Look then at what is happening now. Only the intelligent creatures have forgotten the urge to be unified with each other: only here will you have no confluence

BOOK 9 - 9.3

Based on what I witnessed and experienced, growing up around Horley and Crawley, there was a lot of low-level isms - racism, sexism, classism, homophobia - ism and probably more isms - maybe even Marxism, but I didn’t know what that was until after I’d left the place, and too many people had done alright off of Maggie Thatcher and bought their council houses for that ever to take hold. There was one guy I remember, who was the father of a kid I went to cubs with and a nice man. He had a long beard and wore sandals with his socks; maybe he was a communist lone-wolf, quietly and unsuccessfully trying to lead local workers away from Benidorm, towards a glorious workers revolution. Alas, I digress.  

Most of the racism, seemed to me, to take two forms: the first being jokes: which mainly saw Pakistanis, reduced to the P-word and serving as the main ingredient for crass punchlines, sometimes just puns on typical names, sometimes about skin-colour and culture. The P-word would get thrown around a lot, and was often just a lazy, very ignorant, catch-all term for brown and also darker-skinned people in general, not just limited to Asians: this could include people from Greek, Turkish, middle eastern or Portuguese backgrounds, or sometimes it was just aimed solely at Muslims. Perhaps this was relative to the area I grew up in, as Crawley had large Indian and Pakistani communities. It also had a big Irish community, and there were plenty of jokes about them too.

Some of these jokes were fairly innocuous, some were plain nasty, and sometimes they weren’t even jokes, it would just be the P-word hurled casually out of a car window, speeding passed some ordinary person just going about their day.

The second form would take the lazy parroting of thought-lacking negative tropes, to diagnose broader social-ills, like immigrants our taking our jobs etc. I heard these sorts of ones quite a lot. My guess was, looking back, that a lot of these statements, or accusations, were sometimes made out of fear - fear of losing something, like employment, or identity, but more often than not, like the above jokes, were made innocuously and in ignorance, with very little thought given to the consequences of saying those things.

When I was in cadets, I once got caught telling a P-word joke to another kid, and was made to stand-up by the commanding officer, in front of the group and given a severe bollocking. He was a white guy, but he was really angry about it, and fair enough, though I meant nothing by it, I learned my lesson. I remember feeling ashamed, and wished I hadn’t said it. I certainly wasn’t thinking about what the kid sat in ear-shot of me, who was from a Sri-Lanken background, might be thinking or feeling.

There was a third and much nastier form too, which from what I saw, was a lot rarer, but I encountered a few people who would probably fit into this category – and that is those who actually believed in the supremacy of white people, but more relevantly, had a severe hatred of those that weren’t them. That also included gay people, Jews and the Irish. There was a pub in Crawley which I forget the name of, which me and my mates would often drive passed, which had a reputation for housing BNP meetings; we never went in to validate those claims, we just knew to stay well away. The couple of people who I came across, who would fit into this category, were as you might imagine, pretty scary. There was occasionally one or two of them in the pubs I’d drink in; and there were always stories that accompanied them - doing jail-time in this prison or that, or running with the Chelsea hooligan firms in the 80’s. One of them had a spiders-Webb tatoo on his forehead. Again, just steered well clear of them.

Though Horley was predominately white, Crawley was a lot more ethnically mixed, as was the friendship group I grew up with; and I’m all the better for it. We naturally learned things about one another and absorbed aspects of each other cultures. When I first met my wife, who is Goan, she was pleasantly surprised that I knew a little bit about her very nuanced culture. My oldest friend from school is from a proud Goan family, and I knew other Goan families in the area too, as we all went to school and church together. That definitely won me some brownie points with her; no pun intended; but amusing none the less.

Of course we didn’t all grow-up the same, and our experiences would’ve varied, especially when it come to any sort of discrimination; but we all had lots in common. Went to the same schools, wore the same clothes, listened to the same music, worked the same jobs, had to avoid the same rude-boys trying to shake you down in the underpass and on the trains, and the same wide-boys looking to fight anyone that accidently stepped on their loafers in the pubs. Regardless of our differences, we came-up together.

The other isms, typically tended to involve making sexist comments towards women, or referring to them as birds, middle class kids calling working-class kids townies, which later morphed into the more pernicious chavs. Middle class kids just tended to be referred to as posh, sometimes followed by the C-Word. Depending on who I was with, and where I was, I was one or the other; chav or posh, I could never figure it out; trapped in some undefined class-purgatory; like a dull lesson in school where nothing gets learned. Pun intended.

As I got older, I began to develop a very basic understanding of how politics worked in the UK – broadly meaning, I got as far as working out that Labour was left-wing and Torries were right-wing, this also coupled with other simplistic notions of social issues, like classism, racism and sexism, and things like history – understanding that Britian was a colonial power and their involvement in the slave trade. All contributing towards my ideas of what discrimination is, and what pernicious forms it can take, and the different groups it can target. I would much later come to realise, that my understanding was grounded in an idea of liberalism, and stiving towards equality. 

