Fellow Rubix Members Take Over 10 Downing Street

When I saw this, I almost cried!!!

Deanna Rodger, Sean mahoney, Ayesha Badat and Bridget Minamore are all fellow Rubix members and did a wicked job on this!!!

Warning: This Millwall piece has nothing to do with hooliganism

A while ago I was asked to write a piece about Millwall by fellow poet and football writer Gary From Leeds for the brilliant blog he runs called the The 127 Formation and this is what I came up with...

Ok, that was a bit of lie, it does…

I was once asked a question with which I answered “Millwall” to then be asked a second question “Are you racist?”

Of course, the first question was, “what football team do you support?” These days, even in the supposedly open-minded arty circles I sometimes rotate in, like a child on a waltzer, looking as if he’s about to regurgitate his excitability consumed large McDonalds milkshake all over his Chelsea t-shirt (now that’s an image!), this strikes as an all too predictable response from many people.

Understandably, Millwall have a terrible reputation and are by no means angels. But then nor are Manchester United, Manchester City, Chelsea, West Ham, Stoke, Liverpool, Leeds, Cardiff, Portsmouth etc etc the list goes on, and the figures from the statistics for football-related arrests and banning orders prove this, year in, year out.

A lot of it, I believe, is too do with media coverage and the influence they wield over public opinion, which seems to lean on the Millwall reputation a bit too easily, all the while perpetuating an age old stereotype which can act as springboard for absurd, and sometimes offensive accusations which bypass the ring fences of political correctness, reserved for most other sections of society, without many people ever batting an eyelid, other than Millwall fans themselves. Phew, let me take a breath!

The recent reporting in the Evening Standard about Millwall supporters coming out to protect Eltham during the riots did not receive the same admiration as the Turkish and Kurdish shop owners in Dalston, just a patronising rhetoric, which only serves to further alienate an increasingly alienated section of society.

At a time when there is extremist vultures lurking overhead like the EDL and the BNP, ready to pluck at the corpses of pre-dominantly young white working class men, lazy nonsense like that doesn’t help.

When confronted with pre-loaded questions about morons, racists and hooligans, it can be very frustrating, even after pointing out facts about behaviour and incidences involving supporters from bigger clubs, such as those mentioned above, many people would rather hold on to the force fed images of Man United being the jewel in the English crown, untouchable, family and huge corporate sponsor friendly whilst Millwall is the dangle-berry clinging on to footballs rectum, rather than accepting that hooliganism is not exclusive to SE16.

I would have thought that any look around a town centre on a Friday or Saturday night from Bristol to Newcastle would prove this, but for some reason it’s rare that the similarities in behaviour of those misbehaving on a night out is ever compared to that of a football fan looking for a punch up.

In retrospect, I should have punched that person in the face, or at least told to them where to go, upon being asked if I was racist, based on the findings of what football team I support. I’m sure no one would ever approach a father pushing a child on a swing in the park and ask him if he’s a paedophile, I’m quite sure that man would be highly insulted, as I was, such is the regard for paedophiles and of course racists, and rightly so.

But of course, punching someone in the face or cursing at them only further enforce a terrible stereotype, and I would most likely come out it the villain. I just like football and Millwall, that’s all.

Improvised Poetry Battle Event

Evening!

So I'm going to be doing this event called On The Spot which is effectively a rap battle for poets. Anyone that knows me well should know that I'm a big fan of the  Don't Flop rap battle's and have spent many an hour watching the old Jump Off battles of Professor Green and Stig Of The Dump. There's some weighty names gone in the hat like Curious who I hear killed it first time. So it's my turn, I'm not sure if my brain works quick enough to generate the sort of quick witted cusses of the above but like my Dad said, 'you gotta put your neck on the line'

17th October at Tristan Bates Theatre http://www.tristanbatestheatre.co.uk/Production_Details_On%20The%20Spot.asp
£6/£5 doors open 7:30

See you there?

I'll be bricking it!!

Paul

In amougst the clutter I found this

Hello!

 I was going through some files on my laptop and I found this poem, or the workings of. I wrote it a few months back, it was originally intended for a show that was going to take place in Edinburgh but never did. Instead it was scrapped. This piece was a found in amongst the rubbish stored on my laptop. Much like the messy room I mention, which, at the time of writing it'snt so bad...

PARANOIA'S PRIORITIES

Mechanically spun I'm dizzy.

She leads,

I follow.

Reading and re-reading every text and email I've ever received,

regarding her,

and me.

I sit drinking my tea trying not to think,

but it's futile.

Sat on my black leather chair,

by my bed,

laptop on my legs,

leaning forward so my back bends and eventually hurts,

phone in my left hand,

tea in my right.

The only thing missing is a desk,

and a bedroom,

that looks and feels like a bedroom,

rather than a storage space,

for cardboard boxes and crates,

stacked in corners,

and letters from the bank,

strewn across the floor with yesterdays clothes.

Still,

my trainers look nice,

box fresh Nikes,

parked by my bed like a porshe in the drive,

at a dive of a home.

