Megan's Song
I was lost in Maths In exams the noughts were singing I was lost in Maths And my calculator was minging As I stood there in the morning sum I had a feeling I can't explain I was lost in France in love I was lost in France
And the algebra was singing
And the paps all flashed Didn't catch what they were saying When I looked up they were standing there And I knew I shouldn't but I didn't care I was lost in France in love Ooh la la la Ooh la la la France Ooh la la la Francing Ooh la la la Ooh la la la France Ooh la la la Francing Ooh la la la Ooh la la la France Ooh la la la Francing I was lost in France And the Maths was over-flowing I was lost in France And a million sums were glowing And I looked round for a telephone To say 'Dear Mum, I won't be home' I was lost in France in love Ooh la la la Ooh la la la France Ooh la la la Francing Ooh la la la Ooh la la la France Ooh la la la Francing Ooh la la la Ooh la la la France Ooh la la la Francing And I looked round for a telephone To say 'Dear Mum, I won't be home' I was lost in France in love Ooh la la la Ooh la la la Fance Ooh la la la Francing Ooh la la la Ooh la la la France Ooh la la la Francing Ooh la la la Ooh la la la France Ooh la la la Francing Ooh la la la Ooh la la la France Ooh la la la Francing…
I was lost in France
But then the cops came calling
I was lost in France
And the world was just there watching
And I looked up
He was standing there
I felt so hopeless
I didn’t care
I am still so lost
In France
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Welsh journalist and broadcaster Jaci Stephen takes a sideways look at life in the USA, with all the fun, strangeness and, along the way, heartache, that her nomadic, transatlantic existence brings her.
Friday, September 28, 2012
Megan's Song - for Loved-Up Schoolgirl Megan Stammers
Meg-->
Tuesday, September 18, 2012
More Than a Drop in the Ocean
So many in need.
So many charities.
How do you decide which to help?
How do you separate the ones who, according to
reports, have people stealing money behind the scenes? How do you decide
between supporting a charity that raises money for research into heart disease,
because it stole your dad, or breast cancer, because the gene might be inherent
in your family?
There are some charities that receive a huge amount of
money, simply because they are the most prominent names in the headlines. Of
course, they are worthy, but there are many others out there in need of funds,
and how do you choose which to support? There are millions the world over who
need aid from those of us who have so much more, and the efforts of Comic
Relief, Sports Relief et al, have brought the tragedies taking place on a daily
basis to the public’s attention – and raised huge amounts of money for them –
in a way that they might not otherwise have done.
Many of these charities raise money for countries that
have no food: where babies are dying of starvation and dehydration every minute
of every day. There are millions who do not know the joy of turning
on a tap and receiving fresh, clean water every day, and, while this has always
struck me as something of a luxury, this week it hit me with a blinding
disbelief that others do not share what we take for granted.
We take it for granted in our baths, showers and
sanitised swimming pools; we boil our vegetables in it, sure in the knowledge
that we will not be contaminated by what lurks within; it pours forth from our
taps to counter a stomach upset, thirst after exercise, a hangover.
With a one
second twist of our hand, we have the greatest luxury the world has to offer,
and, for the most part, we don’t even acknowledge it.
I have not
spoken to anyone at wateraid.org, but I am urging you to spread the word and to
offer help in any way you can. In particular, check out the daily life of
women, on whom the onus is to collect water from miles away – and not very
sanitised water, at that.
There are so many ways in which it is possible to
become involved. Never did the Rime of the Ancient Mariner have any more
poignancy than now: “Water, water, everywhere, Nor any drop to drink.”
Like I said, I have not spoken to anyone at this
organisation, but let’s not take that turning on of our taps and having the
miracle of water our forth so effortlessly into our lives, for granted.
Let’s make water not only a blessing, but the right,
of everyone the world over.
Thursday, September 13, 2012
Dallas, Dallas, Wherefore Art Thou, Dallas?
You know you’re old when the oil barons are getting younger.
The remake
of Dallas has brought us a new breed of Texan magnates who look barely out of
their Lego and I don’t like them one little bit.
At best, Bobby’s son
Christopher is Thunderbirds’ Scott Tracy after a day at the spa; at worst,
Norman Bates after a week of bad bookings. JR’s son John Ross has a walrus
sitting on his face and is about as sexy as . . . well, a walrus sitting on
your face.
John Ross’s and
Christopher’s fathers, who were once such magnetic personalities, are no longer
appealing, either. JR’s eyebrows look as if they need their own Visa to enter
the country, and Bobby looks as if he has had the kind of eye-lift that turns
people Chinese overnight; in fact, his eyes appear to have been eaten by his
forehead. Lucy looks as if she has spent 20 years eating all the pies she never
got to consume when the wind swept the food away every morning on the breakfast
terrace, and all the allegedly glamorous women make a Stepford Wife look like
Personality of the Millennium.
