An Evening with Arthur Smith

As I said in one of my first blog entries, I'm currently rehearsing for a part in my first play. OK, this is not strictly my first acting job, but I don't think I can really count my brief appearances as fourth shepherd in a 1971 school nativity or as Julius Caesar's wife Calpurnia in a sixth form production. For the record, it was a boys school and I was 11 years of age and still with an unbroken voice and anyway, why am I trying to justify myself to a blog?

Anyhoo, I am quite fortunate in that the local drama group I joined takes all of this drama stuff very seriously indeed. Not in a po-faced "Luvvy! Daaahling!" kind of way, but in that they want to do as good a job as possible. I am embarrassed to admit that one of the things putting me off from be involved for so long was Lynda Snell's overbearing efforts to put on a village panto every year in The Archers. Although there is of course the actors and the director, there are so many others that get involved in one way or another from the provision of props, sets, sound and lighting through to setting up the venue, selling ticket sales and publicity.

It's ironic that for a play that is about football, none of the cast have much of an interest in the game itself. But then you don't have to be a cat to be in, er, Cats. So, trying to exercise my new found acting techniques I try to think of something that I am equally passionate about as a reference. I remember suggesting to my co-actor Andrew at one point that he and I could use Doctor Who (as we're both fans), but in hindsight I realise this is possibly the saddest, nerdish thing that I have ever suggested. However I would like to point out that unlike me, Andrew can't use a nine year old son as an excuse for his obsession.

Overall I am enjoying the 'Am Dram' experience immensely. There is plenty of laughs and beer to be had, which is I think is as important as the end product of the play itself (three weeks and counting)...

So there I was one evening in front of the PC and I thought that I might send an email to the play's co-author, Arthur Smith, you know, as you do. Most people know Arthur as one of the Grumpy Old Men on BBC TV and for his appearances on on Radio 4's Excess Baggage and Loose Ends. But for those of my generation, we remember him back when he was a regular at the Comedy Store. So were we in fact, going there at least once a month during the Eighties. So many of the turns we saw ended up doing quite nicely for themselves, starting off as part of the Alternative Comedy backlash to Bernard Manning and his sort of 'humour' and ending up as part of the new comedy establishment.

Ah, those were the days... Paul Merton was Paul Martin, Jo Brand was Sea Monster and Julian Clary had a Fanny and was known as the Joan Collins Fan Club. When Eddie Izzard came on, he was in a tweed jacket, not a dress, and were unsure whether he was p***ed, stoned or just plain hatstand. Turned out to be the latter, and wonderfully so. Anyway, I digress.

Back to Arthur. As well as appearances at the Store, he was on TV as (among other things) the first milkman that Richie Rich murdered on Filthy, Rich and Catflap, and the backwards speaking barman in the Red Dwarf episode called, er, Backwards. So I did a quick Google, found his website and shot off a quick email to say "Hi" and that we were doing his play. I also asked about an 'interview' that supposedly takes place between Gary Lineker and Trevor Brooking. "Was it a real recording?" I asked. I wasn't really expecting a reply, especially since his website does warn that unless an email is 'very interesting indeed' then he will be 'not arsed to reply. I thought fair play, at least he's honest.

But blow me if he didn't reply, and with a promptness that puts my emailing to shame. He was pleased to hear that the play was still going and that the original recording was made by a then unknown Alaistair McGowan impersonating both Gary and Trevor. He then went on to wish us well in the production, hoped that the swearing wasn't too much for the audience, and that maybe he'd come by if there were any tickets left.

What a nice chap, I thought. So I thanked him for his reply, pointed out that we were in Norfolk and that it was a bit of a trek from Balham (where he lives) and told him a bit about how we too had worried about the swearing. The group had actually gone through the whole play to justify every rude word, taking out only those we thought were out of context or just too plain naughty to use. However, I said to Arthur, if he did want to see us he was welcome, and that he could bring his 'Grumpy Old Men' colleague Rick Wakeman along with him, as he just lives round the corner from us.

