balls so that
they’re still usable. Gaby takes her phone from her bag and heads to, I assume,
Instagram. I sit down and drink water. The entire sky is grey. Within forty five minutes there
will, most likely, be blazing sun again and a dry court. We’re not done for the day.
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "helvetica"; font-size: 12.000000pt;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "helvetica"; font-size: 12.000000pt;">If Gaby is nearing the end of her career then I most certainly am. At thirty two, as a hitting
partner I’m no longer an appealing candidate for anyone who could afford one. Three or
four years ago I could have walked into a job, perhaps even as a coach, with any of
Gaby’s rivals. Being part of her camp meant being associated with winning. No one could
know that I never really cared about competition. Of course I wanted the bonuses that
tournament wins brought but that animal need to better someone else that the sport
depends on is not something I have nor want.
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "helvetica"; font-size: 12.000000pt;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "helvetica"; font-size: 12.000000pt;">So I’m approaching the finish line on a career that somebody else chose for me, with no
qualifications and very little cash to show for it. According to the last time I googled it Gaby
has a net worth of $55 million. Much of that has come from endorsements. A great deal of
her actual tennis winnings are spent on her team - coach, trainer, physio, PA and me.
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica"; font-size: 12.000000pt;">Added to that are a series of figures who pop in and out - a dietician, security, a fat
Reverend by the name of Chuck whom Gaby will not tolerate a bad word against. Then
there’s her family who come to all the major tournaments and many of the smaller ones -
her idiot brother who has supposedly been doing a degree in Psychology for the last nine
years, her quiet, vacant looking father and his ex wife - her drunken, boob jobbed, claims
to have fucked Jimmy Connors, called the tournament director at the Dubai Open a rag
head, under strict instructions to be kept away from the press at all times, mother. All these
people’s flights, some first class, some (mine) economy have to be paid for. All these
people’s hotels have to be paid for - some of us at the Meridian, some of us at the
Ramada Inn. All that expenditure leaves me with a basic salary of $60,000 a year. Not bad
for someone with no A Levels but not enough not to worry about what may well be an
upcoming fifty years of poverty once tennis stops paying.
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "helvetica"; font-size: 12.000000pt;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "helvetica"; font-size: 12.000000pt;">Need it stop? I have friends from my junior days who make a living coaching the children
of more rich pushy parents, one in fact set up an academy in upstate New York and
judging by his Facebook posts appears to have bought a boat. There could always be a
job for me in England. The British tennis establishment fetishizes American tennis and
surely my long time involvement with its leading player would get me a job on the Lawn
Tennis Association. But that would mean living in the same country as my mother and, to
her satisfaction and even worse, working in tennis. Most people hate their jobs, right?
Plumbers, accountants, people like that. But no one fixes drains from the age of four.
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "helvetica"; font-size: 12.000000pt;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "helvetica"; font-size: 12.000000pt;">I could just leave. Get into my car and go. I’ve never been to the Keys. I hear the beaches
smell but that’s ok.
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "helvetica"; font-size: 12.000000pt;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "helvetica"; font-size: 12.000000pt;">Gaby looks up from her phone and at me. She throws me a baseball cap with a smile.
‘Wear a hat, that’s all I’m asking’
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "helvetica"; font-size: 12.000000pt;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "helvetica"; font-size: 12.000000pt;">It’s a peace offering in the form of another dig at my haircut. She skips over and sits on my
lap.
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "helvetica"; font-size: 12.000000pt;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "helvetica"; font-size: 12.000000pt;">‘Do you hate me?’
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "helvetica"; font-size: 12.000000pt;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "helvetica"; font-size: 12.000000pt;">She’s done this for ten years. It’s always a countdown to the next tirade and the next
flirtatious make up. I tolerate it because she’s good at tennis which at this moment in time
seems like an odd reason.
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "helvetica"; font-size: 12.000000pt;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "helvetica"; font-size: 12.000000pt;">A melancholy in my gut rises and becomes a nervous anger in my chest. One day when I
was six a teacher singled me out for talking in assembly when I hadn’t been. I couldn’t
handle the fact that that injustice could just be left hanging there, uncorrected. Their
authority, my inarticulate six year old voice, the impossibility of me proving my innocence
all meant nothing could be done.
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "helvetica"; font-size: 12.000000pt;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "helvetica"; font-size: 12.000000pt;">Twenty five years later that same feeling is with me. I cannot challenge her. Until I was 22
my mother controlled my life almost entirely then without me noticing it I transferred those
powers to a girl three years my junior.
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "helvetica"; font-size: 12.000000pt;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "helvetica"; font-size: 12.000000pt;">What I’m supposed to say is obvious to any socialised adult human. Coming as
frequently as it does I’m well practiced at answering the ‘Do you hate me?’ line correctly
and I do.
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "helvetica"; font-size: 12.000000pt;"><br /></span>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica"; font-size: 12.000000pt;">‘No’
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "helvetica"; font-size: 12.000000pt;"><br /></span>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica"; font-size: 12.000000pt;">It’s already stopped raining. I look beyond the drying court to the car park and beyond that
a highway, some marsh land, a strip mall, a church, an empty baseball diamond. In of
themselves none of those places hold any appeal. Nevertheless, each of them is sending
out a ferocious pull thanks to what they are not - tennis courts.
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "helvetica"; font-size: 12.000000pt;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "helvetica"; font-size: 12.000000pt;">I look at the tennis racquet beside me, the woman still sat on my lap and the coach
preparing the court and I know what to do. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "helvetica"; font-size: 12.000000pt;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "helvetica"; font-size: 12.000000pt;">This time, I do it.
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Fergus Craighttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01328581625574279849noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2505994550540577749.post-72143083066931266392019-08-06T13:18:00.000-07:002019-08-07T10:01:37.400-07:00Bill Craig: 1930 - 2019<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Bill Craig, my grandad, died last week, five days after his 89th birthday and on his and my Nana's 68th wedding anniversary. He was a powerhouse of a man, an enormous character who left on impression on every person who had even the briefest of encounters with him, who dominated every room he entered and who once claimed to me that he was the inventor of laundry detergent. A true eccentric, who if he ever doubted himself for a second never once gave it away.<br />
<br />
Much of his life is a mystery to me. Almost everything I know of him is from stories he told me, many of which seemed too crazy to be true - he was once so angry when punching a man (in a fight which he won, obviously) he broke his own teeth by gritting them. He drove the wrong way up the Dartford Tunnel and a waiting police car let him go because he told them he was with Mi5. He invented the three bar fire.<br />
<br />
I think he may have been a genius of sorts. His schooling was interrupted by the second world war. Perhaps with a fuller education he'd have had the capacity to better explain the countless, constant ideas pumping out of his brain. Had circumstances been different he could easily have been a household name. Nevertheless he achieved success in a number of fields and notoriety on Mersea Island, Essex where he spent the last 43 years of his life. In the fifties and sixties, he operated cigarette machines around London. Then he ran his own restaurant, which with Bill Craig in charge was of course unique for its day. I'm told it was the first self service restaurant in the UK and was even featured on a Tomorrow's World type TV show as an example of the future. Sadly, I think he may have been ahead of his time.<br />
<br />
He went on to own fish and chip shops, eventually moving to West Mersea to run one with my Nana and became known affectionately by some, I'm told, as 'Bill Crazy'. Visitors to his chippy were often treated to cod, chips and an animated lecture on how the world could be if they'd only listen to Bill Craig.<br />
<br />
What really brought him to the island was not fish and chips but a passion for boats, something he passed on to his two sons. He built his own boats obviously, never bought them, he was that sort of a man. In Britain, the official retirement age for a fisherman was 55. When Bill turned 55, he gave up the chip shop and became a full time fisherman.<br />
<br />
Right until his final years, he spent much of his life in his shed - a chaotic testament to his mind, a place that only he understood and where one entered at serious risk to their own personal safety. Shelves of fifty year old tools, uncovered live electric plugs. To the horror of their mothers he thought nothing of inviting his younger grandchildren to have a root around. He always wanted to inspire in others his own passions.<br />
<br />
Most of my memories of him occurred in his living room at family events. Bill Craig always held court, by sheer force of personality. The topic of discussion was nearly always what Bill wanted it to be - his eyes twinkling mischievously above his moustache. Stories of shooting seals. Stories of his drinking fifteen pints a night in the army but never once having been tipsy. Stories of letters he'd written to members of the cabinet, giving them solutions to the problems of the day. You were always entertained.<br />
<br />
As his family grew, as his many grandchildren produced many more great grand children he took pleasure in passing on his stories and expertise to new generations. When three year olds opened Christmas presents, mothers jumped up to stop him handing them his pocket knife. As we reached our teenage years he'd delight in offering his homemade and insanely strong plum wine.<br />
<br />
Full of life, humour and inventions until the very end Bill Craig was a man who left a mark far far bigger than most.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
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Fergus Craighttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01328581625574279849noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2505994550540577749.post-6455617196805723072019-06-22T21:10:00.001-07:002019-06-22T21:25:26.762-07:00My bit on Boris.<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Some time in August 2008, before the financial crash really kicked off, before the London riots, before MPs expenses, before phone hacking, before every TV figure from my youth was discovered to have been a paedophile, before the referendum, before Jo Cox, before Corbyn, before Trump - I saw Boris Johnson at the Vue Cinema in Islington. He was there to see Tropic Thunder with what I assume was one of his five, six or seven (estimates vary) children. True to reputation he arrived late and as he made his way to his seat, the occupants of Screen One gave him a cheer and gentle applause.<br />
<br />
This was just a few months after he'd been made the first Conservative Mayor of London and here he was in the constituency of little known socialist backbencher Jeremy Corbyn receiving a genuinely warm response from a room full of twenty something action comedy fans. I don't think I applauded (I can't be sure) but I certainly didn't boo and neither did anyone else.<br />
<br />
In some senses Boris Johnson is the perfect politician for me. Long ago I decided that I hated political ideology. I can't stand those who feel that the answers to all problems, big or small, can come from one simple belief system. Whatever the issue - education, wages, trains - just stick it into our machine - socialism, free market, Brexit - and as long you leave our machine alone, as long as it's allowed to operate purely, the utopian solution will pop out.<br />
<br />
What I enjoy, what's kept me obsessively watching, reading and listening to politics since I was literally 11 is the game. I like to watch the game. Boris Johnson, from what I can tell, is the game. He is nothing but the game.<br />
<br />
Boris Johnson is our Trump - not because they've both taken advice from Steve Bannon, not because they both happily munch on nationalism for their own ends, not because they both grew up in extraordinary privilege or the frequency and ease with which they lie or their many wives or the fact that they are both roughly six feet of cunt underneath a bad haircut. Yes, Boris has a bigger vocabulary and Donald has a bigger bank balance but as politicians they are fundamentally the same man because they have no ideology other than themselves. They believe in their own aggrandisement and whatever it takes to achieve it.<br />
<br />
It's been mentioned many times that Boris Johnson wrote two columns on Brexit - one for leave, one for remain. I've read both. His remain argument was published at the end of Tim Shipman's brilliant book All Out War. His leave argument was a lot stronger. I believe that's because it suited his writing style better. Johnson is more Wordsworth than Orwell - there's a poetry to 'sovereignty'. Pragmatism is prose. His decision on which way to go was informed by two things - which was the better column and what he knew would one day be his path to Prime Minister - the opinions of Conservative Party selectorate. It's not that he went against what he believed. I think it's very unlikely that he believes in anything other than a collage of easily discarded but comforting phrases and cliches he's built up over his lifetime and the wants and needs of his ego and his penis.<br />