I so, so wanted to
like it; but it is bad. So, so bad. Lame writing, lame acting, and a lame
Bobby, who keeps clutching his leg in pain, as the cancer he is trying to keep
secret takes hold. Sue Ellen appears to be the only character who has survived
the fallout. And Linda Gray still brilliantly plays it for the laugh it always
was.
I first watched
Dallas when it was broadcast in the UK on BBC2 in the afternoon; I think I was
probably its first UK fan. Although I did not know the term soap opera when
growing up, I knew it must be something very, very naughty, because my parents
always sent me to my room when Peyton Place was on.
Never having watched
Coronation Street, I took to Dallas because of the shoulder pads, the pools,
the glamour. It was a world so far removed from my own in South Wales, I could
fantasise about riches, fine clothes, magnificent dinners, and take joy in the
knowledge that for every material wealth these people had, they were still
miserable as hell. That made me happy. Being poor. With no fine clothes. And,
in a bad week, rather hungry.
I specially liked
Dallas’s annual Oil Barons Ball, where the oil magnates would gather to
celebrate the industry but end up fighting and/or murdering each other. WestStar
oil head honcho Jeremy Wendell always featured heavily on these occasions,
though I swear he never washed his shirt from one year to the next.
Dallas lost its
credibility with the “death” of Bobby, quickly resurrected and made the subject
of wife Pam’s dream, when the ratings plummeted following the departure of Patrick
Duffy, who played him.
The biggest problem
was that the sister show, Knot’s Landing, was still in production and had a lot
of episodes in the can; so Bobby’s brother Gary continued to grieve on one
channel, telling everyone how momma had never been the same since Bobby’s
death, and nobody ever bothered to tell him that an entire year had all been in
his head.
But it was the
ludicrousness – the complete lack of believability – that, strangely, made it
work. The new mob are playing it as if they have landed parts in Henry V, and
they are about as menacing as a dead mouse in a Camembert.
After two episodes,
I’ve already wiped it from my “series record”; life really is too short.
And I
really, really don’t want to watch Bobby dying from cancer – well, not unless
he emerges wet and glistening and we discover that it was Christopher’s dream
after all.
They'll Never Walk Alone
The desire for justice in the face of others’ wrongdoing is
intense. Having recently sued an ex-landlord in LA – and won – I know. It takes
it out of you, but being in the right and, most importantly, being seen to be
in the right, is worth everything, in the end.
My own
struggle is but a grain of sand alongside the families of the Hillsborough
victims; it is not even worthy to be in the same sentence, and I mention it
only because I know how all consuming my own fights for justice have always
been and cannot begin to imagine what these poor people have been through in
their 23 year fight to get to the truth.
Not only
did they lose their loved ones; they had to suffer the indignity of being told
that the dead were to blame for the tragic events of that day.
The
evidence that has come to light is another heartbreak: not just the lies and
deceit, but the knowledge that 41 of the victims might have been saved.
Everyone who lost a relative or friend that day will spend the rest of their
lives asking: Was he/she one of that 41?
Injustice upon injustice upon
injustice.
You can only weep.
I have
been remembering another football stadium tragedy four years before
Hillsboorugh in May 1985: the fire at Bradford City, that claimed the lives of
56 fans and injured well over 200. I arrived home from shopping in Bristol,
where my parents were living. I was working in London and had gone home for a
weekend visit. I walked into the living room to find my father crying in his
usual armchair. My brother and I are sport crazy, but Dad never watched it;
nevertheless, he was visibly stunned as he watched the disaster unfold on the
screen.
My
father who, died in 1990, was a desperately sensitive man. He could not talk to
me for five minutes without crying, as if he never got over the fact that I
learned to speak, let alone grew up. I would always be his little girl. We were
a family that cried at everything, including Lassie when we sat down to watch
it after dinner on Sunday afternoons. Dad cried every time he mentioned his
parents, long dead, and he had never felt able to visit their graves.
After
the Bradford fire, new safety standards were put in place at football grounds,
including the banning of new wooden grandstands. Yet what we have heard this
week was that not only was Hillsborough unsafe, the authorities had known it to
be unsafe for some time.
Also after Bradford, many police
officers received commendations, bravery awards and medals; yet at the heart of
the Hillsborough inquiry is the accusation that the police falsified
information, following complaints about their handling of the tragedy.
What the hell happened? Four years
apart, the tragedies could not be more different (although the subsequent
Popplewell inquiry at Bradford found that the club had been warned about the
accumulation of rubbish – that fuelled the fire - under the stand).