Arthur replied again and just as promptly as before, telling me a story about how they had to contend with the more sweary bits when they toured with the original production. And Mr Smith was even kind enough to give me a few words to include in the program. It also turned out that he used to go to the UEA in Norwich in 1975 (where the picture above was taken), and that he had an ex-girlfriend from the town where I live. Small world.

So if you ever read this Arthur, then once again thanks for taking the time out to reply. You really made my day.

That is assuming it was you, and not some spotty 12 year old hacker just winding me up...

Love is a Wet Puppy Dog

Sad but true: I have worked in and around IT for over 30 years. My first direct 'hands on' contact with a computer was at the Science Museum in about 1975. A new exhibition on computing had opened (parts of which still remain I believe) and the two exhibits I remember in particular were a terminal that ran a 'learning' guessing game and a 'digital' camera.

The game was very basic: you thought of an animal, and the computer would 'ask' questions until it either guessed it correctly or failed. If you beat the computer, it would ask you for question that could be used to correctly identify the animal another time. There is a far more sophisticated online version of the game called 20Q that has been played over 50 million times (Wiki entry here). My cousin bought me a handheld version for my birthday a couple of years ago, as she remembered going to the exhibition with me a couple of years later.

The digital camera was even more basic - well by today's standards. I think may parents paid 50p, and I was sat in front of a television camera. A few moments later, a dot matrix printer sprang into life, and a black and white print of my face began to emerge, composed of both ASCII characters and more solid graphic blocks. It was certainly recognisable as me, although it was a few years away from being a useful photographic tool.

I was trying to find an example of what they looked like without success. However, I did stumble upon a couple of similar examples that both predated and followed my own portrait. The contemporary example is a textportrait , although perhaps it uses the text as more of a mask than as a medium. You may have also come across meta images or photographic mosaics, where single images are made up of hundreds of smaller pixel-like elements. The other example actually dates back to 1969, and is probably recognisable to anyone who worked in an IBM environment, typically banks. I used to have a Snoopy calendar on my desk for years...

I found a link on the photographic mosaic wiki page to ASCII art which is close to my portrait but probably closer to the Snoopy above. Like so many web explorations, it seems that ASCII art is part of an even bigger Computer art scene that dates back for decades. If I come across an example that more closely resembles the picture I had taken, I'll post it.

And remember - although technology has moved on somewhat, there is a little bit of ASCII art in everyone =8-)X

The End is Nigh...

I know that there has been a lack of postings over the last couple of weeks, but this is because my spare time is focused on either learning those @!%£%$£ lines for AEWGL, or buying / selling turnips on Animal Crossing...

However, here is our Wiki inspired topic of the week - futures studies. Not sure how I got there but I think it was a case of six degrees of separation, starting with ontology.

Futures studies is about trying to predict the future, but in a slightly more scientific way than all that business involving tarot cards, runes, tea leaves and pricking of the thumbs. Rather, it relies on being able to interpret / process information about our world, both now and historically in such a way that allows us to describe a plausible future.

The scope of futures studies would seem to be as broad as the methods that are employed, and is perhaps analogous to the way that weather forecasts are made, in that however much is extrapolated from all the data accumulated over the decades, there is still an element of playing the odds and plain old guesswork involved. For every geosynchronous satellite there is a Sinclair C5.

It would seem that the difficulty is sifting through all the noise to focus on the import and and plausible predictions:

• Who would have considered that the paper written in 1900 by Constantin Perskyi the Russian Professor of Electricity and titled 'Television by means of electricity' would have been worth reading?
• How about George Orwell's world of 1984 where everyone would be watched over by telescreens (CCTV?)
• Aldous Huxley's 'Brave New World' in 1932 was populated with designer test tube babies...

Perhaps another useful barometer is to monitor all the web addresses, patents and copyrights that are registered globally each year. If it is a possible future money maker, then someone will have registered their interest. Cocaine, LSD and cannabis are all registered trade marks, as are Bored Silly, Sad But True and Armageddon. The Patent Office's website is also worth a browse - my favourite world changer is the 'Sheep-protector and coyote-exterminator' from 1920.