<br />
Now his penis has taken him to a flat in Camberwell, where I now (but for this brief hiatus in Montreal) live. I doubt he gets cheers there. I very much doubt he'd even get cheers at Islington Vue now. He must surely be the most viscerally hated politician in Britain and yet Conservative members are about to choose him to be Prime Minister because of his supposed popularity with the electorate. I'd suggest a lot's changed since Tropic Thunder came out. Robert Downey Jnr blacks up in that film, for example.<br />
<br />
I watched Boris Johnson's interview with Ian Dale at a Conservative leadership hustings yesterday. It was awful. He avoided every question and appeared genuinely disgruntled and hurt that questions had to be asked of him at all - 'Can't you see I had a haircut? Can I just have the fucking job now please?' The audience were on his side - how dare you ask questions of <i>our </i>Boris? It's the whole Trump, Corbyn thing again but this time with the added excitement for me that I might bump into the protagonist buying condoms at my local corner shop.<br />
<br />
Here's the inescapable reality. Boris Johnson is going to fucking hate being Prime Minister. He's going to have to <i>live </i>at his work. Every day he's going to wake up in a building full of people wanting him to make actual decisions. Any time he's given the opportunity to do what he enjoys - perform - he's going to make some kind of a mess which is going to bring about criticism and more questions and he's going to fucking hate it.<br />
<br />
For his sake and ours I hope he doesn't have to do it.<br />
<br />
Note 1: I wrote this while a little drunk so please discount the entire thing.<br />
<br />
Note 2: I once saw Jeremy Hunt buying cheese at Liverpool St Station so please await a piece on that soon.</div>
Fergus Craighttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01328581625574279849noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2505994550540577749.post-49403692759533780462019-06-10T11:28:00.001-07:002019-06-10T11:28:51.667-07:00Parenting Tips<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
1. Don't forget to love your child.<br />
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2. Don't love your child too much. There is a finite amount of love one can give over a lifetime. It's important that you save some up for any hobbies that you might find in retirement - eg golf or remote controlled model boats.<br />
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3. Name your child something easy to remember like Qwerty or 9/11.<br />
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4. Until they're able to cook for themselves at around nine months, feeding your child is a must. This is a pain but there's no way round it. One way of making it a little easier is to fill their cot with nine months supply of tinned all day breakfast when they're born.<br />
<br />
5. Sooner or later you're going to have to have <i>The Talk </i>with your son or daughter. As every good parent knows, <i>The Talk </i>is the female rap in the song No Diggity but slowed down and said in an Irish accent. Learn it thoroughly and give it to them on their eighth birthday.<br />
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6. Never operate heavy machinery, unless with a child.<br />
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7. Say goodbye to sleep! I don't know if anyone's told you this but having a child means you ain't gonna be gettin' much o' the old sleep my friend. Hooh boy! This is because you'll be constantly running over and over in your head all the awkward conversations you've had with their night nurse.<br />
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8. Teach your child about death by getting them a pet and murdering it in front of them.<br />
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9. 'There's nothing funnier than dressing a dog in human clothes'. Actually, there is one thing and that's dressing a child in human clothes. Try it with yours. Trust me, it's hilarious.<br />
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10. Make sure your child is getting enough screen time.<br />
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11. It can be really cute to monitor your child's growth with a pencil on the wall. Just put a little mark on either side, just above the hips and watch how that waist grows!<br />
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12. Give your child a head start in life by setting up a savings account or a Subway loyalty card.<br />
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13. Don't push your own interests on to your child. Give them the opportunity and the space to discover what <i>they</i> love. Buy them a subscription to Top Gear magazine, get them a poster of The Stig, read them James May's autobiography every night, take them to The Top Gear Roadshow or The Top Gear Exhibition or An Evening With Top Gear. Soon enough they'll find what they're into.<br />
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14. If your child misbehaves, put them in the 'Naughty Corner' which is at Tebay Services just off the M6 southbound between junctions 38 and 39.<br />
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15. It's important to find out if your child has any allergies. Ask them to fill out a short form when they're born.<br />
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16. Nothing can truly prepare you for the love that you will feel when your child comes into the world. You should give yourself an idea though - take an E on the way to the maternity ward.<br />
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17. Every second with your child is precious. Make sure your phone is charged so you don't waste a single opportunity to exploit them for personal affirmation on social media.<br />
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18. It's really difficult to decide whether to vaccinate your baby or not. Sit down with your partner and decide if you want your child to get measles.<br />
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19. Having a child can change your relationship with your partner. Especially if you have the child with someone else.<br />
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20. It's easy to get bogged down in all the do's and don't's of being a parent. The most important thing is to remember to enjoy it. Before you know it they'll be three and off to boarding school so saviour every moment!<br />
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<br /></div>
Fergus Craighttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01328581625574279849noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2505994550540577749.post-60896625566020243902019-05-14T12:40:00.001-07:002019-05-14T12:42:27.118-07:00Things are not going well for us but do you remember the success of Adele's second album?<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Hi. Britain here. Look, we know that from the outside things looks like they're not going well for us but do you remember the success of Adele's second album? Yes, we held a referendum on a binary question without sufficiently considering the consequences but that album was just phenomenal wasn't it? And when our country voted to leave the European Union without defining exactly what that meant we put ourselves into a state of inevitable, permanent chaos but <i>that </i>voice, eh? Yes, we were told that the German car industry would guarantee a free trade deal upon our departure and that didn't come to pass but seven Grammys and twelve Billboard Music Awards! So the promises of the leave campaign turn out to be contradictory and undeliverable and the song 'Rolling In The Deep' was just everywhere wasn't it? And now our leaders are insisting that the result of the referendum must be respected but they don't have the political capitol to admit that respecting the result will come at a high economic and cultural price with no discernible upside and according to Wikipedia 31 million copies sold worldwide! So now we have half a country embarrassed at where we find ourselves and in the digital age it's hard to see an album ever selling anything like as many copies ever again. And the other half of the country is angry that the establishment is denying them the sunlit uplands of freedom and to think that she achieved all this at such a young age! Of course, we are a country comprised of four nations, two of which voted to remain so our departure from the EU could trigger the eventual collapse of the United Kingdom and 'Someone Like You' was the biggest selling digital single of all time. Have we thrown away an international status far greater than an island of our size should expect in just a couple of short years and was there ever a more charming giver of an acceptance speech in music? And as we wrestle with our identity and fear for our futures we turn to nationalists and populists with easy answers to difficult questions and it's easy to forget how rare it is to see a woman with her body shape get such positive affirmation. Every day brings more humiliation and every track is a hit. In turning our back on Europe will we turn to the wider world or in on ourselves and was the success of that album our last great moment?<br />
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Fergus Craighttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01328581625574279849noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2505994550540577749.post-66086476117538353692019-04-26T08:35:00.000-07:002019-04-26T13:00:25.874-07:00What do you all actually do?<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
I haven't had a job since 2005. Not a real job anyway. Fourteen years. My joblessness has pubes.<br />
<br />
I've somehow managed to sustain myself by appearing in the odd tragically under the radar sitcom, comically raising my eyebrows in adverts and pickpocketing. I appreciate this could sound like bragging but I'm increasingly of the opinion that I have wasted a large portion of my life.<br />
<br />
In an average year I probably get about 200 days in which I can do what the fuck I like. What have I done with that time? I remember going into the National Gallery one day some time around 2011 but I'm pretty sure that was just for a shit.<br />
<br />
What <i>do</i> I do? I write. I wrote a fun <a href="https://www.oberonbooks.com/tips-for-actors.html">book</a> that sits in a couple of thousand bathrooms. I write these blog posts. I wrote half a novel (doesn't everyone?) and I wrote a few chapters of a book about pubs which my agent told me was "depressing and I just think the people who like these kind of pubs don't read books". I've written a series of sitcom pilots which all get similar notes - "this is <i>very </i>funny but also <i>no". </i>I write and rewrite long long long letters to former girlfriends.<br />
<br />
Of course it's not all writing. The late noughties featured an awful lot of Sky Sports News but I eventually found that a training ground interview with Nicky Butt doesn't get any better on the fifth viewing. I go for walks which I tell myself is thinking time but is actually listening to podcasts and therefore other people's thinking time. I think about sending an email. I put on a wash. I look up people on IMDb and work out where they were in their careers at my age. I hang up the wash.<br />
<br />
Jesus Christ, this is a grim sit down and write.<br />
<br />
What do you do? You get to work - you say hello to Malcolm and Annette and the new girl Anish, you sit at your desk/booth/lathe - what the fuck do you <i>do? </i>Emails. That seems to be everyone's answer. What's in the emails though? You're all just emailing each other aren't you? Do we live in an email based economy? I honestly don't understand how everyone fills their day. Retail, I get that. Or restaurant work, or painting road markings - I get all that. The rest of you though? If I get on the tube any time between 6 and 10am it is absolutely shit packed with you people - in suits, in black skirts, reading The Economist, watching Top Gear on your iPad - where in the name of heavenly piss are you going and what are you going to do when you get there?<br />
<br />
Statistics say I've got about another 40 years of this shit. I mean, I could go and get a real job but a) my CV has a gap the size of Russia and b) it's only about six months until all jobs are done by robots anyway so what's the point?<br />
<br />
Of course, if I meet you at an industry party or in a casting then I have very much 'been busy' but the truth is I'm hoping the task of clipping my fingernails will take up a good 45 minutes today. I remember bumping into an actor/writer friend in the street and we did the old 'what you up to?' dance. I was happy to be able to tell him that I'd 'just finished filming' something because it had only been about three years. He was literally chasing me down the street yelling recent projects at me. Hilariously I was on the way to a session with a therapist and let me tell you he could have added that to his credits because his name played a significant role in that hour. Everyone <i>says </i>they're busy but I've been in a lot of cafes with people on laptops and I've looked at their laptops and it is my pleasure to reveal that not a <i>single </i>one of those fuckers is doing any work.<br />
<br />
Everyone says they never get a minute and yet social media is FULL. Everyone is bashing out a fucking book a week on Whatsapp and it's getting worse. I've sat alongside teenagers in libraries whilst fiddling around with my soon to be rejected scripts. They sit down - they pull out their exercise books, then they pull out their phone and then they pull out a whole bag of custard creams. The only thing that goes in the books is crumbs.<br />
<br />
Of course I'm making excuses for my lack of productivity. With this many years of free time I should have a lot more to show for it. It takes 10,000 hours of practice to become world class in any field apparently. I could be offering Yo-Yo Ma some competition. Alright, that's it, I've decided I want a cello for Christmas. Come 2033 Yo-Yo Ma better watch his ass.<br />
<br />
Ok, going for a nap now.<br />
<br />
I know you're sat there in a rage. "I NEVER GET A SECOND TO MYSELF! I'M SNOWED UNDER!". And yet you found the time to read this didn't you? A half arsed blog post by a man who's most significant achievement was starring in a David Hasselhoff vehicle on Dave. A man who had to Google the spellings of both the word 'achievement' and the word 'vehicle'.<br />
<br />
<br /></div>
Fergus Craighttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01328581625574279849noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2505994550540577749.post-45145191629506902932019-04-15T09:28:00.000-07:002019-04-15T09:40:27.660-07:00The History Of (my) Stand Up Comedy<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
