The Sunday newspapers have always been great value for money, if you have the time to read. I continue to be amazed by fellow human beings and their skills and capacities to rapidly digest vast quantities of written material within hours of their availability and then talk succinctly and intelligently for a few minutes on some early morning serious chat show about what has attracted their attention and interest.
Of course it is never quite what it seems. One of the remaining purposes to my ongoing existence is to find truth stripped away from the layers of spin, public relations, official misrepresentation, public and personal self deception One of the joys of living in London and going out somewhere in town on a Saturday night is that you can buy the Sunday newspapers and read them on your way home and presumably if you have been contracted to appear on early morning TV, stay up half the night until you have digested the key subjects and what you want to say in the calibrated time allotted and whatever meters programme editors use to establish if a contribution has the stay on or switch to another channel factor. There is nothing worse than involving a comedian who decides to be serious, or a popular writer who becomes inarticulate before the camera.
My first experience of reading Sunday editions early occurred when attending an all night music event at the Skiffle Cellar from midnight to six am and going out to see what the Piccadilly Circus Soho area was like in the middle of the night and finding a Sunday newspaper cellar on the street. Having written this down, being me I question if this is a factual memory, that is the time when the newspaper was on the street, perhaps it was at six when I returned to the hotel for a wash and change of clothes before going off on an all day Riverboat shuffle to Margate and back? No there was a news seller in Piccadilly Circus during the night.
In theory I should have no difficulty in reading anything and everything that interests this week because I have hours sitting with my mother while she sleeps, but I have discovered a general knowledge quiz on the bedside TV Telephone Computer unit called Hangman. You first have to select one of three headline questions and then select letters from those which appear on screen to make the name of the place or individual of the selected choice. "The Straits of Gibraltar" has appeared two or three times after selecting a stretch of water between Africa and Europe. You are asked a three choice question in order to complete the selected letter questions. For example I select the t question of which there are four in the Straits of Gibraltar and if I answer the question correctly I gain a number of points depending on how quickly I answer and if I answer all the questions correctly to complete the place name I get 100 points for each letter so make a total of about 445 points, 343 for the three a letters, 344 for the three r's, 239 for the two s's, and the same for the two''s, and about 143 for the h, , e, l, g, and b each, making a grand total of between 2300-2400 for answering the ten questions correctly in whatever sequence you choose according to the letters appearing on screen after each correct question. If you fail to answer any question within the allotted time you hang and therefore the game ends ignominiously. If you make an incorrect choice you are given one additional go, after which you have to answer correctly first time or the game ends and you only have the points gained from answering questions and miss out on the bonus 100's for each letter of a completed headline phrase. Of course not every completed phrase offers the opportunity for such a grand total. A German composer did not produce Ludwiq van Beethoven but Brahms, which when completed brought in less than 1000 points.
The aim of the game is get yourself listed as one of the top half dozen points scorers in each period of seven days. Since discovering the game only seven days ago, no one has replaced two smart individuals who registered between 3400 and 4700 points which means they answered between two and three complete series of questions. I have only achieved two totals over 3000 points despite hours of trying, one was the magical 3333 and the other I should be reminded as three of the top scores were scheduled disappeared over night as their 7 days of achievement become extinguished. I am encouraged to believe this getting over 3000 points is a rare event and that they are not waiting for their initials to go off screen before showing they have an ongoing capacity.
And the individual questions? It helps if you were into popular American TV shows such as South Park and the Simpson's, know the names of artists who formed popular groups and the names of their Albums, and know obscure sportsmen and women of some five to ten years ago as three categories are sports, music and TV plus a general knowledge pot luck. Because I only dip into contemporary pop music every five years or so and do not take up most American teenage thirties something comedy programmes I have to rely on guessing where the odds are three to one against and which rise exponentially the more guess questions there are in a series. And question examples? One which has appeared several times is to list the names of three football managers and ask which has never managed England and which includes Terry Venables who along with Brian Clough could have won us something but whose lifestyle has been considered unacceptable by the powers that be. The questions get harder if you complete a full series.
Alas I begin to think someone is reading what I wrote, except that this computer is not connected to the internet. I say this because when I arrived at the hospital today I discovered that a super smart had achieved unbelievable scores of 14000 and 15000, which suggests someone with inside information of some kind or some fix of some kind. The final place where I had hoped my in the 3300 totals would make an appearance was taken by an existing listee, but I have not resigned to another failure. This was just as well because tonight when I went back my mother's initial were in sixth place and then moved up to fifth and could rise another place sometime tomorrow unless another whiz kid enters the fray.