Though I didn’t know a great deal about politics and society etc (and would sometimes get very frustrated by this lack of knowledge) I considered myself left-wing. Though generally speaking, it was an affluent area, Surrey and Sussex, but I could see the effects of poverty around me. My family didn’t have a lot of money growing up, so I thought things like the NHS and social security were important, and every now and again, Mum and Dad would school me on things like this. They listened to Radio 4 and encouraged me to read books, which is probably where the posh slur came from, as that was seen as a middle-class thing. And of course, we were also Catholic - for us, there was a duty to help those less-fortunate, even if we ourselves didn’t have much.

Leaning left, felt like the right to do; no pun intended. I knew people who went either way; but I also knew a lot of people who just didn’t care for politics. Though Crawley was pre-dominantly working-class, or upper-working-class, there were lots of people there who’d done well for themselves- setting up building firms and the like or bought their council houses and got on the property ladder, so they would tend to swing right, but not always. The town often went from Labour to Torries then back again.

I was interested in trying to understand how the world worked but had no idea where to start. I began to read books, but when going to the library, or going into a book-shop, I just didn’t know what it was I was looking for; I just had this feeling that I wanted to learn some stuff… whatever that stuff was.

From 17, I had a job as an apprentice in an IT firm, where I was left to my own devices a lot. I had access to the internet, which was still a novel thing for me, and via a Drum and Bass message board that I wasted a lot of time posting on, I found another message board, which would put-up political content. This is where I first learnt what the word subversive meant.

 At the time, the UK had just gone to war in Iraq and I remember feeling quite strongly against it, probably influenced by the stuff I was reading, but also many people I knew were against it. It didn’t feel right, and of course, they lied about the weapons and that. However, I was conflicted, as I’d also spent a few years in Marine Cadets and at one point, when I sensed I weren’t going to achieve much at school, I was all-set on joining the Army (easier-going than the Marines.) Through cadets, I probably knew of people who went out there to serve; it was a job after-all, and I had a little bit of appreciation for what they were doing and how dangerous it was. I also didn’t like the way some elements of the more middle-class left, would demonise soldiers, who were often working-class; just for doing a job.

Though there was no way on God’s earth, I was ever going to swap my Nike Air’s for sandals, at some point I figured out what Capitalism was. With the irony fully lost on me, I decided it was a bad thing. Using my generous 30% discount from working in huge-retail-chain-store HMV, I went into huge-retail-chain-store Waterstones, who were owned by an even an even huge-er-parent-company; I bought some more books by the likes of Michael Moore, and another one about the Bush Administration rigging the election in America; further solidifying my slant-left. I was finding causes which evoked feelings in me; which at the time of reading felt right, no pun intended. This was even followed by a stint of using a biro to write pseudo-radical messages in public karzis about TV-brainwashing us, and McDonalds-eating-greedy-Americans exploiting everyone. I’d graduated from the fine-art school of Millwall Run From No-one and a crap-tag called Luna, to full-blown political sloganeering.

I was 27 by the time I started working professionally in the arts. I felt like I’d already been round the block a bit - had multiple different low-paying jobs, multiple different addresses and had been almost permanently skint since the age of 17, but for the first time I was encountering people who were around my own age, who were themselves not long out of university and had barley ever worked a normal job; which for me, was eye-opening. Though I felt way out of my depth, not really knowing anything about the arts; theatre, poetry or literature, I had lots of opinions and thought I’d be alright as I assumed, and rightly so (no-pun intended) that in these circles nearly all of these people were loud and proud left-wingers. Even though I refused to play-down my love of getting tanked-up on lager, donna-kebabs, football and Nike Air Max - I definitely thought we had something in common.

What a lot of them had, and what I didn’t have, was a university education, which often seemed to come with a set of very specific set of ideas around isms - like racism and sexism; which I came to learn, were very different from the ones I grew up with. I can remember starting to hear terms like white privilege, toxic masculinity, the patriarchy, decolonisation etc, a lot of which, I had to look up their meanings. Another term I learned was Imposter-syndrome ­which was definitely something I felt, being in that world. Whilst I had this near-constant thirst for knowledge, and ideas and opinions always swirling round my brain, I felt in no-way confident enough to discuss any of these ideas that evoked something in me. I just felt like I didn’t understand them, because I wasn’t smart or educated enough; or people would think I was an idiot, or worse, a bigot, who was way out of his depth; certainly on the last point that was true; but like before, I was interested in learning, and assumed, that these ideas were the right ones, no pun intended, as everyone leaned-left.

However, what I began to notice was that lots of these terms and phrases were getting thrown about very casually, and similar to the discriminative slurs I heard as a kid - became catch-all-terms to describe very complex situations; and in some cases, terms like white – would even become a pejorative in and of itself. The more I’d hear them, the more I’d get these moments where my brain would go wait a minute, what?

I can remember someone once remarked to me, in what I took as a ­­­­­joking-but-not-joking ­­way – what would a white-privileged-male-know-about-police-brutality?! ­I immediately had images of those coal-miners getting cavalry-charged by mounted-police in the 80’s; and I’d witnessed on a number of occasions truncheon-swigging old-bill getting handy at the football, plus I knew of a few lads who’d been indiscriminately thrown in the back of bully-vans and given a shoeing; as well as the numerous times I’d personally been thrown up against fences or walls to be searched, for no good reason; all courtesy of the police.