My first ever stand up gig was in September 2002. Long time ago, that. Katherine Hepburn was still alive. I'd spent the previous two months going to stand up gigs as a punter with a real 'I could do that' smugness. I already knew what I didn't like. I think pretty much all 22 year olds who've not done the thing they're thinking of doing think that they're better than 95% of the people actually doing it. Although I didn't really know what a compere was I decided that all comperes were shit. Asking the audience where they were from, what they did, was unimaginative hackery - something I would never do.<br />
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Stand up seemed like a near blank canvas of an art form. The only requirement was to make people laugh and yet so much stand up seemed to follow the same narrow tropes. I was going to come along and change the game.<br />
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My first gig was at Pear Shaped, a legendary open mic night in Fitzrovia. I sat in the front row, drank four pints and watched the 16 comics before me perform with wildly varying levels of success. Back then at least a third of the open mic circuit were far worse than a randomly selected person on the street might be. It made for an entertaining rollercoaster of an evening.<br />
<br />
At this stage I was a trained actor and had recently completed a tour with the RSC but when the host, Brian Damage, brought me up I was insanely nervous. I remember my leg visibly shaking onstage. I spent much of my five minutes commenting on the limb wobbling, winning me some laughs. It was enough to give me an enormous high and confirm my suspicions that I was in fact a brilliant comedian in waiting.<br />
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Three or four relatively successful gigs later and I did a Sunday night show at Up The Creek in Greenwich. Hosted by legendary drinker and club owner, the late Malcolm Hardee, I would later learn that the night had a reputation for brutal heckling. Unblemished by a bad gig I went up with my unformed open mic material and smashed it. A friend told me I was as good as any professional club comic and I believed them. Someone else told me that they'd heard stand ups got paid £400 for a twenty minute set. Rather than the fee for a headliner at a top club on a Saturday night I took that to mean - the standard rate for all stand up sets was £400. I planned my future;<br />
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If I already had 5 minutes of audience destroying material, within three months I figured I'd have 20 and would be invited onto 'the circuit' by whomever was in charge of that shit. I supposed I'd give myself one night off a week meaning I'd have 6 x £400 = £2,400. Sweet. Guessing that the travelling could get lonely I day dreamed about paying a friend to come with me and play tennis during the day.<br />
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The following Sunday, recent Perrier winner Daniel Kitson was headlining the Creek so I turned up and said hello to Malcolm Hardee who kindly told me I'd been good the week before and asked if I'd like to go on again. "It'd just be the same stuff" I said. That wouldn't be a problem, he assured me.<br />
<br />
The atmosphere was very different. I watched two open mics get relentlessly pummelled by the crowd. It seemed the entire audience was there with the sole intention of humiliating the acts for their own entertainment. I've never seen a night like if before or since. As I stood beside him and we watched the victim before me get insulted by 200 people in unison, I heard Malcolm mumble to himself "perfect".<br />
<br />
In introducing me as "Fergal Craig" he told the audience I'd been on the week before, had 'died a death' but was back to give it another go. Fuck. Up I went and said the first line of my elaborate first joke. "You were on last week!" someone shouted and the onslaught began. I went into my 'edgy' Holocaust material (all new open mics have either edgy holocaust material or edgy paedo material and it's always shit) and someone shouted that their family had died in the Holocaust and they were thoroughly offended. They said this with a massive smile on their face. A couple of minutes in I won some laughs by saying I was doing stand as a dying wish but the game was up and Malcolm dragged me off stage. Red faced, I went to hide in the toilet. Daniel Kitson found me and kindly consoled but the humiliation was so unexpected, so absolute that I didn't really do stand up on my own again for another six years.<br />
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My return came in September 2008. As my double act came to an end I started showing up at open mic nights again, just to prove to myself that I could do it. At this stage I had a career as a comic actor on the go. I'd been on stage in my double act a lot. My experience gave me an unfair advantage. Four months later I won the Hackney Empire New Act of the Year award which was sort of cheating. Second place was Seann Walsh and he was never heard of again.<br />
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This brought about one of my worst ever gigs. Hackney Empire put on a showcase for some of the finalists. Returning confidently to the scene of my victory I had no fears about my 20 minute headline spot despite not having 20 minutes of material - I'd play with the audience, I'd improvise. I was an idiot. The second half of my set was an abomination sprinkled with actual arguments with members of the crowd and was followed by the compere Jo Brand berating the audience for being mean. I didn't give up stand up this time.<br />
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Over the course of the next couple of years, in comedy terms, I fucked up a bit. I once heard Tim Key interviewed on a podcast. He said (hope I'm remembering this right) that he started out awful and didn't really have any option other than to be alternative and creative. I started out quite good but I didn't really know what kind of stand up I wanted to be - I just knew I didn't want to die because dying is <i>painful. </i>So I did things that I thought would make an audience laugh - not always things that I found funny.<br />
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That isn't to say that I stopped dying. Gigs at Imperial College Students Union and the Latitude Festival stand out - there were others. Usually a fall came when I overstretched myself. The worst instance was when I agreed to do a show at the Leicester Comedy Festival. That was a major fuck up. I didn't have anything approaching a show but was on a good run of gigs and wanted to have a go at an hour. In one of the worst decisions in the history of British comedy I agreed to let reviewers in. <i>Maybe </i>I thought, <i>maybe </i>it will be brilliant. It wasn't. It was really bad.<br />
<br />
I wasn't <i>bad</i> at stand up though. I started to MC Knock2Bag gigs and found that I really liked being a compere - despite previously deciding all comperes were shit. Did I ask the standard - 'what do you do?' questions? Of course I did. It's a really good question that can take you anywhere.<br />
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I set myself the challenge of getting Jongleurs gigs. Firstly for ca$h but most importantly because I wanted to know if I could do it - if I could survive in the combative environment I had so spectacularly failed in the past. Turns out I was relatively good in those Saturday night bear pits.<br />
<br />
I had developed a good six or seven minutes on accents. This was broad material that seemed to work with pretty much any crowd. At first I loved performing it but then it became a bit of a problem. I couldn't seem to work up anything that was quite as successful and I was addicted to opening with it because it won me so many credit points with the audience.<br />
<br />
I became a regular compere with Jongleurs. Some nights it was enormous fun. Big crowds, enjoying their Saturday night out. A big laugh in a room with such a high Jaegerbomb per capita rate is a very big laugh. Other nights I felt like I was trying to win the approval of the people who bullied me at school. Sometimes in those rooms my accent material felt, rather than a lovely little play around with sounds, like taking advantage of lazy stereotypes. I was good at compering, I was quick, but sometimes I panicked and said something to appease what I thought the crowd wanted and berated myself on the way home. The worst instance was when I called a hen night 'sluts' for no good reason in Portsmouth. I got a cheer from the crowd but I was just being a bully with a microphone. It's hard though, this stand up lark. Sometimes you just end up calling a table full of women sluts and spending the train journey home wondering if you're a comedian or a misogynist ring leader.<br />
<br />
I gave up stand up not long after that incident. Jongleurs were being shit about paying me (and a lot of other folks) and I'd lost the enthusiasm to do other, lower paid, more alternative nights. I had found myself in this awful position in which I felt low when the audience weren't laughing but zero high when they were because that was just what was supposed to be happening. On reflection I think I was simply having a bad month and should have ploughed on, thrown away some of the material I'd grown to dislike and had some fun again. But I was acting and writing and stand up was only ever a side gig so I didn't feel like I was abandoning my calling.<br />
<br />
Now, thanks to the love of a good woman, I find myself living in Montreal for a year and I've started doing stand up again. I'm starting from scratch - all new material - observations on the nuances of the Geordie dialect don't work well here. One enormous advantage is that I immediately have an angle - I'm the British guy. In the UK I was just another British guy in a country of thirty million British guys.<br />
<br />
I'm surprising myself by how much I'm falling in love with stand up again. I shouldn't have given it up. What an amazing thing to be able to do. There are a hundred things to think about as a comic - Why won't this prick respond to my emails? If I grow a moustache or something will I get on panel shows? Why is that bit not getting a laugh anymore? Should I start wearing a suit maybe? Where's the best place at this venue for a pre show shit? Am I actually a 'comic' because everyone in the dressing room seems to feel like a 'comic' and I don't.<br />
<br />
I got bogged down in all that for a while. Probably will again one day. For now though I'm enjoying this brief oasis of just trying to come up with funny things to say on a stage.<br />
<br />
<br /></div>
Fergus Craighttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01328581625574279849noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2505994550540577749.post-57065314881719152362019-01-16T09:49:00.001-08:002019-05-27T12:08:00.894-07:00My solution for Brexit - do it.<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
On Canadian news last night, and this is true, the funny bit at the end was them laughing at Brexit. This is the rest of our lives now. People keep saying - they just need to get on with it and sort this mess out. This will never be sorted out. The next fifty years will be perpetual chaos, so much so that the news will just change it's name to 'the chaos', so we'll say to each things like 'did you see the chaos last night?' and 'switch on the chaos darling' and 'we apologise for the delay to the chaos, it will air at the conclusion of the snooker'.<br />
<br />
No one will ever change their mind. Remainers will never be persuaded that Brexit will do anything but make our lives worse and if and when it does we'll all just walk around with the same "why oh why why oh why aren't you as smart as me and my homeopath?" look we were born with. Brexiters will forever blame the failure of Brexit (and it will fail. Everyone, deep down, knows that now) on meddling, non believing, podcast having remainers. Brexit will always be for them, like Communism for the Marxists, or long ball football for Sam Allardyce, a failure of implementation rather than ideology.<br />
<br />
Cancelling Brexit via a second referendum will not reset the country. Everything won't just go back to the way it was. X Factor will still have gone shit, Bake Off will still be on Channel Four and everyone will still be really angry. Angrier in fact. Just because those who voted Brexit were mistaken it doesn't mean they will ever believe that to be the case and for as long as that is true it's chaos, endless chaos.<br />
<br />
Unless - and sorry for not mentioning this sooner - I have a solution... Catastrophic no deal Brexit. And I mean catastrophic. I mean Kent is a car park, planes can't land here, my dad can't get his medicines Brexit. I mean all the shops are selling is tinned all day breakfast Brexit. I mean zumba class is cancelled because there's tanks on the streets Brexit.<br />
<br />
I don't, by the way, mean that I think we should deliberately make no deal Brexit catastrophic. I mean that a no deal Brexit which is by its very nature unavoidably catastrophic might be the only thing that makes some folk sit down over a powdered egg and ponder 'Hmmm. Have I dropped a bit of bollock here?'<br />
<br />
The new mantra from the Brexit bunch is no deal, no problem. "We've got not nothing to be afraid of!". It has become perfectly clear that for most Brexiters there is absolutely nothing that anyone can say that will persuade them otherwise. I speak as an authority on this because I've seen their memes. Let's put it to the test.<br />
<br />
For my plan to work, and this is absolutely essential, Boris Johnson has to be prime minister. So every night when he leaves Ten Downing Street to go for a jog in that stupid fucking hat of his and he's asked why 10% of NHS staff have taken the electorate's advice and gone back to their own countries we can hear him give us the full "I think it was... in the words of Emperor Hirohito... ask not what your country can do... or words to that effect... felix culpa I say unto thee! Felix culpa!" ramble. The face of the leave campaign has to be the face of the ultimate disaster it caused. In Johnson we have an ego so large he'd actually relish fulfilling his role.<br />
<br />
Then and only then might the country be able to unite behind something - that we fucked up.<br />
<br />
To believe in my alternate future you need to make two giant leaps of faith. You need to believe that, after three months of watching us sit in a vat of boiling water, the EU will take pity and annul the divorce. Wishful thinking perhaps but they won't be consequence free and I like to think the phenomenal success of Adele's second album still leaves us with some good will on the international stage. And you need to believe that in an era in which no one has ever conceded defeat in an internet argument, in which every single citizen (and I include myself and my eighteen month old son in this) is a dogmatic cunt, that when faced with a horrific and palpable consequence people are capable of changing their minds.<br />
<br />