If I believed in crude conspiracy theories I might have enjoyed The Riddle the reason why I purchased the Mail on Sunday. I was curious because having previously viewed the first Brendan Foley Vinnie Jones film in disbelief, I wanted to see why the Mail had decided to invest in distributing a copy of their second collaboration
Free as a world exclusive. The film features a bent detective inspector, a bent senior Labour Minister, a corrupt newspaper proprietor, a corrupt developer who hires to murder and beat up, a union agitator who is one of the murdered, a beautiful drug taking celebrity girlfriend of a gangster whose death is faked and a heart of gold pub landlady is also murdered.
There are some great shots of London's former dockland from the banks of Newham looking across to the Canary Wharf and much time is spent on the banks of the Thames at low tide which Derek Jacobi inhabits as a tramp, although in attempting to make a thoughtful drama he also plays Charles Dickens telling us about his wife and her sister who lived with him for a time. Sir Derek is the one redeeming feature of the film. Vanessa Redgrave looks embarrassed about her part as the newspaper baroness who is not prepared to elevate Vinnie Jones from his lot as a reporter of dog tracks because he has ambitious to become a crime sleuth, just as he obviously has pretensions of being an actor.
The story is pretentious and unbelievable. The characters are caricatures and stereotypes, and the dialogue risible. So he frustrated investigative journalist in me decided to explore how this April Fools of a Sunday event has taken place.
The film is Directed and written by Brendan Foley and he has made three films with Vinnie Jones Johnny Was, the Riddle and Dog Body which is to come and one book Under the Wire a WW2 drama. He is stated to be an experienced investigative journalist.
He is said to have grown up in Belfast, Northern Island and written feature scripts in the UK, USA, Canada, South Africa and Thailand. He is said to have written books for USA and UK publishers and journalistic work includes feature assignments in 55 countries worldwide covering people, business and conflict ranging from features on bomb disposal inn Angola to clean up operations following the Exxon Valdez oil spill. He is said to now live with his partner, a writer and a singer in London and Santa Monica and previously ran a successful communications consultancy whose clients included Texaco, Coca Cola and Chevron, Mercedes Benz and the Hawker Siddeley Group. In commenting on why the Riddle was released through the newspaper he is quoted as saying it was a good way to launch the product. I think I should get him to represent my future financial best interests. Whoops, is it too late to say what a great film you have made Brendan. There sir, Give me some of the money., or perhaps I should also employ your PR people Robert Kirby of PDF in London and Melissa Read of Read Agency in Hollywood.
Now Vinnie Jones is a second tier hero of mine because in 1988 I watched his team Wimbledon defeat the mighty Liverpool in the FA Cup at Wembley. He is a man who has made the best of his abilities never straying far from his head banging, crazy horse Eastend kid on the make. After his successful appearance as a villain in Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, I half expected him to turn up a Mitchell half brother in Eastenders! He has now appeared in over twenty films. That he has been a keen supporter of Dog Racing fits in well with his image, and the role in The Riddle. He now owns his own racing dogs, progressing to a thoroughbred horse. There are lessons to be learnt from the lives of Brendan Foley and Vinnie Jones who have both dared to change their roles in life successfully.
The other Sunday Paper which I hope to read before next weekend is the Sunday Times, bought because I thought it contained a DVD of a Palin journey, when it was just one episode. This included the story of the week showing President Putin of Russia on the front page with heading Red Alert. As the story is at the back of the 76 page Magazine I did not miss twelve photographs in the bigger picture which put to shame almost all the 260000 that I have taken over the past four years. There is an amazing pictures of an oil refinery in Scotland and of Brighton Beach in particular, Brian Moynahan's story sends shivers although not from fear of a new East West arms race but because of the likely confrontation between China, Russia and Japan given the scores which the countries will still feel they need to settle. I do not claim originality for this view which was first put to me forty five years ago an anglo catholic vegan anarchist who was the illegitimate son of a well known individual and who spent a number of years training to be a priest at Dublin University. I have tried for eight years to trace his whereabouts because of the subsequent findings on my own origins, coming close two years ago and then after making another search found an address on the internet. What do you say to someone who you once spent six months in prison with after a gap of over decades?
My worry is that now that Russia and China have started to invest heavily in the UK buying everything from football clubs to banking interests, if they do come to blows they are more likely battle first away from their homelands as we are now doing in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Personally my money is that this is simply a case of Putin and the interests who back him, building up their position to cast aside the constitutional requirement that he stands down from the next Presidential Election. If I was George Bush or an international capitalist I would be behind the Putin build up as a break on China's present open field. Just think of all that arms technology and hardware we can sell to both sides?