I was always crap at getting my priorities right.

Temporary accommodation,

belonging to my parents,

sleeping in the room on the other side of the wall.

27 and I can't find the feet I'm supposed to stand on.

I'm sure my Dad is proud.

My Mum worries.

I worry.

I'm worried now,

though not for the fact,

that I lack employment, prospects and a pension,

it's because,

I'm stressing,

about her.

Priorities again.

I look at my mug and just about make out my face's reflection,

I wonder which face is starring at a mug.

I bring up an email.

Take a gulp of my tea.

Her few words on the screen ask more questions of me.

“I'm busy right now talk next week”

Not even a question mark.

A statement.

I’m worried I've stepped in the ring with someone twice my weight and punching range.

Paranoia breeds every time she speaks.

I'm trying to second guess her tactics,

but she's like Jose Morinouio,

and I'm Tony Pulis,

route one is all I have,

she's capable of switching the way she plays at any given moment.

She can raise and lower my hopes,

with the tone of her voice,

or the lack of syntax in an email or a text message.

She mechanically control’s the mental mechanisms responsible for manufacturing paranoia,

as chemicals loose there balance inside my brain.

I can hear my Mum downstairs calling my name.

It's dinner time,

she shouts.

I'm not done re-reading my emails,

and texts.

Analysing them to death

Priorities again.

Boobs Work And Me

Back in August, I performed for a week alongside fellow Poets Gary From Leeds and Sean Mahoney, at the Hen and Chickens Theatre Islington, as the warm up acts for this touching and funny show by Richard Purnell called "Boobs Work And Me". It was a lot of fun, from the show to re3cording the promo video (see below) and we had some really good audiences. I even indirectly gaines my first review from Londonist.com http://londonist.com/2011/08/review-richard-purnell-and-friends-hen-and-chickens.php

Better Late Than Never

This is a blog I wrote for the super cool people at Poejazzi http://poejazzi.wordpress.com/. They put on very very good events and back in may I was lucky enough to perform at one of them....

Better Late Than Never

My Mum often reminds me that Buster Merryfield, who played Uncle Albert in Only Fools And Horses, didn’t become an actor until he was in his fifties (my Mum knows everything!) I recently turned 28. Though I don't consider myself old, I do think that I was a bit of a latecomer into Poetry and Spoken Word, compared too some of the ever increasing list of brilliant performers I've seen that are under the age of 20. I have vague recollections of covering the subject of poetry back when I was at school, though most of those were of reading Roald Dahl poems when I was very young. I remember my GCSE NEAB Anthology was covered in graffiti about football and insults towards people's Mums (not mine though yea!). Other than a picture of Shamus Heaney, that is about all I can recollect. No poems, just rubbish graffiti. It pretty much sums up my formal education.

I must have picked something up though, because I had a basic understanding of poems that used rhyming couplets and I was independently able to string some very simple pieces together the day that I decided I was going to have a go at writing poems, though I was no stranger to rhyming, at that stage I'd already spent a few years penning rap bars which certainly helped.

I came into Poetry fully aware that I knew next to nothing. Effectively uneducated, I'm quite sure this has reflected in my work. I remember one of the first poetry events I ever went to, Poetry Unplugged at the Poetry Cafe, watching a young guy step up to the microphone and explain in his pre-amble that he was highly influenced by Keats, receiving a few nods of approval amongst the many people sat in the crampt basement of the Poetry Cafe. Not only did I have no idea who Keats was, but I also had no idea, not for want of trying, what the poet was talking about when he read his piece. I certainly did not feel the bliss of ignorance at that moment, put simply, I felt stupid. If it wasn’t for hearing Nial O Sullivan speak and then perform, and thinking to myself that he was both a genius and a bit of a geezer, I probably never would have gone back.

The interesting thing about my complete lack of poetical knowledge when I started out, is that my parents are very well read (I told you, my Mum knows everything, and cooks a mean Sunday roast!) despite both coming from working class backgrounds they believe education holds the key to betterment and would often tell me this. Of course I probably rubbished this, like I had done with most things at School. Unsurprisingly I spent the next 10 years after leaving school at 16 in all manor of mundane low paid jobs, constantly battling to keep the creative part of my brain active.

When I first started going to Poetry nights, I quickly developed an enthusiasm for it. Knowing where my negative attitude had got me in the past, I was able to easily dismiss any pre-conceptions that I held and absorb as much as I possibly could without prejudice. I carried this attitude into a creative writing course I soon took up at Birckbeck College and then into theatre, when I got involved at BAC.

As embarrassing as it was, and still is, being that I've just exposed myself in this blog (as if you didn’t know!) it has been far outweighed by my enthusiasm, satisfaction and the enjoyment I've gained from the journey so far. I guess what I'm trying to say is, like the dearly departed Buster Merryfield ,and my Mum, who knows everything (except about the graffiti on my NEAB Anthology book), you're never too old to give poetry a go, or most things for that matter!

Don't be shy now....