Another time I was at a poetry event, where a female read a poem out, about going to a party with a male-friend, leaving together then going their separate ways. She went on to describe her having to endure creepy-men harassing her on the tube– which I fully sympathised with - until it got to the end bit where she went into an invective about men not having to endure this when travelling around London. I had another one of them wait, a minute what?! - moments. So many of my mates, including me, have been either robbed, physically attacked or both, whilst on public-transport, especially when we were younger. It was something I used to have to factor in when going out - playing cat-and-mouse on the slam-doors, just to avoid the gangs going up and down the trains, robbing mostly young-guys of their wallets and phones. It was around this time, I learned another term ­­­whataboutery ­­– which normally was followed by a sigh and an eye roll if I, or someone else was to ever push-back a bit on some of these very broad and unnuanced claims.

What became more and more alarming, was not just the demonisation of people that pushed-back on some of these ideas, by claiming they were right-wing or worse,  ­especially people like me, who was never right-wing - it was the near blanket adoption by seemingly everyone in the arts, into what I think George Orwell described as Group Think. And the more these ideas spread, the more divorced from reality they became. To me, this definitely has aspects of classism to it.

With most of these ideas, whether it’s queer-theory, whiteness, anti-Racism, post-colonialism etc, they all seem to have some tenets in them, which make me think yea, fair enough, mate. During 2021 when there was a lot of discourse around the BLM movement – lots of black people were talking openly about their experiences of racism – things like having their hair touched by random strangers, I thought, yea, fair enough, mate, that’s not on and shouldn’t be happening. Most of these theories start from a place of anti-discrimination; so I’m on board with that, and I think most people are. But some of it, is just so wound-up in highly-theoretical academic concepts, it’s lost all sense of reality. That feeling I had as a kid, growing up with friends from different backgrounds, that despite our differences. we had many things in common - we had a togetherness - I don’t feel that with this stuff, it’s highly divisive, putting people into their different categories. My mates used to laugh when I’d tell them about some of the wacky things I was hearing in the arts, until over-time, it started coming into their workplaces too; probably unchallenged.  

There are much better-placed people in this world, who can provide decent, valid criticisms of a lot of this stuff, without going into the youtube territory of ­­right-wing-anti-wokeness and all that. It took me a long-time to learn that a lot of it, has a foundation in post-modernism, and not liberalism, but the two get conflated; which is perhaps by design. I think most people out there, who don’t know the origins of this stuff, and some of the table-turning philosophical mind-bombs, like there’s no such thing as objective truth  - will just assume it’s liberal; when it quite often isn’t.

What I can say, from what I’ve seen, it can certainly make for crap-art. When people feel they have to crow-bar these messages in all the time, into whatever it is they’re making, or worse, they see themselves as high-priests having to educate the great unwashed with their righteous art, to me, it’s no longer art, it becomes something else, like activism, or worse, propaganda. There’s a time and place for both of those, of course, just not everywhere and in everything from poetry to theatre to Netflix and Nike adverts. It’s not left, and it definitely ‘aint right. Pun intended.   

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On Eating That Marshmallow

In the constitution of the rational being I can see no virtue that counters justice: but I do see the counter to pleasure – self-control.

BOOK 8 – 39

Sometimes when I’m reading stuff, I’ll come across a little nugget that I find fascinating, something that I’ve never heard about before; like The Standford Marshmellow experiment. I’ll get mad-excited, then want to go and tell everyone about it, as if I’d discovered it myself. One of the little draw-backs of this, which I’ve found-out, many times, is that when you tell people about your major-findings, who are themselves a bit educated, or a bit cultured, they go, ‘yea, everyone knows about that’ and I end up feeling and looking like a bellend; even if the thing itself, like the Standford Marshemellow experiment, is worth getting mad-excited about.

I first heard about the marshmellow experiment a few years ago. For those of you that don’t know about this, it tests which kids are able to defer their gratification, by placing a marshellow on a plate in front of them, which they’re told not to eat; I think there’s some sort of reward promised to them if they don’t eat the marshmellow.

The study goes on to show that kids that are able to resist temptation, and not eat the marshmellow, tend to go on to become more successful in life, and the kids that don’t, typically struggle. Something like that anyway. I’m sure there’s smarter bods than me out there who will point out the floors in the study, or provide examples of kids that buck the trend, but in the case of this; they’re irrelevant, and I’m not an academic.

I feel pretty confident, had I been one of those kids that were tested, I would’ve wolloped-down that marshmellow in a matter of mili-seconds; and I don’t even like marshemellows. Had it been some sour-Fizzy-chewits, I probably would’ve turned the place over, smashing up a few testubes, lobbing some lab chairs through those windows with the wire squares inside, and taken some of the staff hostage, until my demand for more sour flavoured Fizzy Chewits had been met. That’s an exaggeration, obviously, but you get the point.