Of course it is never quite what it seems. One of the remaining purposes to my ongoing existence is to find truth stripped away from the layers of spin, public relations, official misrepresentation, public and personal self deception One of the joys of living in London and going out somewhere in town on a Saturday night is that you can buy the Sunday newspapers and read them on your way home and presumably if you have been contracted to appear on early morning TV, stay up half the night until you have digested the key subjects and what you want to say in the calibrated time allotted and whatever meters programme editors use to establish if a contribution has the stay on or switch to another channel factor. There is nothing worse than involving a comedian who decides to be serious, or a popular writer who becomes inarticulate before the camera.
My first experience of reading Sunday editions early occurred when attending an all night music event at the Skiffle Cellar from midnight to six am and going out to see what the Piccadilly Circus Soho area was like in the middle of the night and finding a Sunday newspaper cellar on the street. Having written this down, being me I question if this is a factual memory, that is the time when the newspaper was on the street, perhaps it was at six when I returned to the hotel for a wash and change of clothes before going off on an all day Riverboat shuffle to Margate and back? No there was a news seller in Piccadilly Circus during the night.
In theory I should have no difficulty in reading anything and everything that interests this week because I have hours sitting with my mother while she sleeps, but I have discovered a general knowledge quiz on the bedside TV Telephone Computer unit called Hangman. You first have to select one of three headline questions and then select letters from those which appear on screen to make the name of the place or individual of the selected choice. "The Straits of Gibraltar" has appeared two or three times after selecting a stretch of water between Africa and Europe. You are asked a three choice question in order to complete the selected letter questions. For example I select the t question of which there are four in the Straits of Gibraltar and if I answer the question correctly I gain a number of points depending on how quickly I answer and if I answer all the questions correctly to complete the place name I get 100 points for each letter so make a total of about 445 points, 343 for the three a letters, 344 for the three r's, 239 for the two s's, and the same for the two''s, and about 143 for the h, , e, l, g, and b each, making a grand total of between 2300-2400 for answering the ten questions correctly in whatever sequence you choose according to the letters appearing on screen after each correct question. If you fail to answer any question within the allotted time you hang and therefore the game ends ignominiously. If you make an incorrect choice you are given one additional go, after which you have to answer correctly first time or the game ends and you only have the points gained from answering questions and miss out on the bonus 100's for each letter of a completed headline phrase. Of course not every completed phrase offers the opportunity for such a grand total. A German composer did not produce Ludwiq van Beethoven but Brahms, which when completed brought in less than 1000 points.
The aim of the game is get yourself listed as one of the top half dozen points scorers in each period of seven days. Since discovering the game only seven days ago, no one has replaced two smart individuals who registered between 3400 and 4700 points which means they answered between two and three complete series of questions. I have only achieved two totals over 3000 points despite hours of trying, one was the magical 3333 and the other I should be reminded as three of the top scores were scheduled disappeared over night as their 7 days of achievement become extinguished. I am encouraged to believe this getting over 3000 points is a rare event and that they are not waiting for their initials to go off screen before showing they have an ongoing capacity.
And the individual questions? It helps if you were into popular American TV shows such as South Park and the Simpson's, know the names of artists who formed popular groups and the names of their Albums, and know obscure sportsmen and women of some five to ten years ago as three categories are sports, music and TV plus a general knowledge pot luck. Because I only dip into contemporary pop music every five years or so and do not take up most American teenage thirties something comedy programmes I have to rely on guessing where the odds are three to one against and which rise exponentially the more guess questions there are in a series. And question examples? One which has appeared several times is to list the names of three football managers and ask which has never managed England and which includes Terry Venables who along with Brian Clough could have won us something but whose lifestyle has been considered unacceptable by the powers that be. The questions get harder if you complete a full series.
Alas I begin to think someone is reading what I wrote, except that this computer is not connected to the internet. I say this because when I arrived at the hospital today I discovered that a super smart had achieved unbelievable scores of 14000 and 15000, which suggests someone with inside information of some kind or some fix of some kind. The final place where I had hoped my in the 3300 totals would make an appearance was taken by an existing listee, but I have not resigned to another failure. This was just as well because tonight when I went back my mother's initial were in sixth place and then moved up to fifth and could rise another place sometime tomorrow unless another whiz kid enters the fray.