A risky strategy I admit and I take the point that it's a bit fucking cheeky of me to wait until I'm living in Canada to make the case. But the alternative is clear - we are going to be talking about Brexit for the rest of our lives.</div>
Fergus Craighttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01328581625574279849noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2505994550540577749.post-70054092550457355042019-01-15T09:42:00.002-08:002019-01-15T09:44:03.511-08:00Je Ne Comprends Pas<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
The lady who looks after my child can't speak English and I can't speak French. Every afternoon we have a conversation about how his day has gone in which we both just speak our own languages at each other and try to guess what the other is getting at. For all I know she's saying "Please, I don't know who this boy is. Please stop bringing him here. This is the wrong nursery. Today I slipped arsenic in his food out of pure frustration" and I'm just nodding "Yes, he's a little tired but I think he's getting used to it. Ok, see you tomorrow!".<br />
<br />
That's a big failure on my part - never having learnt another language. A lot of other folk seem to be able to do it. All foreign footballers for example. My grandad has a thing he says whenever football is mentioned - 'Do you know what I call football? Twenty two idiots kicking an intelligent football'. This is followed by a smile which suggests he thinks this will one day end up in a book of quotations alongside Winston Churchill and Mae West. For you to call footballers thick I don't think it's necessary for you to call a lifeless Nike sphere smart. I'm not sure it helps your argument. Secondly, most of the people on that pitch can converse in three languages. What my son's childminder and I could desperately do with is Paul Pogba stood beside us translating to be honest.<br />
<br />
My girlfriend can't speak French either but she can say one phrase very well - 'je ne comprends pas'. It's a handy phrase to know but saying it in a perfect French accent must make her sound insane. Imagine if, no matter what you said to someone they just replied 'I don't understand' in exactly the same accent as you. Perhaps it makes her sound like this great philosopher.<br />
<br />
"Cash or card?"<br />
<br />
"I don't understand"<br />
<br />
"So true. So true. None of us really understands this thing we call money"<br />
<br />
"Still or sparkling?"<br />
<br />
"I don't understand"<br />
<br />
"You're so right. While most of the world is in poverty, we sit here pontificating on how much gas we'd like in our water? You've convinced me to volunteer in Haiti. Would you like to join me?"<br />
<br />
"I don't understand"<br />
<br />
"So true. So true".<br />
<br />
I love to think that I'll pick up some French while I'm here in Montreal. Apparently my other grandfather, who was Polish, knew eight languages. Imagine what one could do with those skills. You could play in pretty much any league in Europe. But what did he do? Escape a gulag, make is way across Siberia and fight the Nazis. What a waste.<br />
<br />
I think my mother had high hopes that I'd be good at languages. I was unfortunate in that me getting an uninspiring French teacher at school coincided with me developing into a lazy arsehole. It's never too late to learn a language though right? What I need is to put myself into a situation in which I have no choice but to do so. Something like, I don't know, relying on the words of uni-lingual French speaker to find out about my only child's development. That's just not enough for me though. Perhaps I should start playing football in the Belgian second division.</div>
Fergus Craighttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01328581625574279849noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2505994550540577749.post-35593586834247371522019-01-09T10:02:00.001-08:002019-01-09T10:02:36.367-08:00Ooh look! A penguin!<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
When I dropped the boy off at nursery today he screamed. It was as if I had just shot his wife and children. 'NO! NO! PLEASE, GOD, NOOOOOOOOO!'. The journey in had been been a struggle. Not for him but for me. The streets of Montreal are covered with fresh snow today so I decided to take the bus. Unfortunately, everyone else had the same idea and the bus was full. So I found myself in the middle of an urban snow storm with a decision to make. Do I wait in the hope that an emptier bus eventually turns up, do I plough head first into the mile long journey to day care or do I take the baby home until April? Being a hero, I chose to walk.<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Have you ever pushed a buggy through a mile of snow? It's like trying to push a shopping trolley across a beach. I felt like I'd accidentally signed myself up for the World's Strongest Man. I wasn't the only one doing it either. All around there were parents pushing and pulling their kids across the tundra. The Montreal school run should be an event at the Winter Olympics. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
It's astonishing really that anyone decided to put a city here. My suspicion is they built it in the summer, were shocked to discover how bad the winter was but stuck with it out of stubbornness. "It's too late to move the city now - we've just built a bowling alley".</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Another theory is that it's the fault of Americans. In comparison to Americans, Canadians are an understated people. Perhaps when the first settlers came over to North America, one of them found a quiet corner and said "Those guys over there are <i>loud</i>. Does anyone fancy going up north with me?" and a country was born.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
The boy seemed to have no problems with the journey. He was like a rowing cox. Zero effort but happily along for the ride. "Ooh look! A penguin!". It was when we arrived that things kicked off. Today is his third day at nursery here and he's clocked on that he's being abandoned. I like to think of it more as 'providing him with a stimulating environment which will aid his development'. That's not to say there isn't an enormous amount of guilt associated with leaving your child in the care of strangers. And why? It's not as if I'm leaving him so I can continue my important research into tropical diseases. I'm doing it so that I can write vacuous blog posts such as this.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
"Father. I've been talking to my therapist. I think a lot of my problems stem from you abandoning me when I was a toddler."</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
"I'm sorry. I had work to do."</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
"No you didn't. Mum did but you just wrote directionless blog posts. I've read them"</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
"Did you not think the Winter Olympics bit was kind of funny?"</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
"You're right Dad. It was hilarious. I forgive you. I think you were right to deprive me of a full and loving childhood so that you could write your blog".</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Glad that's resolved. Four hours until I have to pick him up now. Pub?</div>
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Fergus Craighttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01328581625574279849noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2505994550540577749.post-89985976026109424972019-01-08T12:03:00.001-08:002019-01-08T12:03:28.095-08:00Montreal bagels<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Montreal is very proud of its bagels. From the moment you step off the plane it's all "I guess you're here for our world famous bagels" and "oh, here come the bagel tourists" and "there's more to us than bagels you know!". Before coming to Montreal I had never once heard of a Montreal bagel. Before reading this paragraph, had you? Being here you'd think they were the fucking pyramids or something.<br />
<br />
I think everywhere has one thing for which they have an overinflated sense of its value to the outside world. In Britain it's our sense of humour. Yes, it has some foreign fans but to hear the Brits talk about it you'd think we were the only culture in the world to have ever made a joke.<br />
<br />
Nope, before arriving here I thought 'French', I thought 'cold' and I thought 'comedy festival'. Bagels didn't come into it.<br />
<br />
I picked up the Montreal Gazette the other day and, as per fucking usual, they were banging on about bagels. Apparently, the ovens used to cook them are causing pollution. 'Could the world famous Montreal bagel be under threat?' they asked. Could it be time for you to have a word with yourselves about your priorities?<br />
<br />
Along with the article, came a little piece, presumably from one of their full time bagel correspondents, on the history of the bagel. I assume this was aimed at outsiders like me because my sense is that the 'History of the Bagel' plays a large part in the school curriculum here. Apparently bagels started out as a gift one would give to expectant mothers and were designed to be used as teething rings. That is going to go mouldy <i>well </i>before it'll be of any use isn't it? Take it from me, all expectant mothers want are Deliveroo coupons.<br />
<br />
As it happens, I now live just a minute's walk from Montreal's most famous bagel bakery so I've eaten rather a few. In fact walking back from a bar on Saturday night, I left the minus ten tundra for a moment, popped inside to purchase half a dozen and found myself munching on a fresh from the oven bagel for the final few steps home. When I first arrived I didn't like Montreal bagels. I found them hard, thin and odd tasting. Now, in much the same way that watching roughly forty episodes of The Wiggles in the last two weeks has turned me into a fan, I'm starting to like them. I like to think that this signifies the start of my very gradual assimilation into the culture.<br />
<br />
I still have a long way to go. This morning I had to tell someone my address. I told her my street name - Saint Urbain.<br />
<br />
"Sorry?" she said.<br />
<br />
"Saint Urbain"<br />
<br />
*quizzical look*<br />
<br />
<i>Bear in mind this conversation to place ON Saint Urbain.</i><br />
<i><br /></i>
"Saint Urbain - U. R. B. A. I. N"<br />
<br />
"Oh, Saint Hubert..."<br />
<br />
"No! Saint Urbain! Urrrrbaaaaaain!"<br />
<br />
She then said my street name back to me with, as far as I was concerned, EXACTLY the same pronunciation I had given her...<br />
<br />
"Oh, Saint Urbain!"<br />
<br />
<br /></div>
Fergus Craighttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01328581625574279849noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2505994550540577749.post-9929247455832620952019-01-03T13:11:00.000-08:002019-01-03T13:11:36.072-08:00Genteman Detective<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
I shovelled snow for the first time this morning. A shovel full of snow is lighter than it looks. It's just cold rain really. Perhaps that'll be my most profound take away from my year in Canada. Snow? It's just cold rain really innit?<br />
<br />
This is the longest I've ever been away from Britain - about ten weeks so far. I'm still utterly immersed in British culture. I watch Sky News. I watch Premier League football. I follow British social media. I know that while the UK waits for Brexit to kick off again you've all gone mental about a vegan sausage roll. No one else who inhabits the frozen tundra I'm supposed to now call home knows that but I do.<br />
<br />
On Monday my son starts day care and I am a free man. Free to do what? Perhaps I could become a gentleman detective. Roam the streets, solving murders. My hook? I don't speak the language. Just like the blind's heightened other senses allow them to see things others can't see, my inability to speak French will enable me find clues the lazy Quebec police cannot. I'll have a fractious relationship with the Police Chief. "You're a bastard, but you get the job done" he'll say, but I won't understand him because he'll say it in French. Instead I'll notice that his hand is swollen and end up getting the son of a bitch sent down for killing his wife but I won't know that I have because the verdict will be read out in French.<br />
<br />
I just spent forty five minutes trudging through snow looking for a Nelson's Column my dad told me was in Montreal. That sounds like something a man who misses London would do doesn't it? I found it and it's shorter than the UK version. That's the thing about North America - bigger portions, smaller Nelson's Columns. Now I'm writing this on a cold laptop in the cafe of an IMAX. When you stop for a coffee in the foyer of an IMAX cinema it's clear you haven't really got to know the city's best spots just yet.<br />
<br />
And what an opportunity sits in front of me! The time and the space to truly experience a foreign town - to dig deep into its crevices and describe it to the world/roughly 100 regular blog readers. Or I could just solve crimes. </div>
Fergus Craighttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01328581625574279849noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2505994550540577749.post-17493245084834560122018-12-07T09:03:00.001-08:002018-12-07T09:03:57.484-08:00A weekend in Wisconsin<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Last Sunday I was waiting in line at a urinal at Lambaeu Field, the most legendary stadium in American football. An announcement came over the PA asking for everyone to "please remove their hats and be upstanding for the national anthem". Two gentlemen in front of me, both engaged in the act of urinating, took their hats off. I know that the USA is a patriotic nation but it would seem to me that the respect ship sailed the moment you took your dicks out lads. I'm not suggesting they should have put their penises away, I know better than any man that once you've started to piss it is impossible to put the genie back in the bottle. I guess I'm just saying that in that moment it would have been best to chalk that opportunity to show love for the flag up as a loss and make amends on another occasion.<br />
<br />
I found myself in Wisconsin, thanks to an invite from my father in (common) law to attend a Green Bay Packers game. Being a big sports fan and desperate to cut loose from my current responsibilities as a toddler monitor, I jumped at the chance. Sadly I was with, other than those participating in the actual game, the only three sober men within a five mile radius of the stadium. A wild weekend away isn't just about drinking though is it? It's also about eating thousands and thousands of nutrition free calories, something I am always happy to do. I have the appetites of a man with a far better constitution.<br />
<br />