My family sometimes retell this anecdote of when we had this little holiday in Scotland, on the remote and very windy island of Barra. I was pretty young then, five or six maybe, but I vaguely remember it. There was a disco or something, and a couple of my older siblings had taken me along. I, for some reason, really wanted a can of Sprite; but there was no Sprite and I cried all the way home, to the point where everyone back at the house, could hear me coming; balling my eyes out about not getting a can of Sprite. It’s a strange one, because growing up, I didn’t really like fizzy drinks and still don’t. What probably happened, is that I was fully fixated on getting a can of Sprite, and when I didn’t get it, well you know, I cried. But this pattern has repeated itself, over and over, just without the tears.

If you’ve checked out any stuff I’ve written previously, you might know that: in a very small, low-stakes, suburban-satellite town, came from a loving home in a safe area, lower-middle-class, 1^st world way; my life’s been a little bit chaotic. School, loads of jobs, often skint, debts, bouncing from place to place, not much of a plan at all. The best things in my life, are all the things that aren’t me; ie my family, my wife, my mates and my dogs. Going back to that experiment, I really do think there is something in it; because I’ve always struggled to delay gratification.

There’s a number of examples I could talk about here, situations where I’ve struggled to get a grip on my own temptations. Some of them are innocuous and some of them are a bit shame inducing, but I’ll spare you on those and talk about computer games. It’s a damning indictment, though, they I have so many options to elaborate on here.  What I can say, a lot of them, particularly the more embarrassing ones, I’ve managed either to stop doing or stick a lid on; just about, northing that bad, though, fear not. But I am still occasionally partial to going in to a newsagent, then to the kids section of the sweetie-shelf, and buying a pack of Sour Fizzy Chewits and smashing the lot in short succession; only to be reminded about it when I get home, put my key in the door and a load of little green wrappers come flying out my pockets.  

The first games console I owned was a NES. Probably the best Christmas ever. It was 1994, I think. My brother Will and I got a NES, to share, with one game, Mario Bros, the first one. Nintendo were fazing-out the NES’s, so they were going cheap, and they’d pretty much stopped making games for it, as the Super Nintendo (the next generation model) was already out there kicking arse. I would’ve been aware of all this, and probably wanted a SNEZ like most of the other kids, but I still remember being super happy getting the NES, and we had hours of fun on that thing. I never completed Mario, though. Course I didn’t.

We managed to get a few games for the NES, between us, via second-hand shops and car-boot-sales; the buzz of bringing home a new game would get me so excited, but I never completed a single one; not one, despite being almost permanently fixated on getting new games. The games would get hard, too hard and I’d get angry, then deflated, then stop, then I’d be onto the next one and I’d be excited all over again. Perhaps I preferred the packaging to the games, they often had these cool illustrations on them; like Double Dragon.

For my thirteenth birthday, my mum took me to Trade and Exchange in West Croydon and I got a Sega Mega Drive. By this point, Sega were already onto to their next generation console, the Saturn, but like the Nes, I was still very happy to have the Mega-Drive. With my Paper-Round money, I’d go to this second-hand games shop in Crawley, after-school, where they had stocks of old games going cheap that people had traded in. Again, the buzz and excitement of choosing a game and getting it home was the best; I’d be sat there at school, all day, just thinking about it, often not even knowing what I was going to buy. It was that fixation of going to do it.

I did manage to complete a couple of games on the Mega-Drive, Altered-beast, and Sonic; but both on easy mode. I remember telling myself that once I’d completed Sonic on the easy-setting, I’d do it on the harder mode. Did I? Course I didn’t. The vast majority of the games I had, were uncompleted. There’s a pattern emerging here.

One of the more interesting moments in computer games history, was when Sega launched the Mega-CD. We even did a case-study on it for GCSE Business Studies. This was an add-on that plugged into the Mega-Drive and enabled you to play games with much higher BIT rates, as well as CD’s. They were bought out as the Sega Saturn, which was the 32bit console, in-line with the Sony Playstation was delayed or something; all of this being the pre-cursor to Sega’s downfall as a console maker. As far as I know, the Mega-CD flopped and then they bought the Saturn out, which also flopped, but what this all meant for nerdy kids with no not much money, but who liked buying games and never completing them, was that if you looked in the right places, there was a load of the Mega CD consoles and games going cheap.

There was one game on the Mega CD that I’d come to own, that I actually put a considerable of time into; probably the only one bar Championship Manager on the PC, and that was Dune. But Dune broke me. It was a role-playing-game that featured footage from the 80’s film with Sting in it; the further you went along, mining spice, fighting wars and all that, the more footage you unlocked. I remember really enjoying the story aspect to it and having a few break-through moments where I figured out how to do things that I couldn’t previously do, where before, I would’ve quit, very quickly. Something about this game compelled me to stick with it. I was really enjoying it, looking-forward everyday after-school to get home and play it. I actually felt like I was finally seeing the benefit of persevering with something. It took me weeks, probably months, but I got right to the end of the game.