Twenty-three
years is a long time to wait for justice – and for the Hillsborough families it’s
far from over, with the likelihood of those who falsified evidence or made
crucial, devastatingly bad judgments, being prosecuted. Somebody, surely, has
to be accountable.
It is a cliché
that nothing can bring back the 96 who perished on that day; but the living
hell and the fight for truth by the brave people who have fought tirelessly on
their behalf must bring about a small measure of peace.
Truth will out, they
say.
It’s just damned disgraceful that sometimes it has to take so sodding
long.
Friday, August 31, 2012
Seth Macfarlane - I Love You!
Come on, people - lighten up! That Boobs song at the Oscars was hilarious because, let's be honest, bare boobs get ratings. It was a funny joke about the industry. Anyway, As a tribute to my hero, I am re-printing the adulatory piece I wrote a few months back. And if you don't like it . . . Tough titty (as we say in the UK).
Seth Macfarlane, I love you.
Seth Macfarlane, I love you.
No, honestly. I really, really love you.
I love your work, your principles,
your voice and, last night, I heard you sing live, met you and had my photo
taken with you.
And now, I love you more.
My friends on Twitter have been despairing of my obsessive
attempts to get close to the brilliant creator of Family Guy, American Dad and
The Cleveland Show. On Monday night, having failed to obtain a ticket for
Seth’s appearance at the Proms, I stayed in London, hoping to get a ticket for
his show at Ronnie Scott’s.
Seth was in town promoting his album Music is
Better Than Words – a fantastic collection that displays not only his
extraordinary voice, but his love of Swing music.
When I was living in LA, I tried for two years to get
an interview with him. If someone had told me to rescue a trapped mongoose from
a Siberian salt mine using only a needle and thread, it could not have been
more difficult.
His people did not contact my people, but that is
maybe because I had no people, and a single small woman – even one as feisty as
myself – doesn’t cut the mustard in the City of Angels.
His people in the UK were no better. They offered to
deliver a letter, a gesture that both pissed me off (with them already having
failed to grant me an interview in the US) and made me even more determined to
get a missive to him through my investigative skills in trying to pinpoint
where he might be.
Would he be staying at the Savoy? Too formal for him,
I reckoned. Family Guy’s Brian might like it there, especially the American
Bar, and I could picture him on a stool, holding court, but I couldn’t imagine
Stewie roaming the hallways.
A Marriott? Seth doesn’t need the points; in fact, he
could probably buy the Marriott chain and still have enough loose change left
over to buy the Royal Albert Hall.
The stress of trying to pinpoint Seth’s accommodation
was taking its toll. I fell out of the cheap single bed I was in at London’s
Groucho Club, tossing and turning, trying to think my way into the great man’s
thoughts about his hotel preferences.
So where might he eat? Would it be the grossly
over-rated Ivy? Or Soho House, the sister club of the fabulous rooftop venue in
LA? Was he more of a Joe Allen person, scoffing potato skins and burgers?
I did enough research to patent a Where is Seth? boardgame.
How hard could it be? I took to Google, which I have
come to regard as a legal, efficient means of feeding my obsessions. It took
under a minute to find that Seth would also be singing at Ronnie Scott’s on 30th
August, so I extended my London stay and contacted the famous jazz club.
Sold out. Not only was the event sold out, it had been
sold out since something like 1763.
I cried. I sulked. I took to Twitter and Facebook,
begging somebody to take pity on me. I texted my friend Stephen Fry, who
informed me that he had two tickets, but that they had been very hard to come
by. I Tweeted Seth, told him I was on my knees, begging. I took to phoning
Ronnie Scott’s on an hourly basis, just in case they had any returns. They told
me it was “extremely unlikely”. Then I took to visiting the Box Office, where
the negative response was the same. I went to see Ted, Seth’s first film, just
because it made me feel closer to him.
On Thursday, I rang Ronnie Scott’s and was told that,
occasionally, tickets are available on the door, and that I should return when
they opened at 6pm. I did. Then at 6.30. And at 7. And at 7.30. And at 8.
I
felt like Little Orphan Annie, albeit Little Orphan Annie who had
optimistically donned her party dress, feeling, in her gut, that everything
would come all right in the end.
I returned to the Groucho Club, sobbing into my glass
of wine. The only thing that could possibly work now would be if Stephen’s
partner were to be stuck down by a mystery virus at the last minute and Stephen
would remember my pleas.
The text came at 8.08pm. Stephen Fry. Good news. His
partner had come home, collapsed on the sofa, and was too exhausted to go to
the event. He was happy for me to have his ticket.
Be glad of what you wish
for! (But get well soon, Stevie).