On Monday I had the day to myself in Milwaukee, one of those mythical American place names like Wichita or Syracuse, most famous in my mind for its appearance in the movie Wayne's World. I went into Milwaukee Public Market and after using the public toilets to say a long difficult goodbye to the previous night's meatloaf, I treated myself to a Wisconsin Old Fashioned. A Wisconsin Old Fashioned is like a normal Old Fashioned but for two small differences - one: it uses brandy instead of bourbon and two: it has the word Wisconsin in front of it. If you stick the name of the place I am in in front of something I will always want to consume it. Later on, at the airport I would have a Wisconsin Beer Cheese Soup which was essentially a bowl of cheese sauce. If you're a restauranteur I recommend sticking your town's place name in front of whatever your lowest selling dish is. I would happily order a Sheffield Spaghetti Carbonara.<br />
<br />
I left the market and headed for Milwaukee Public Museum. It was okay but as with much of life, all my days in foreign cities are filled with the nagging feeling that there's something better somewhere around the corner. I sat down on a bench in the 'Old Streets of Milwaukee' exhibit and with the recorded voices of out of work actors playing 19th century butchers ringing in my ears I did something I've never done before - I typed the word 'pie' in to Google Maps. Few things divide the Americans and the British more than what we encase in pastry. While we see it as an opportunity to serve mystery meat, Americans see pie as a fruit filled dessert. I fancied sitting in a diner, slowly eating a blueberry pie and having a long conversation with a charming old local, all the while thinking 'this is lovely but you probably voted for Trump, you racist old cunt'. Unfortunately my pie search was, just like the pies in my homeland - fruitless.<br />
<br />
One observation about Milwaukee, and nearly everywhere else I go, is that there's no one there. Having lived in London, a place more crammed with people than a (please finish this joke, I do this for free), for seventeen years whenever I visit a new place I find myself asking 'where is everyone?'. Living in London has taught me that one should expect to cue for twenty minutes for a sandwich and that any walk down a major street is like a viral Black Friday video. Turns out most places just don't have that many people.<br />
<br />
Despite only dipping my toe into its frozen waters, I rather liked Milwaukee or at least I think I would if I'd had the chance to fully submerge myself. It seemed as if every single conversation I heard was about the Green Bay Packers performance the day before. While on the one hand it brings to mind a totalitarian state in which only one topic of conversation is permitted, it is nice to have an entire community invested in one thing. Especially if that thing is something I happen to like - sport.<br />
<br />
Back in Montreal now and back on baby duty. I can hear him waking up from his nap which means I have to go. Although I suppose I could leave him in there. Give him a little thinking time, you know.<br />
<br />
<br />
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<br /></div>
Fergus Craighttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01328581625574279849noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2505994550540577749.post-3341435078004166012018-11-22T13:23:00.002-08:002018-11-22T13:23:18.637-08:00Tim Hortons, minus 19, my big break.<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
It's minus fourteen and yet there's a queue outside of Schwartz's Deli. Not inside. <i>Outside. </i>Schwartz's Deli is a famous smoked meat sandwich diner type joint just a couple of streets away from where we're staying. I've been meaning to go there. Blessed with a rare childless afternoon (lost him somewhere, will look later) I thought I'd pop down. Won't be a queue outside at 3pm on a Thursday will there? Well, there damn well is. I refuse to believe that mankind has yet created a sandwich good enough to wait in minus fourteen for. Especially when directly opposite there is a deli selling exactly the same kind of shit.<br />
<br />
This other deli probably opened just a couple years later and therefore missed out on legendary status. That's gotta suck balls. I went in and ordered a hot chicken sandwich. There was curling on the TV. The winter olympics isn't on but there's curling on the TV. Big league match I assume. Will catch up on the results later. My sandwich arrived. It comes with fries and peas on the top. Not on the side. It's a chicken sandwich with some peas on the top. Maybe that's their big idea to finally compete with Schwarz's. "What if? Now, hear me out Janet. What <i>iiiiif </i>we put peas on top of the sandwiches?"<br />
<br />
I ate, left and ran straight to the Schwarz's queue. "Guys! Guys! Cross the road! They're putting peas on top of the sandwiches!"<br />
<br />
Montreal's most popular eatery is Tim Hortons. It seems that for every five people here there is a branch of Tim Hortons. Selling coffee, donuts and all day McDonalds breakfast style fare it's a little like Greggs if Greggs was open 24hrs and all the staff were bi-lingual. When you enter any establishment here you are greeted by "Salut! Hi!". This is their way of letting you know that they're happy to communicate in either language. Imagine having to know two languages just to work in Greggs. What am I saying? Everyone in Greggs speaks two languages. They speak English and they speak the language of baked goods.<br />
<br />
Tim Horton's donuts have become one of my coping mechanisms. The other day I went to get my fix and outside a man in the side alley just outside the Tim Horton's window was receiving CPR. What the circumstances were I don't know but it was dramatic. Cops, flashing lights and a paramedic doing everything he could to save a man's life. I pondered on whether there was something distasteful about proceeding to enter the queue and purchase a Glace au Chocolat. I decided there was nothing that I, personally, could do and that actually the best thing would be for me to give the medics some room, stay inside and eat my donut. And do you know what? No one even thanked me.<br />
<br />
Last night as I walked across town it was minus nineteen, the lowest temperature I have ever felt. If you'd have cut me open and taken out an organ you could have stuck it on a sprained ankle like a bag of peas. I was on my way to an open mic gig. I've decided that having a sniff of the comedy scene here might be a good way of keeping creative and meeting some people. Someone recommended a night and I contacted the guy who ran it on Facebook. He suggested that I go to his Wednesday night open mic show.<br />
<br />
I'm very far from gig fit and have no intention of ever doing any of my stale old material from 2015's Jongleurs circuit again so some open mics seem like a good idea. I had a look at the venue on a search engine everyone's using here called 'Google'. A significant proportion of the reviews made mention of the bar smelling like urine.<br />
<br />
Walking upstairs I found no smell of pee but also nothing that looked like a comedy gig. I was assured there'd be one. It was the diviest of dives but as regular readers will know that is my domain. Whilst sat at the bar trying to work out who was a comedian and who was a heroin addict a homeless man complained that someone had just stolen his sleeping bag. Of course my first thought was sympathy but my second was that two years ago I was a lead in an International Emmy Award winning sitcom and now I'm hoping to get the chance to perform in a room where people are stealing from the homeless.<br />
<br />
I did perform. To ten comics and two civilians. I don't want to speak too soon but I think it could have been my big break. Will call my agent tomorrow to see if any offers have come in.</div>
Fergus Craighttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01328581625574279849noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2505994550540577749.post-15476749746966909142018-11-20T12:02:00.000-08:002018-11-20T12:02:02.644-08:00My morning.<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Look out window. Heavy snow. Look at phone. Minus seven (feels like minus eleven). Think I'll take the baby to a playgroup on the other side of the city. <div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Dress baby, against his will, in sixteen layers. Leave apartment. Realise you've forgotten changing stuff. Return to apartment. Angry, sweaty, whiny baby. </div>
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<br /></div>
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Leave building. An arctic fox walks by. A baby polar bear takes his first steps. Cute. </div>
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Realise you don't have change for the bus. Baby crying now. Go into a Tim Hortons. Purchase a donut and plot plan to eat donut without baby seeing. </div>
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Can't find bus stop. Gust of wind, buggy rain cover takes off. Successfully battle to re-attach rain cover but hold up important businessman on his way to important business meeting in the process. </div>
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Find bus stop. No bus, no shelter, baby screaming. Consider eating donut. Bus arrives. Packed. Squeeze on with screaming baby no doubt crashing buggy wheels into four different people's ankles. 60 faces look at you and say 'what the fuck are you doing?' in French. </div>
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<br /></div>
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Three minutes pass. Consider getting off the bus, leaving the baby and joining the army. </div>
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<br /></div>
<div>
People alight and space opens up. Sit down in front of screaming baby. Hand him a toy phone to play with but baby in giant coat has no access to hands. Enthusiastically pull out book. Baby bats it away with giant arm, continuing to scream. All of the world's faces stare at you. </div>
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<br /></div>
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Take now mangled donut from pocket. Put piece in baby's mouth. Put larger piece in your own. Crying persists, but volume decreases. Another piece in baby's mouth. Larger piece in your own. This is a very sugary donut. Picture father and son as self induced diabetics. Continue until donut finished. Baby still crying. </div>
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<br /></div>
<div>
Remember that morning's Facebook post from friend currently filming HBO TV series in exotic location. Look out of window and go through each of your failures in detail. Arrive at intended bus stop. Plough through disgruntled passengers to carry buggy off bus and into giant slush puddle. Lean forwards and walk through snowstorm until you arrive at playgroup only to find that it's closed. </div>
</div>
Fergus Craighttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01328581625574279849noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2505994550540577749.post-48574922812719081222018-11-19T10:45:00.001-08:002018-11-19T13:40:03.059-08:00More from Montreal.<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
I have no idea what is going on here. Trying to follow the news in a new country is like joining a TV show in its 83rd season. I don't know any of the characters. I bought the Montreal Gazette today. Here's a snippet -<br />
<br />
'Former Parti Quebecois leader Jean-Francois Lisee says the party would have done much worse in the election had he not aggressively attacked Quebec solidaire in the last days of the campaign'.<br />
<br />
Is Lisee a goodie or a baddie? Are Parti Quebecois Nazis? Centrists? Goddamn hippies?<br />
<br />
I'm such a foreigner. I wonder aimlessly around supermarkets, not able to find anything or understand what it is, politely nodding at people and hoping I don't accidentally join a white nationalist pressure group. They don't do squash here, as far as I can tell. Lots of croissants though. Piles and piles of them. Little ones, big ones, salted caramel ones. I'm yet to see anyone buy any.<br />
<br />
My twitter following choices mean that I'm still very connected to British news. We're five hours behind so every day I wake up to find fourteen Brexit related shit shows have already happened. There's a lot of 'the rest of the world are laughing at us!' going on. As far as I can tell the rest of the world isn't paying any attention. They're all laughing at Jean-Francois Lisee. Or not. It's difficult to tell. Like I say, I'm a long way from being able to pick up on the nuances.<br />
<br />
We have snow now. Yesterday morning, the local park had about fifty of Saturday's snowmen still standing like the terracotta army. It's odd to live in a place where snowmen aren't a novelty but a part of life. It's so cold that I can't imagine they ever really melt. Is there a limit of one snowman per family? Build him in November, take care of him over the winter, and teach your child about death in early April? Or do people just build new snowmen every Saturday so by March the city's largest demographic is overweight white men - which should be pretty good for Jean-Francois Lisee's poll numbers - am I right guys? Am I right? Seriously, I don't have a fucking clue.<br />
<br />
I'm writing this as my toddler sleeps. A brief window in my day in which I don't have to supervise what is essentially a tiny drunken half wit stumbling into a coffee table, pointing at things which very clearly aren't a flower and saying 'flower!'. Readers of my last post will be pleased to know I've learnt how to put mittens on a child. The average temperature here is currently below zero so any trip outside is preceded by a twenty minute fight to dress him. Then if you enter a building he is immediately far too warm so you either have to undress him, knowing you'll have to dress him again or turn up your Brexit related podcast and ignore him.<br />
<br />
It's a rather beautiful city, covered in snow. Yesterday, trudging through the street with a coffee in my hand an old silver Mercedes pulled up beside me and I felt like I was in a 1980s American Christmas movie. So much of everything here triggers memories of American films and yet everyone has a French accent. How odd. Imagine if everything about Britain was the same except East Anglia spoke French and overstocked their supermarkets with croissants. So Norwich still had Nandos and Wetherspoons and Ladbrookes but everything written inside them was French. Everyone in East Anglia can still speak English but they've just decided, for a laugh, to speak French. It's nuts. It's like some bizarre Jean-Francois Lisee dream.</div>
Fergus Craighttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01328581625574279849noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2505994550540577749.post-58775249701303644522018-11-10T11:40:00.002-08:002018-11-10T11:40:27.338-08:00First post from Montreal.<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Every time I tell someone I'm moving to Montreal I always add 'for a year'. This is a reminder to myself more than anything. It's only for a year. That's because the whole escapade is enormously stressful - a new country, a new language, a radically new climate and an abandoned network of friends, sources of income and Greggs outlets.<br />