If I believed in crude conspiracy theories I might have enjoyed The Riddle the reason why I purchased the Mail on Sunday. I was curious because having previously viewed the first Brendan Foley Vinnie Jones film in disbelief, I wanted to see why the Mail had decided to invest in distributing a copy of their second collaboration
Free as a world exclusive. The film features a bent detective inspector, a bent senior Labour Minister, a corrupt newspaper proprietor, a corrupt developer who hires to murder and beat up, a union agitator who is one of the murdered, a beautiful drug taking celebrity girlfriend of a gangster whose death is faked and a heart of gold pub landlady is also murdered.
There are some great shots of London's former dockland from the banks of Newham looking across to the Canary Wharf and much time is spent on the banks of the Thames at low tide which Derek Jacobi inhabits as a tramp, although in attempting to make a thoughtful drama he also plays Charles Dickens telling us about his wife and her sister who lived with him for a time. Sir Derek is the one redeeming feature of the film. Vanessa Redgrave looks embarrassed about her part as the newspaper baroness who is not prepared to elevate Vinnie Jones from his lot as a reporter of dog tracks because he has ambitious to become a crime sleuth, just as he obviously has pretensions of being an actor.
The story is pretentious and unbelievable. The characters are caricatures and stereotypes, and the dialogue risible. So he frustrated investigative journalist in me decided to explore how this April Fools of a Sunday event has taken place.
The film is Directed and written by Brendan Foley and he has made three films with Vinnie Jones Johnny Was, the Riddle and Dog Body which is to come and one book Under the Wire a WW2 drama. He is stated to be an experienced investigative journalist.
He is said to have grown up in Belfast, Northern Island and written feature scripts in the UK, USA, Canada, South Africa and Thailand. He is said to have written books for USA and UK publishers and journalistic work includes feature assignments in 55 countries worldwide covering people, business and conflict ranging from features on bomb disposal inn Angola to clean up operations following the Exxon Valdez oil spill. He is said to now live with his partner, a writer and a singer in London and Santa Monica and previously ran a successful communications consultancy whose clients included Texaco, Coca Cola and Chevron, Mercedes Benz and the Hawker Siddeley Group. In commenting on why the Riddle was released through the newspaper he is quoted as saying it was a good way to launch the product. I think I should get him to represent my future financial best interests. Whoops, is it too late to say what a great film you have made Brendan. There sir, Give me some of the money., or perhaps I should also employ your PR people Robert Kirby of PDF in London and Melissa Read of Read Agency in Hollywood.
Now Vinnie Jones is a second tier hero of mine because in 1988 I watched his team Wimbledon defeat the mighty Liverpool in the FA Cup at Wembley. He is a man who has made the best of his abilities never straying far from his head banging, crazy horse Eastend kid on the make. After his successful appearance as a villain in Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, I half expected him to turn up a Mitchell half brother in Eastenders! He has now appeared in over twenty films. That he has been a keen supporter of Dog Racing fits in well with his image, and the role in The Riddle. He now owns his own racing dogs, progressing to a thoroughbred horse. There are lessons to be learnt from the lives of Brendan Foley and Vinnie Jones who have both dared to change their roles in life successfully.
The other Sunday Paper which I hope to read before next weekend is the Sunday Times, bought because I thought it contained a DVD of a Palin journey, when it was just one episode. This included the story of the week showing President Putin of Russia on the front page with heading Red Alert. As the story is at the back of the 76 page Magazine I did not miss twelve photographs in the bigger picture which put to shame almost all the 260000 that I have taken over the past four years. There is an amazing pictures of an oil refinery in Scotland and of Brighton Beach in particular, Brian Moynahan's story sends shivers although not from fear of a new East West arms race but because of the likely confrontation between China, Russia and Japan given the scores which the countries will still feel they need to settle. I do not claim originality for this view which was first put to me forty five years ago an anglo catholic vegan anarchist who was the illegitimate son of a well known individual and who spent a number of years training to be a priest at Dublin University. I have tried for eight years to trace his whereabouts because of the subsequent findings on my own origins, coming close two years ago and then after making another search found an address on the internet. What do you say to someone who you once spent six months in prison with after a gap of over decades?
My worry is that now that Russia and China have started to invest heavily in the UK buying everything from football clubs to banking interests, if they do come to blows they are more likely battle first away from their homelands as we are now doing in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Personally my money is that this is simply a case of Putin and the interests who back him, building up their position to cast aside the constitutional requirement that he stands down from the next Presidential Election. If I was George Bush or an international capitalist I would be behind the Putin build up as a break on China's present open field. Just think of all that arms technology and hardware we can sell to both sides?
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