The Mega CD had some inbuilt memory, which the Mega Drive never had, which meant you could save games, which at the time, was revolutionary; but it was temperamental. It was whilst playing one day, that the CD thing seemed to get stuck, making a disturbing noise, whilst the image on the screen froze. My Fremen guide leading to me the final battle in a the Onri-Thoptor. I can still see that boxy-poloyon image now; it’s soldered onto my brain. I did what any what any desperate person, who doesn’t know what they are doing does, and powered it off at the wall. I turned it back on again, only to reveal that all my saved data had been wiped. Gone. I was gutted, mate. Hours and hours of gaming. The one game that I’d tried really hard with and seemed to be getting somewhere with, and BOSH, deleted, all gone. The kid that didn’t eat the marshmellow probably would’ve started again. Did I go back and start again? Course I didn’t.

I carried on playing games for a few more years in a similar pattern. I remember enjoying Metal Gear Solid on the Playstation 1 and completing that (on easy mode, of course) but gradually I moved away from games, and once I’d started rapping, music pretty much took-over.

Though I’d largely stopped playing games, the patterns continued to play-out in other areas of my life. I couldn’t stick things out; whether it was exercise, doing college work, getting up on time for work, playing with football teams, being unable to resist buying loads of trainers on my credit-card, even when I started going to open mics; they’d be weeks and weeks where I wouldn’t go.

Thinking about that marshmallow experiment, the friends I had who were good at computer games and would see them through, mostly went on to do well in life. Did they all go on to become widely successful, though? Not necessarily, but certainly displayed some general life competencies they older they got; I’m sure they know how to change a car tyre or do a bit of basic plastering; or avoid the kiddie section of the sweetie shelf in their local Londis.

I suppose the question is, for me, is what do you do with all the kids that can’t control their temptations, or even adults for that matter? I’m not sure what the answer is, but from what I’ve learned on this little journey I’ve been on, is that there is probably some deeper reasons as to why that kid has to have that marshmellow right there and then; and it’s about working-out with them what that is, then working with them to build up the resilience to resist it. Only then might they realise that Marmellows aren’t very nice anyway and computer games are over-rated.

If you’re able to, these are ways you can support my work

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THE SUBURBAN BOOK

My 1^st book collection of stories and poems

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Beats & Elements: A Hip Hop Theatre Trilogy

2 plays I co-wrote plus Denmarked by Conrad Murray

https://paulcree.co.uk/shop/beats-and-elements-a-hip-hop-theatre-trilogy

BUY-ME-A-LAGER

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Do not be ashamed of help. It is your task to achieve your assigned duty, like a soldier in a scaling-party. What, then, if you are lame and cannot climb the parapet by yourself, but this is made possible by another’s help?

Book 7 – 7

I once described my overall experience of secondary school as shit. Thinking about both learning and the social development sides of it, I broke it down as being alright at somethings at crap at others, putting that into the formula of alright plus crap equals shit. I was proud of it; the equation that is, not the sentiment.

What that line really meant was that I was ok, or very average, at some subjects like English and PE, I had a few mates, but struggled in most other subjects, and was never that cool, the net result being, on balance, my experience was largely negative; a bit like, I imagine, supporting a club like Crystal Palace (mugs) just aimlessly bobbing about in the lower reaches of the Premier League and never really doing anything of note; and having that fanbase with the banners and drums.

There were many subjects and concepts I struggled to get my head around. The idea in the French language of having a masculine and feminine for most words always baffled me. Most things in maths, beyond add, subtract, divide, and multiply confused me. I had difficulties with spelling and my handwriting was terrible. And I couldn’t sit still for very long, or I’d just stare out the window.

The most common feeling I felt in school, was the feeling of inadequacy, the feeling that everyone else is racing ahead in their learning, and you’ve not got a scooby-doo what’s going on, but you’re still trying to do what you can to keep up, hoping that no one notices. Like running a race, with your shoes on the wrong feet, laces untied and no idea what direction you’re meant to be going in, so you try and badly imitate what the others are doing, and push down those feelings of frustration, anger, shame and despair; just praying that you get through it without making a bellend out of yourself. Or you just give up running and slink off to the park to dick-about and feign indifference to it all.

What I’ve come to realise, and it’s taken me a long time to reach this point, is that when I need to do something important, I panic a lot, inevitably leading to making poor decisions. My life’s been full of them. Years of doing that probably affected confidence in my own ability to do anything competently and to a degree, probably leading to sometimes displaying an air of indifference about things, like my days at secondary school, or worse; helplessness. The latter resulting in people sometimes stepping in to try and assist me with something; like when I can’t seem to operate the trolley release mechanism at the supermarket, even though I’ve put my £1 in. At times, this is useful, and genuinely helpful, but most of the time, absolutely infuriating and embarrassing. But I got used to it to a long time ago, and at some point, just accepted that this is how it is.  

This panicking thing has haunted me a lot. The only way I can describe it, is like someone asking you a fairly simple question. Let’s say in this example, the question is represented by magnetic fridge letters which spell the question or an instruction out on a fridge. When it comes to my turn to respond, and the panic sets in, it’s like all the letters on the fridge are suddenly ripped-off and thrown in the air, so you end up on the floor, manically trying to arrange them back into something that makes sense, which is really difficult, and the longer it goes on, the more the pressure builds, till you end up either giving-up and withdrawing inside your own head, or spelling out any old shit, just to get the person asking the question off your back, then withdrawing inside your own head. The consequence of both, often ending up being, the person on the other end of this, thinks you’re not capable, or thick, you’re don’t care, r you’re someone that needs a lot of help. Well, at least that’s what my paranoia tells me.