<br />
So why have we done this? <i>Why have we done this? </i>WHY HAVE WE DONE THIS?<br />
<br />
This was a question I asked myself frequently last week as I woke up at 4am every day to monitor my jet lagged and dangerously curious toddler in our death trap of a temporary apartment. With my partner in bed, suffering from a chest infection (though she could be faking it) I flitted between stopping my son from climbing the stairs, turning the oven on and licking the wall sockets. Concessions have had to be made. I've decided that it's ok if he licks the wall sockets. Fuck it. You can't wrap them in cotton wool forever.<br />
<br />
We've done this because my partner had the opportunity to transfer with work, because we've always wanted to try out another city and because death is always looming (sorry lads, it is) and one doesn't know if one'll get such an opportunity again.<br />
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When you tell a Montreal resident you've just moved here they all look at you like a veteran, sixty smokes a day detective and remark 'so your first winter huh?'. They love that. The consensus seems to be that from January until March it's minus 30. The internet says otherwise. I even pulled out my phone and thrust it in a bartender's face - 'Look! Minus ten! Minus ten!'. She laughed. At me, not with me. I've never felt minus thirty. Perhaps that's where I'm at my best. 'You know I never really hit my peak until I spent three months in an industrial freezer'. I guess they could be fucking with me. The whole city is built on a lie. It's named after Mt. Royal which is not a mountain. It's. A. Hill.<br />
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The place has a lot going for it. Excellent food, friendly people, plentiful pool tables and a perfect place to hideout after all the murders I did in London earlier this year. Thus far I haven't had much of a chance to experience it. Until we find our proper apartment, we can't stick the boy into a daycare and despite being nearly a year and a half old he is still utterly incapable of taking care of himself. And so the woman trudges into work and me and the boy run out of things to talk about.<br />
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There is a chance that in twenty years time Louis (his name) will, waist high in climate changed water, find this blog and perhaps I should moderate what I say about him accordingly. Look, son, in 2018 you were endlessly cute and my love for you was boundless but as a conversationalist you were piss poor.<br />
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"What sound does a cow make?"<br />
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"Mmmm"<br />
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"Good. What sound does a dog make?"<br />
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"Oufff. Ouffff."<br />
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"Good. What sound does a duck make?"<br />
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"Du! Du! Du!"<br />
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"Ok. Can we talk about the mid terms now? There's a lot going on. All this voter suppression doesn't bode well for 2020 does it?"<br />
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"Du! Du!"<br />
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This week is all about trying to get mittens on a toddler and then keep them on the toddler. So far I haven't come close but it's about to hit minus ten (which apparently means minus thirty) so it's either stay inside, get mittens on the boy or teach the boy a thing or two about frostbite.<br />
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I have to go now. I had an incredible smoked meat sandwich an hour ago and it's currently aggressively introducing itself to my bowels. Here's an observation - every other commercial on television here is for a bowel medication. Concerned looking woman after concerned looking woman with a voiceover about constipation. But then every other advert is for a fast food outlet yelling "THE TEN FOOT HIGH DEEP FRIED PORK CHOP BURGER DELUX - BABY YOU NEED IT!" Could these two things be connected? Or am I just being overly suspicious? No collusion!</div>
Fergus Craighttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01328581625574279849noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2505994550540577749.post-4953017983332234832018-08-22T06:55:00.000-07:002018-08-22T06:55:39.291-07:00Belgravia pub trip.<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
You may remember a while ago I went through I brief period of visiting dirty pubs and writing about them. That venture was scuppered when my friend got punched in the face and I re-evaluated the smarts of entering such fight ridden joints armed with only a middle class face and a strong pool game.<br />
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Last week I went to the opposite end of the spectrum. Have you ever hung around Belgravia? It's an area of London so posh that Monopoly couldn't afford to feature it on its board. Enormous mansions, 4x4 Rolexes and the lingering question 'What do all you fuckers <i>DO?'</i><br />
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The answer for some of them is go to the pub. I started with The Grenadier. I became aware of this pub when looking through the Sunday Times Rich List and seeing a picture of Britain's richest man stood outside it. Worth a look, I thought. Walking down the mews in which it's situated and seeing the blazer-ed crowd outside I pondered on what I'd discover within. Chateaux Neuf on tap? A quail shitting eggs in the corner? The bloke from Razorlight?<br />
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What I did find (as arranged) was my Old Etonion friend. By pure coincidence I had invited my poshest associate. If the place suddenly descended into an Eyes Wide Shut style ritual I trusted he'd show me what to do.<br />
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It was different to your average pub but not radically so. Plummy voices filled the air and the card machine took American Express but I wanted to see something spectacular - two land owners demanding that their servants fight for betting purposes - something like that. I suspect I might have learned more if I'd listened in to their conversations.<br />
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That wasn't a problem in the next pub we visited - The Nags Head. This was next to a corner shop in another mews and when my friend and I entered we increased its patron population from three to five. 'Take a seat!' said the drunkest of the original three. We sat at the bar and he proceeded to give us a twenty minute long monologue on why the 'Nags' was London's last remaining proper boozer and would always be there for us. 'You'll always have the Nags. If your lady is giving you shit, you know that you can come down the Nags, have a beer and chat to your mates'. This was performed with theatrical cockney masculinity. I don't <i>think </i>this man was faking his cock-er-ny twang but I wanted to know how come his local was surrounded on all sides by £40 million properties owned by Qatari arms dealers.<br />
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Before long his alcoholic actor friend arrived, a man so rosy cheeked he <i>had </i>to be a Baron. This dude looked like every minor Richard Curtis character drinking a stupidly large whiskey. Then an elderly gentleman sat at the bar and ordered a sparkling water, then a well dressed Indian man came in and joined in the fun, buying everyone a Guinness. Now it is possible that this Indian gentleman simply works in a shop in Mayfair and stops off at the Nags on the way home to his modest flat in Tooting. But I refuse to believe that. There was something about the way he carried himself and my preconceptions about anyone who buys a round of drinks in Belgravia that made me certain he is the CEO of one of the world's top three chemicals companies.<br />
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Although I wouldn't call the Nags 'London's last remaining proper boozer' it was impressively pubby. No leather sofas or restaurant vibes here - just beer, bar stools and some eye rolling Irish bar staff. But how does such a place survive in an area with what I can't be bothered to look up but have decided are the highest rents in Europe? The same goes for the corner shop next door. There's no way selling milk and Twix's brings in enough revenue to compete with whatever the Crown Prince of Richdickistan pays to rent the place across the street.<br />
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My assumption is that there's some kind of arrangement between the local residents that they'll allow these places to continue. 'It may well be that I am the man behind turning every other corner shop in Britain into a Tesco Express but on a personal level I actually find them a little gauche'.<br />
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And so while the 99.9% have to find shelter from global warming in soulless retail parks the architects of its destruction will be maintaining their own little enclaves of the British idyl. I fully intend on joining them. My goal is to become a Nags regular, ingratiate myself with the clientele, persuade a Duke to fall in love with me and live in an outhouse on his land in exchange for one buggering a week.<br />
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Fergus Craighttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01328581625574279849noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2505994550540577749.post-5041377198011036922018-07-24T05:23:00.000-07:002018-07-24T05:23:31.316-07:00I was bullied.<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
One morning when I was fifteen, I walked into my form class and one of my peers punched me in the side of my head for no reason. I did nothing in response, I just sat down. Yesterday I turned 38 *leaves for an extended period of vomiting before returning to the keyboard to complete the sentence* and only now am I starting to admit to myself that I was bullied for pretty much the entirety of my school life and that it had a major effect on me.<div>
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There was only one other violent incident that stands out. This was when I was about ten and a case of mistaken identity. Riding my BMX up and down the back lane, two slightly older boys approached and accused me of playing the violin. </div>
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"He plays the violin"</div>
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"No I don't. Honest"</div>
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"Yeah you do"</div>
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"No, you're thinking of Max. He lives at number 16"</div>
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Notice the way I so easily gave up my best friend at the time.</div>
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"He's lying. He plays the violin. Get off the bike."</div>
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I then proceeded to do as they asked, put myself into the embryo position on the ground and allow them to kick the shit out of me until a neighbour shoo-ed them off. </div>
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These two stories give a good hint as to not only why so few string quartets come out of Newcastle but also why I was bullied. I didn't fight back. I just didn't have that instinct. </div>
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There were a few other reasons. I was a geek, interested in things. Being interested in things is not a good look at school. At the age of five I asked the teachers if I could give a talk in assembly on Islam. I wasn't boy-ish. Although I was obsessed with sport and had that Aspergers like obsession with facts that all boys seem to have, I didn't have that boy-ish posture or love of smashing shit up. I was timid, I flinched easily. This was interpreted, as anything out of the ordinary is at school, as being 'gay'. The word gay followed me around everywhere - shouted at me in corridors or from passing bus windows. Despite a pretty solid record at getting girlfriends and my weekend hobby of bike riding to distant newsagents and buying the highly nippled Daily Sport - I was 'gay'. And I was just a little bit odd. Still photos of me in conversation still usually catch my hands gesturing in strange positions or my grin extending Ardman Wallace like. These oddities have at times been beneficial in my career as a comic actor. They weren't as a child.</div>
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Now when I walk into rooms I no longer fear being punched in the head or hearing a colleague suggest everyone stick their backs up against the walls. But I do have, somewhere in my recesses, a fear of attack. This has led me to build myself a sort of defence system otherwise known as a dysfunctional personality. Every now and again someone tells me 'I thought you were a bit cold, a bit of a nob at first but actually you're alright' which I have to tell you is a fun conversation. I'm very cautious about showing enthusiasm for things or people. Showing you care about something is a vulnerable act. I wrote an entire book and 2,700 tweets mocking my own industry. This may well have been a way of projecting "I don't care whether you cast me or not, I don't like you guys anyway". Of course I <i>do</i> care but am incapable of showing it.</div>
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My experiences have served as a useful motivational tool at times. I've given all my tormentors imaginary miserable lives made only more miserable by turning on the TV and seeing my success as a star of under the radar digital channel sit coms and Birdseye chicken commercials. </div>
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But when the work isn't coming in, when I'm in an actor's trough (Actor's Trough could be an excellent euphemism for something filthy I expect) what am I left with? Twenty years of social anxiety, a dickish demeanour and a poor track record at making friends. No one has come out of this well. I wasn't even on the bottom rung at school - I floated just above it - think of the lifetime effect on those who took hourly savagings. </div>
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It's too late to change my personality now. I have what I have, all I can do is work with it. </div>
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Writing this has given me a knot in my belly and a quiver in my lip. I'd like to end on a positive note but that doesn't feel honest. I am ashamed of being bullied which seems rather unfair, that I should have to suffer the shame, but it's the truth. The entire experience was utterly without merit. And there I go again, not showing enthusiasm for things.</div>