Now, not only did I have a ticket for Seth, I was a guest of the most
brilliant mind and wit I have ever encountered. OMG! I cried. I sobbed. With
joy. With relief. I felt as if I had reached the top of Everest in a pair of
skating boots.
My tears did not stop. The band took my breath away
with a range of talent I have never heard gathered in one room. I am sitting
opposite Stephen Fry. STEPHEN BLOODY FRY, whose knowledge about music is
already astounding me.
And then there’s Seth, who walks on and moves me to rare
emotions that soar through every vein.
Awe. Admiration. Love.
Love of his
enormous talent in so many areas; love of his creativity; love of his
achievements at such a young age; love of the familiar - the animated characters of his shows, coming to life when the voice of Stewie squeezes out of this fresh-faced, exquisitely dressed man, who is a mere 38. And, when he smiles and opens his mouth to
sing, love of a personality that exudes warmth, brilliance and a justified
confidence that makes you in no doubt that you are in the presence of
greatness.
His voice is pure, beautiful, soulful. He handles hecklers with a cutting,
yet professional charm that leaves no one in any doubt who is in charge. And
then there’s STEPHEN BLOODY FRY, too. Sorry, I already said that.
This was, without doubt, one of the best nights of my
life. Two weeks ago, I was crying with loneliness in a Spanish bar,
contemplating two small slices of sweating cheese and wondering whether life
was worth living.
Yes, it is.
As Stephen, who has battled depression,
said: there is always something to live for.
Family, friends, and nights like Seth Macfarlane at Ronnie
Scott’s.
And sometimes, yes: music is better than words.
Sunday, August 26, 2012
Everyone I Know is Dead
There is no one in the George
Bar when I rush there shortly after my plane lands.
Twenty-five years ago, when
the Evening Standard paid my expenses, it was the hotel I was in for the
duration of the annual Edinburgh Television Festival, which took place over the
August Bank Holiday weekend.
This year, there is no one paying me a cent, and I am
in student lodgings with no hairdryer, no fan to cool the blisteringly hot
room, no WiFi and . . . oh, so many other complaints too numerous to mention.
And, more to the point, there is no one in the George Hotel bar, because the
bar is no more. It is a panel of wood along the wall.
Locked. Sealed. Gone. A
Silver Jubilee’s worth of history lies behind it, and I can only cry as I make
my way to the soulless replacement that has taken its place a corridor away.
Everyone I know is dead. Or so it seems. David Fraser,
my good friend from the miserable year I spent at Lancaster University,
studying for an MA in Creative Writing; Andy Allan: adorable, gorgeous Andy,
who died of cancer just a short time ago; the brilliant and unassuming Geoffrey
Perkins . . . So many people gone.
So many memories.
I was 28 when I attended my first festival in 1987. I
had landed the job of TV critic on the London Evening Standard and was
delirious with excitement at arriving in a world that seemed to offer me
everything I had hoped for when I had moved to London three years previous,
stars in my eyes but on the dole.
I wrote five columns a week: watching the box for 12
hours a day (there were no DVDs), writing my copy longhand (I couldn’t afford a
typewriter), and filing my copy, verbally, to a copy-taker at 7am. Looking
back, it was gruelling; but at the time, I thought I was the luckiest person in
the world.
Channel 4 made a programme about my life as a TV
critic; I was in demand from broadcasters who offered me free wine; I
interviewed Sooty - on set, no less. And I got paid to go to the Edinburgh TV
Festival.
In those days, sessions took place in different venues
around the George Hotel. En route, you would make new contacts, forge
friendships, and meet for lunches that would invariably mean that you missed
all the afternoon sessions. The Saturday afternoon Chinese was a big one for
journalists, but when I go there this year, it is another Italian: one of a
chain, and I recall the long afternoons of fellow journalists Charlie
Catchpole, John Millar and Sue Carroll, who sadly lost her battle to cancer
earlier this year.
The new generation now is a coffee-drinking bunch who
won’t be seen dead with a glass of wine in their hands before 6pm. They are too
nervous to ask questions at the end of sessions – I could not believe the
number of sessions I attended that finished before time, owing to the lack of
audience participation. These people are different. We were then. This is now.
But although I feel sad, I rejoice in their enthusiasm
and the passion they are bringing to this truly great medium. They ask for my
advice; they speak about their ideas with conviction; they want to learn, grow
and deliver a message to a whole new audience.
At the end of the festival, my tears at my own loss
have turned to joy in the knowledge that the future of this great industry is
assured. I, and we, the class of 1987, have a new role to play, and it is no
less valuable than the one we fulfilled over two decades ago.
The same.
Only
different.
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