Over time, I probably became scared of that feeling of panic, so would avoid situations where it might arise, which is probably how I wound up in lower sets for some subjects, or doing these ‘extra help’ sessions, or taking up pastimes that I knew no one else who was doing, like this. It’s maybe also why, a lot later in life, I started performing, I felt I had to put myself into uncomfortable situations, maybe to compensate for all the other times I chickened out of others. Taking up different forms of writing, as much as I enjoyed it, really meant, that I’d be doing it on my own, so no one could intervene, take-over or boss me around. It’s this last part which I hate more than anything. Most of the time, I didn’t want the help.

One year in secondary school, year nine I think, I’d had a particularly bad report sent home and with exams looming, the school decided that those of us who’d got crap reports, would have to do these not-quite-afterschool-detention-help-sessions.  The first of these not-quite-afterschool-detention-help-sessions, involved watching a documentary about a teenage girl who tried to stab her mum and got sent to young offenders. The rest, if I can remember, were talking about fairly useful things like time management. I can see why the school did it, and the intentions behind these classes were good, but I do remember thinking, why am I here, and why I am watching videos about nutters? Sometimes I was a bit naughty, as in I might answer-back to a teacher once in a while (then get bollocked and I’d quickly have my tail between my legs), or I’d chuck some screwed-paper at some kids head in a lesson, or bunking off in the park next door; but that was about it; I don’t think I was on the path to a life of violence and crime.

Those not-quite-afterschool-detention-help-sessions were a double-edged sword, as whilst it was embarrassing and shame-inducing just being there, I also got this perverted sense of pride in it. I was in with all the rude boys, and a couple of other inbetweeners like me, as in the not-quite naughty, not-quite smart, not-quite cool but not-uncool either, kids. In either the short-term or the long-term, I don’t think it did me any good. If anything, I was already on the path to mentally checking out of school, it probably just accelerated the travelator out of there.

These behaviours carried on into my work life of post-education low-paid menial jobs, where I’d often make silly mistakes, like adding an extra 0 to a bank payment, soldering the wrong component, filing things in the wrong place, which meant my superiors would either bollock me, or sometimes deem it necessary that I needed extra help; neither of which, in principle, I have a problem with. You’re on someone else’s dime, you’re meant to be doing a job.

In one of these gigs, in fact no, this happened at two different jobs (a call-centre and an office) someone was detailed to sit with me, one-on-one for a few days, to try and make me less-shit at what I was doing. It was humiliating, especially in an open-plan office, but like the not-quite-afterschool-detention-help-sessions; well intentioned. I seem to remember it helping me a little bit with the office job, as we had to work this spreadsheet which was pretty complicated for me, but mainly, it just made me hate the job even more than I did before; spending my days, where I could, withdrawing inside my own head; either cursing the world or thinking about things completely unrelated to what I was meant to be doing.

Did any of that extra help make me a better employee? Or student? Probably not. But neither me, nor them, could identify that I was panicking a lot of the time, and when I wasn’t doing that, I’d be numbing myself to it by indulging in ridiculous hero and victim fantasies, or I’d distract myself by thinking about silly things that made me laugh, or sending stupid emails to work colleagues. I passively accepted that I was no good at whatever it was that I was meant to be doing, and spent my days trying to avoid people and just getting through it. But sometimes, that’s impossible, especially in a job where all your vital statistics get printed up on a display board every month and you’re consistently languishing down the bottom; for everyone to see.

Something else I should mention here, is that toxic form of learned helplessness. That is something that at times, has reared its ugly seductive head with me. These difficulties one may have, whatever they are, can appear to give you some sort of special status. In a very distorted way, it can feel somewhat good, almost powerful, but can end up becoming a crutch, or forming a part of your identity, as opposed to just a bump in the road that needs addressing. Thankfully, I’ve largely been able to see through that kind of thinking, and the perverse benefits of adopting that attitude to all that crap, never over-powered the shame and negativity of being seen as someone who struggles with stuff. But in most cases; I just wanted everyone to fuck off and leave me alone; including me.

There’s an accomplice to the learned helplessness too, on the part of the helper. Over the years, I learned to do things on my own, however incompetent, as long as I was doing something that vaguely resembled what I was meant to be doing, that was better than nothing. I became very distrustful of people who wanted to help me, probably at times to my own detriment, but at least some of that mis-trust was justified.

There’s been countless times where I’ve been doing something, like cooking dinner, just happily cracking on with it, in my own little space, thinking about stuff, and someone uninvited, has decided I need help, but ends up taking over what I’m doing. I generally don’t like confrontation, and don’t like being rude to people, so often stay quiet to not upset the apple cart. Often, that help, didn’t much help me, at all. It just left me infuriated and humiliated, but as it’s all done on the pre-text of helping, it’s difficult to call-out the bull shit of it. The bullshit, I’ve often suspected as being, that the person in that scenario trying to help, is just doing it to make themselves feel good, or feel superior over someone like me. At least, that’s what my paranoia always tells me. They would walk away feeling good, I’d be left to eat the meal I’d hadn’t made, pissed off and deflated. 