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Fergus Craighttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01328581625574279849noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2505994550540577749.post-71149015722177758732017-05-16T03:23:00.000-07:002017-05-16T03:24:31.196-07:00How to keep sane in Trump era.<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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I have no fucking idea.</div>
Fergus Craighttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01328581625574279849noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2505994550540577749.post-56403058329826819792016-08-25T07:29:00.001-07:002016-08-25T14:01:43.745-07:00Why I voted for Owen Smith even though I think he's a bit of a dick.<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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I just voted for Owen Smith in the Labour leadership election despite the fact he strikes me as a bit of dick, despite the fact I think he will never be Prime Minister, and despite the fact he suggested we should have talks with ISIS. That was an idiotic thing to say and Corbyn and his supporters were right to say so. It was also an idiotic thing to say when Corbyn said it in <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/jeremy-corbyn-says-there-could-be-benefits-to-opening-diplomatic-back-channels-with-isis-a6817181.html">January</a>.<br />
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I've voted for Owen Smith because I believe Jeremy Corbyn is the worst thing to have happened to British politics in my lifetime. I say that as a man who was alive when Liz Truss made this speech...</div>
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/bRhlRM6rYck" width="560"></iframe>
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I honestly, perhaps delusionally, think there's a chance Owen Smith could win this election. Probably about a one in four chance, but a chance nonetheless, and that's why I'm writing this post. It's a last ditch attempt to try and persuade some floating voters. Below are a list of the key reasons I think Corbyn has to go <i>for the good of the nation. </i>That might look hyperbolic but I mean it.<br />
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Let's start with the big stuff. <a href="http://blogs.spectator.co.uk/2016/08/shouldnt-vote-jeremy-corbyn/">He supported the IRA</a>, <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-37125824">he refused to say whether he'd support a NATO ally if Russia attacked it</a> and <a href="http://blogs.spectator.co.uk/2016/08/shouldnt-vote-jeremy-corbyn/">he took money from the gay murdering, female prisioner raping Iranian regime to propagandise on their behalf</a>.<br />
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None of those statements are smears. They are facts.<br />
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Now because this is supposed to be a persuasive blog post, I'll start with a concession - there are arguments in favour of all those things. I, like you, have a Chomsky book on my shelf which I tell people I finished reading. But when we get to an election, a real life general election, how do we think those uncomfortable facts about Corbyn will go down? I would suggest they will contribute to Labour's utter, potentially irreversible annihilation. Last election, the Tories beat Miliband with a picture of him eating a bacon sandwich, in the next one they'll be able to point out that the Shadow Chancellor praised the 'bombs and bullets' of the IRA.<br />
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Having conceded that there are arguments in favour of those things, I hope you'll allow me to point out that those arguments are bollocks. Starting with the IRA, as the article I've linked to points out, why didn't Corbyn support those Irish Republican politicians in favour of a peaceful solution and not those in favour of kneecapping? I've seen Corbyn supporters comparing him with Martin Luther King. Which route would MLK have taken? Jeremy is not anti violence. He is anti British violence.<br />
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In the link above about NATO, Corbyn says the following... "I don't wish to go to war, I want to achieve a world in which there is no need to go to war". Saying you would protect a NATO ally militarily if Russia attacked is the number one way of preventing such a war from happening. That's all you have to do. Say you'd do it and you near enough guarantee you won't have to. Just say it mate. It's a funny old thing I know, but it works. I believe the vast majority of the voting public understands this. I am aware of only one other major politician in the West who has talked about disbanding NATO recently and he wants to Make America Great Again.<br />
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And then there's Iran. I've seen Corbyn supporters suggest he was engaging in diplomacy. If he had gone on Iranian State television and in any way criticised the regime I might have been persuaded this was a useful exercise. He didn't. What he did, in effect, is align himself with a facist, totalitarian state simply because it opposed Israel and America. Shouldn't a left wing, liberal, supposed supporter of human rights be looking to stand up for those in Iran who feel the same rather than supporting their oppressors?<br />
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This is getting heavy.<br />
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Let's lighten things up with some electability stuff. In the words of Jennifer Aniston in that shampoo advert - 'Now for the science bit - concentrate'. Here is a graph of the Westminster polling averages since June 2015.<br />
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A lot of people have been saying that Labour were ahead in the polls before the coup to get rid of Corbyn. This graph from Britain Elects proves that's not really the case. There was a poll not long before the referendum in which Labour were ahead. One poll. When you average out the polls since he came in you get a much clearer picture of what is actually happening. At this stage in the electoral cycle Miliband's Labour was way ahead. Miliband lost. Corbyn's personal ratings are even worse. He literally has the worst poll ratings of any opposition leader since polling began.<br />
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There are two arguments against this.<br />
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1) Why do you trust the polls? Look at the size of the rallies!<br />
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Yes, the polls for the general election got it wrong but they were a <i>LOT</i> closer and as they always seem to do, they overestimated<i> </i>Labour's vote, they didn't underestimate it. As for the rallies, it's been pointed out that the Tories don't hold rallies and yet they somehow won an election. Nate Silver stuck a quote on twitter yesterday which I'm going to steal. It's from Walter Mondale the Democratic candidate for President in 1984...<br />
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<i>"There's something going on in this country and the pollsters aren't getting it. Nobody who's been with me for the last few days and has seen these crowds, seen their response, seen their enthusiasm, seen the intensity of their response and how they respond to these issues, no one who's been where I've been, can help but believe that there's something happening in this country"</i><br />
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A week later, in the general election, Ronald Reagan won 49 of the 50 American states. FORTY NINE.<br />
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The other argument goes like this...<br />
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2) IT'S NOT FAIR!!!!!!<br />
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The media has not been supportive of Jeremy Corbyn. I don't think this is because the establishment are scared of him. I think it is because he and his team are BAD AT POLITICS. That traingate scandal is bollocks. It really doesn't matter. But when it was all kicking off, his team gave about eight different excuses and couldn't get through to Jeremy to devise a coherent response because he was <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/corbyn-unreachable-during-traingate-because-he-was-making-jam_uk_57beaaa3e4b0ba22a4d34708">making jam</a>. Now, it is possible that that is not true. But be honest, you know deep down in your heart that it probably is. Then there's the way Corbyn responded when asked about it...<br />
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Now, you may agree with the way he responded to this and the 'ANGRY' in the video title does overstate it somewhat. He's right. The NHS is far more important. But imagine Corbyn in the last week of an election campaign, under constant scrutiny. I think we'd get a lot of this...<br />
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Now, that is how a normal person might react under constant pressure. It's also well funny. But is it how someone you can picture being elected Prime Minister would react? Yes, it's not fair but it's just a simple truth that the answer is no.<br />
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Is Owen Smith Prime Minister material? Probably not. But I do think he is capable of leading the Labour Party to mere electoral disaster rather than electoral oblivion. And in the aftermath I think he is capable of leading a functional opposition able to make things difficult for the Conservative Party. I also believe he is capable, and this is pretty much the nub of it, of keeping the Labour Party alive as a political force.<br />
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I accept that for a lot of people Jeremy Corbyn represents a kind of ideological purity. He represents a good guy against the forces of evil. As you'll have noticed, I don't agree. His record demonstrates that he is, I'm afraid, not that bright. But even if he is the Prep school educated, thirty three year long professional politician, Down To Earth Champion Of The Worker that the memes say he is - please consider whether he stands a chance of ever implementing a single policy.<br />
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I went on that Iraq War march in 2003 because I thought the war seemed like a bad idea. It did not occur to me that it would result in the British left abandoning virtually every single capable politician it has in favour of a false messiah.<br />
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This has been a long, po-faced blog post. That is because I haven't felt as strongly about something political since that war. Until recently I always did my politics on my own, in a darkened corner of a room. Now I am openly pleading with you to vote for Labour to be a party that has an influence on parliament and not just twitter. Unless you don't have a vote in which case, don't worry, I'm sure everything will be fine.<br />
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Fergus Craighttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01328581625574279849noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2505994550540577749.post-29529457643522837582016-08-10T07:17:00.001-07:002016-08-25T06:26:52.206-07:00Was Britpop Shit?<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Today there is so much stuff in the news about the 20th anniversary of Oasis's gigs at Knebworth, that twenty years from now people will be asking not 'Were you at Knebworth?' but 'Where were you when you found out it was the twentieth anniversary of Knebworth?'. I was there. On the second night, so 20 years tomorrow, which means my 'Christ, I'm old' hasn't kicked in yet. Being there on the second night meant that I missed out on seeing The Prodigy and The Chemical Brothers but did get to see the 7,378th most memorable band of the 90s Dreadzone.<br />
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Here's what I remember about Knebworth. Me and my friend took a coach there which took a couple of hours, arrived at about midday and immediately found a spot where we stood for the next eleven hours. I am almost certain that I did not have a piss for the entire day. As someone who now urinates twice in an episode of Gogglebox, I can confirm that if I miss one thing about the 90s it is my bladder. I wish I'd got more done really. If I'd had known just how much of future decades were to be taken up by bodily functions, I might have written a couple of symphonies.<br />
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Was Britpop shit? Does anyone listen to Britpop anymore? I mean, does anyone ever stick on a Longpigs album? I fully signed up to Britpop. I bought the NME every week, I listened to Steve Lamaq, I bought that 7inch single which was just a recording of an argument between the Gallagher brothers, in the Blur vs Oasis singles battle I sat on the fence and bought one of each. Britpop just happened to coincide roughly with my pubescent need for a culture to join in with.<br />
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It feels to me like the last mono-culture of its sort. By 1996, being a British teenager and not liking either Blur or Oasis was unusual. It started as something vaguely alternative but ended up, until the Spice Girls, being almost entirely dominant. Britpop events like album releases or big gigs were regularly on the news. As a teenager, I felt like I was part of a movement comparable with the 60s. I wasn't was I? It was just some, mainly average guitar bands singing the sort of songs that Robbie Williams would go on to sing. If your mum will let you put a tape on in the car then it's not really an significant musical movement is it? It was safe and I don't mean 'safe' by its 90s meaning - I mean no one's mum was worried about them going to Knebworth because they'd already worked out that we were a generation of pussies.<br />
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I'm only really talking about my experience of Britpop really aren't I? I'm sure you were all doing crack with Dreadzone. But I really don't think there's been a British musical movement of its size since, nor one that was more disposable or entirely un-revolutionary ever.<br />
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Fergus Craighttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01328581625574279849noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2505994550540577749.post-47160115436802371602016-08-04T08:55:00.000-07:002016-08-04T08:55:54.673-07:00It's the waiting that kills you.<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
I'm waiting to hear if I've got a job. As an actor, your online presence is supposed to be all about giving the impression that you are constantly in work - casually posting photos with call sheets in shot, saying things like 'my taxi driver this morning' or moaning that you're struggling to learn lines - "I've just go so many!!!!". But I am not just an actor but also a writer whom people depend on to speak the truth and say what's on his mind - well today what's on my mind is that shouldn't my agent have fucking called by now?<br />