One of the reasons I took to writing, was that I could do it on my own, on my own terms. I didn’t know anyone that was doing it, I didn’t really tell anyone that I was doing it, not for a while anyway, therefore no one could tell me what to do with it, or, tell me that I what I was doing was no-good. And that I needed help. Being isolationist like that, in the long run, probably stunted my development, but had I not done that, I probably would’ve got fucked-off with it and stopped.

Over years of quietly beavering away at it, I built up my way of doing things and had a couple of minor results with it, like gaining a little bit of a name on the London spoken word circuit. Largely, at the start of it at least, on my own, off my own back.

Aside from all of the above, I can also be a stubborn prick, which in some weird way has also probably helped with me persisting with this. Sometimes, well-meaning people, would suggest things for me to do with what I was writing. Nine times out of time, I’d completely zone-out and ignore them. This was my thing, and yep, I was probably overly-sensitive about being criticised, but my thinking was, fuck off, just leave alone to make mistakes, I’ll figure it out, thankyou. In most other areas of my life I’d gotton so much criticism, so just give me a pass on this one. No one had asked me to do this, I did it off my own back. Most of those people meant well, but some, I think just got off on pointing out mistakes, or making out they had some knowledge they could impart on me, again, who was this help really for? So again, I’d withdraw. So despite a couple of good outcomes, a bit of music produced, a few gigs etc, I largely worked away at it, on my own, for a long time.

At some point, though, with no outside influence, or people to bounce ideas off, you start getting stuck in your ways, and eventually eating yourself. I realised, almost too late, that if I wanted to progress, that I needed help, I wanted help, I didn’t know what I was doing. My dad helped me find a writing course at Birkbeck college that introduced me to loads of stuff and I joined a poetry group, where we had to write and share what we were doing every week; in both of these things we also had tutors, who knew what they were doing. I’d never had one before; the feedback I got was both encouraging but more importantly, crucial, as it pointed out things I never would’ve thought about. And pushed me into trying new things.

Sitting in rooms full of other writers, could also be really inspiring. Someone presenting an idea could spark off an idea in me. All of this helped me to push what I was doing, and more importantly, develop it, get better at it, try new things with it. I then went on to make, what at the time, were a couple of really big leaps with what I was doing. I went from writing raps and silly poems with punchlines at the end, to stories and long-form monologues, which eventually pushed me into theatre spaces and I learned even more new stuff; and I’m still learning.

I’ve sat in rooms with dramaturgs and had my writing pulled apart. I’ve had my work reviewed by critics and put through its paces by editors. All of which, has vastly improved what I was doing. It seems strange to point out, but the help, really helped me out. Which is what help is for

I’m at a stage now where I feel I could do with some help again. Some sort of guidance or mentoring would really be of benefit right now. I feel that most things I’m working on could be a lot better but I’m not quite sure how to get there, and I know that on my own, I’m likely to stay stuck in a place where I’m pumping out the same shit, and I end up getting negative and restless. But the help has gotta be right, and meaningful. I’m at the parapet again, and Marcus is right, I will need the help, and I want the help. Last thing I want is to remove myself away, , withdrawing back into my own head and cussing everyone around me, if anything, that doesn’t make interesting reading; and perhaps I’ll work out a new formula to summarise a good experience. Hard work plus good help = happy times.  

BUY-ME-A-LAGER - https://ko-fi.com/paulcree

The Suburban Book: - https://paulcree.co.uk/shop/thesuburban

Romeo & Julliet @ Polka Theatre

https://polkatheatre.com/event/romeo-and-juliet/

Greetings, bonjour, whatt’s happening? Quick little heads up, I’m no longer including the long written introductions here, it’s taking too long and it’s probably not that interesting. However, I do introduce it on the podcast version, hopefully this streamlines it a bit more. Usual support links at the bottom, large up. Paul

On the Good Catholics

‘‘Whenever you want to cheer yourself, think of the qualities of your fellows – the energy of one, for example, the decency of another, the generosity of a third, some other merit in a forth. There is nothing so cheering as the stamp of virtues manifest in the character of colleagues – and the greater the collective incidence, the better. So keep them ready at hand.’

Book 6 – 48

I was raised a Catholic, in a church going catholic family, went to catholic schools, so therefore by default; grew up in a catholic community. The majority of people I knew, for probably the first ten to fifteen years of my life, would have been Catholic. My upbringing was never that strict, not in the stereo-typical way, and my school was probably quite progressive for a Catholic school. If anything, both the schools and the church I went to were a bit half-arsed, like the current Man United team – not the force they once were, perhaps resting on once mighty laurels; but never the less, it was a catholic upbringing. 

I read somewhere once there’s over 7 million Catholics in the UK, the majority of which, at some point or other, are children of immigrants. The Catholicism in my family comes from my Granny, who was Irish by way of her mother (her Dad was English) but she lived in the south of Ireland as a young girl with my Auntie, before coming to England where she grew up. Though predominately white, most of the kids at my school had parents or grandparents from somewhere outside of England.