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We're often told that the people making the decision know if an actor is right for a role within seconds of them walking into the audition room. Well, I have a suggestion. Why not get rid of the whole facade? For every job, just get every actor in London to queue up, walk into the room for 5 seconds and give them an immediate yes or no? No more small talk, no more working on the script, no more perusing the CV - just an instant decision.<br />
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I realise this is unworkable and not just because it would lead to Tom Hiddleston playing every single role there is. I actually quite like auditioning. It gives you the chance to work on a script, get out of the house, sometimes you even get some free water. It's the waiting to find out if you've got the job I can't stand. In most cases, the odds are against you so you know that the chances are the whole pissing charade will end in disappointment. But if, like me, you depend on acting to make a living you know that you damn well need one of these suckers to come in at some point.<br />
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I mean, if it really came down to it, I could go and get a real job but who the fuck does that these days? Aren't all 'real jobs' currently done by Poles? The rest of us are waiting to find out if we've got that part in Doctors. It's not Doctors I'm waiting on by the way. I've unsuccessfully auditioned for that show twice I think, making me the last remaining actor in Britain yet to appear in the show. In my last casting for it, I was going for the role of a chef and was asked if I could chop veg really fast. I gave an honest answer of 'no'. Should I have said yes? We didn't do chopping veg at my drama school. We did Brecht, mask work and rapier fighting, none of which I've ever been asked if I can do, but no speed vegetable chopping - Christ, I wish I went to RADA, I imagine they do little else.<br />
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Of course, I should be able to train myself to erase potential jobs from my mind once the audition is done. That's what they should teach you at drama school - self hypnosis. 'You've got the part in Doctors!'. 'I've got the part in <i>what?</i>'. <br />
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I've just realised I've set myself up for a real fall. Anyone who, having read this blog, sees me in the next fortnight, is going to ask if I 'got that job'. Fuck it.<br />
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Fortunately, I do have something exciting other than the impending nuclear apocalypse (Vote Trump!) coming up. You know that <a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/Tips-For-Actors-Fergus-Craig/dp/178319118X/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1405439215&sr=8-2&keywords=fergus+craig">book</a> I wrote? Not only is it getting a second edition with a hot shit new cover and some bonus #content but I'm also recording it as an audiobook for Audible. That's good right? I mean, it's going to be a struggle explaining what Audible is to my grandma and deep down I expect she'll still assume that I'm sustaining myself in London through pole dancing, but it's exciting.<br />
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Fergus Craighttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01328581625574279849noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2505994550540577749.post-84321248475117769752016-08-01T09:50:00.001-07:002016-08-02T07:23:22.498-07:00My friend Kris<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
My friend Kris asked me to write a blog post about him. Usually I don't take (or get) requests. 'Mate! Mate! Do you think you could do us a quick 700 words on the Chelsea Flower Show?'. The thing is though, I've got to somehow drag myself off the topic of politics and this request to write about Kristopher Robert Beattie has offered me an opportunity to do so.<br />
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You will have already noticed two things about Kris. One: he is the type of person (perhaps the first in history) to ask for someone to write a blog post about him for no discernible reason. Two: he spells his name with a K. That wasn't his choice but his parents'. I like it. It sort of says, "I'm normal but not that normal". It says - "Yes, I work in office supplies but on the weekend I smoke rollies and rock out with my buddies".<br />
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I haven't seen Kris in person for about five years. That's because he moved to Wellington, New Zealand with his Kiwi girlfriend and their half-Kiwi son. Since arriving there they have added to the collection, making a half Kiwi daughter meaning that they have, in total, one full Kiwi.<br />
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Kris and I became friends in roughly 1995 and, as I remember it, spent pretty much the entirety of the summers of 1996 and 1997 together. He was the first person (other than my brothers) with whom I remember laughing to the point at which I was in danger of vomiting. What we laughed at I do not really remember. There was one incident when Kris had a small squeezy toy frog. It was designed so that when you squeezed it, its tongue would curl out and flick. One night we squeezed it again and again. Sometimes the flick would be hysterically funny and sometimes it wouldn't. I have thought about that frog a lot. There is no way to describe what it was that made some flicks so funny and others not at all. There are hundreds of books written about how to be funny. There are hundreds of people who's job it is to critique comedy. I bet none of these dicksplats could explain what it was that made one of those frog's flicks funnier than another. 'For something to be funny it has to be true' - you obviously didn't spend four hours in Kris Beattie's living room on a Saturday night some time in 1997. Yeah, Saturday night. How old were we? About 16. For some, their teenage years are about snorting ketamine - not us.<br />
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I guess I should try and describe Kris but he doesn't seem to have any photos of himself on Facebook for me to work off so I'm going to have to do it from memory. Kris's skin colour is ever so slightly yellow. He is racially white and, as far as I know, entirely English in heritage and yet he somehow looks foreign. But then, if you were to ask me to name which country he could be from I'd be totally at a loss. I suppose he looks half Greek, half orphan. He has a slim, somewhat elastic physique and is naturally comic in the way moves. He was a strong exponent of the curtains haircut so popular in mid nineties Essex. Despite his slim build, Kris eats a lot and I would take a guess that he is the only one of my friends to have salad cream in his house. Kris knows more than anyone I know about boxing, Olympic sprinters and lower league football. Kris taught me Blackbird on the guitar. Kris once half heartedly mentioned to one of his parents that he thought Bugs Bunny was kind of funny and for the next five Christmases he received Bugs Bunny presents and therefore had a teenage bedroom fully stocked with Bugs Bunny merchandise. Kris is the sort of person who probably knows what the capital of Ecuador is. Kris is probably the only person from Braintree funnier than his dad with honourable mentions going to our school friend Matt LeCount and former Prodigy haircut man Keith Flint. Kris is enormously likeable and yet he is also the sort of person who I could imagine asking me to write a blog about him and then telling me he thought it wasn't actually as good as he'd hoped. Unprompted, Kris once told another friend of mine that that friend was jut jawed. Kris once sang Happy Days to me in German, which I then stole and used in my stand up routine for five years. Kris has a very solid cue action but he sometimes lets himself down on position and is a little over reliant on stun shots. Kris is very good at accents. Most people would describe Kris as happy go lucky in nature but I believe that as he gets older, like me, he is finding himself prone to moments of angst. If I remember correctly, Kris was once the only non Asian person working in an Asian restaurant. Kris is more curious about other people than anyone I have ever met and I reckon is the only person from our year at school who could still name everyone from our year at school. Kris and I's friendship is probably the closest platonic one I've ever had. Kris was once a postman for a while. In 1998, Kris and I murdered a stranger together, buried the body and have never spoken about it since.</div>
Fergus Craighttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01328581625574279849noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2505994550540577749.post-7054367373377590732016-07-21T07:37:00.001-07:002016-07-25T06:08:27.915-07:00Everything that will happen to the Corbyn movement up until roughly the year 2045.<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Every time I write about Jeremy Corbyn I get way way more readers. I should monetise it. He'd love that - if I turned my dislike for him into a small business. Capitalism wins! Can't be doing that though can I? I'm already worried that I'm becoming the sort of blinkered obsessive cultist I decry his supporters for being in my ability to go on and on and on about the man. I've only written a couple of blog posts to be fair but you should see the inside of my head. It thinks of nothing else. Maybe I actually love him. I doth protest too much, right? Yep, that's it - hand me a Socialist Workers banner and a bottle of coconut water and bus me to the next Momentum rally.<br />
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I've given up thinking I can persuade firm Corbyn supporters. If the fact he earned £20,000 propagandising for Iranian State Television arouses not the slightest bit of concern in you then one more pithy blog isn't going do it. That's not a 'smear' by the way. It's a <a href="http://blogs.spectator.co.uk/2016/07/moral-case-jeremy-corbyn/">fact</a>. Having said that, maybe I've earned money from Iranian State Television. Is it possible that one of the £2.87 royalty payments I get from time to time is down to my appearance on Jonathan Creek being broadcast in Iran? Perhaps. Hypocrite!<br />
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How are we going to get out of this? There's a group of people who love him, a group who don't and a much much larger group of people who Do. Not. Give. A. Shit. No one's changing their mind are they? Doesn't feel like it.<br />
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So here's what I think is going to happen - he wins the leadership election by a smallish margin - 55/45. Jubilation amongst his supporters. A small group of MPs (20?) break away and either join the Lib Dems or, more likely form their own new party. The rest stay to see it out. Many 'disloyal' Labour MPs who didn't support Corbyn are deselected by their Constituency Labour Parties and replaced with Corbyn loyalists. Gradually, anti Corbyn Labour party members like me drift away to either the new party or become disillusioned with politics altogether and take up squash.<br />
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There is an election. Both Labour and the new party which has foolishly named itself the Red Tory Party are butchered. Corbyn's enormous fanbase is not deterred - of course Corbyn was going to lose they say, his MPs and the hostile media let him down - and they'd have a bit of a point. Not a great one I'd argue but a point nonetheless.<br />
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Meanwhile the enthusiastic socialist movement Corbyn has inspired feels like it's going somewhere. There are enormous anti austerity and anti Brexit marches as big as the anti Iraq War ones. And there is a lot to protest. With a gigantic Tory majority, rhetoric about the privatisation of large portions of the NHS and education system is becoming a reality. But just like the Iraq War protests they don't change policy because protest alone rarely does. I never saw those 'God Hates Fags' placards encourage anyone to cross the street and join the Westboro Baptist Church. And now I've just compared the Corbyn movement to the Westboro Baptist Church and belittled the idea of protest - like I said, I've given up on persuasion.<br />
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Still, the polls don't look good at all for Labour and Corbyn is getting old and tired so he retires to his allotment, safe in the knowledge that he will always be loved by many. If he's lucky he may even become a Che Guevara style t-shirt star.<br />
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And now Labour has a new leader. A white bloke probably, in another example of how the left has become better at talking about equal opportunities than enacting them. This leader is a little more organised - you don't get the feeling, like you do with Corbyn, that he keeps meaning to check if he has a PPI claim. But the Labour brand is tarnished and the majority of its supporters are still arguing amongst themselves. This leader makes some headway but still loses the next two elections - let's call him Kinnock 2.<br />
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Now we're into the 2030s and the last few years have been as been bat shit fucking mental as a turn of the century documentary about Michael Jackson. Many of those who drove the Corbyn movement are hitting their mid 40s. Some have mortgages and 'would it be so bad to send our kids to private school? I mean, we'd still keep their feet on the ground' and 'ooh, wouldn't it be nice to have a little place in Umbria?'. Finally, when confronted with the advantages of an off shore tax savings account, they find themselves easing off on the old radical socialism. So, suddenly, they find themselves voting for and in many cases leading something that looks an awful lot like Blairism. Most of Blair's cabinet were flirting with Communism in the 70s. So that's what we have - a decade or so of a 2030s version of Blairism led by the very people who, at the age of 22, fought to destroy it. This only ends when <i>their </i>children leave private school and decide that mum and dad are evil and the only way to get back at them is to take over the Labour party and turn it into a radical socialist movement.<br />
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Decades and decades of the comfortable middle classes fucking around with dog shit ideologies, supposedly in service of the working classes, but then abandoning them when it inflicts on their own lifestyles.<br />
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My predictions are usually wrong (I have never won a bet on football) but that was fun.<br />
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Fergus Craighttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01328581625574279849noreply@blogger.com0