Despite being mainly around other Catholics, there were a couple of times as a kid, where I can remember a few sly comments made about being us being Catholics. Growing up in the south-east of England, this of course was nothing compared to what my parents would have gone through, in a different era, both having family from Glasgow and Belfast; both Protestant and Catholic. One of these little moments, was in the Cub Scouts, when some twat who was one of the helpers, must’ve been talking about church to me and brother. He was laughing at us being Catholic, and was going on about ‘all that ritualistic nonsense’ which I didn’t understand the meaning of at the time, I just remember feeling a bit hurt, confused and embarrassed; but not sure why. A minor thing of course, but perhaps the first time I became aware of some kind anti-Catholic sentiment.

The other times was when I was in Marine Cadets, on those big parade-days when it became painfully obvious who the catholic kids were. At some point everyone had to say the Our Father, and being Royal Navy, British Armed Forces  and all that, they were Church of England services, so they always said that extra line at the end of the prayer which Catholics didn’t say. I didn’t know about this line, or I’d being on auto-pilot and forget it, and thinking we’d got to the end of the old Lord’s prayer, I’d give it a big old ‘Amen’ but these pricks were still going! With some thy is the kingdom bollox! I’d be thinking, Where did this extra line come from?! What happened to brevity?! Jesus-wept. See what I done there?

And of course, I have lots of siblings. I’m one of 7 kids. Probably by the age of 12, I would’ve lost count of the amount people, when hearing of my big family, would make some wise-crack about jonnies or ‘was there nothing on the telly.’ My parents like to make love, I fully respect that. Also, on that note, but a side-note in all of this – I remember being confused as a child, as a big message being pumped out by society at the time, it seemed, by way of Grange Hill and posters at the doctors surgery etc (but obviously not my school, though half-arsed it was still catholic) was promoting the use contraceptives and the idea of family-planning. So when I once asked my mum if I was planned, and she said no, you just came along, I was thinking do I need to get on the blower to Esther Ranson?

By the time I’d grown up and left home (and already gone through a few rebellious years where I refused to go to church and told everyone I’d turned my back on it all) the circle of people I knew would’ve changed quite a lot.

I lived in Brighton for a couple of years in my early twenties (where I was trying to do the music thing) then moved up to London, and eventually found myself, by happy accident, working in the arts. The amount of catholic people I knew, and other practising religious people in general, became less and less.

Moving about in these circles, with a lot of very liberal, agnostic people, it wasn’t that rare to encounter avowed atheists and occasionally confrontational pricks, who would want to start slagging the church off as soon as they became aware I was Catholic; as if by magic, right there and then, I was the living embodiment of the Vatican and the clergy, and the default defender of all the many misdemeanours, whilst casually holding my Lourdes holy-water bottle, in the shape of Our Lady, flinging it about, blessing everyone; when all I probably wanted was a cup of tea and a Twix from the venue café, wherever it was I was working.

To be fair to them, a lot of these people would’ve grown up in the church themselves, gone to catholic schools etc and of course there was no shortage of scandals, and possibly bad personal experiences, so some would’ve had genuine reasons for their resentment. I can sympathise why a person would turn their back on it; I did, for a good few years. Didn’t work out for me, though.

The ones who really wound-me-up, were the types who’d make these sweeping generalisations, not just about the church, the religion, but more importantly, its devotees, whilst seemingly knowing very little about it, other than a few well-worn cliches about pedo-priests and no the-rubber-embargo.

In the funded-arty-hyper-liberal-circles I was rolling in, slagging off the Catholic Church was a free-hit. It seemed as if it could give a person the vizard of being edgy, or intelligent, or rebellious even. You weren’t likely to find many people who would want to defend it; not in those places, anyway. Sometimes I’d get a bit narked-off and at least try and provide a bit of context, nuance, and actual lived-experience (a phrase that by now, of course, is probably used by those very same people, to justify their annoyance at some big-injustice they want to shout-to the world about)

Some of these people were committed atheists, some of them were lapsed Catholics, some of them agnostic and some of them were just bellends with big-mouths and not-a-lot of depth underneath the mega-tropes. Seemingly they enjoyed referencing the nonce-scandals and going on to make scathing remarks about the rest of the faith, with very little regard for anyone present, who may still be into it. I never heard them talk about any other Chrisitan denominations, or other religions for that matter (all of which probably have their scandals) apart from the odd generalisation about organised-religion being the cause of all wars or whatever; though they all seemed to like Buddhism. As I said, free hit.

I was no defender of the church, especially the scandals, and there were enough of those. In fact, some years before my time, there was a local priest who was embroiled in some abuse case. I read somewhere the church hid him away for years, before the story came out; why would I want to defend that?! However, when someone would start going off on one, whilst not really knowing what they were talking about, just armed with stereotypes and not a lot else, having grown up in it, aside from pissing me off, it would have this side-effect of making me reflect on my own experiences of it. Sometimes I’d retort, most of the times I’d just move on, get my tea, Twix, dip, sip then scarper; as I doubt they were ever interested in having their minds changed, or at least hearing an alternative view. (For the record, I’ve met plenty of Catholic people, and those of other faiths, who are equally narrow-minded and stubborn, but we’re not talking about them today)

When I’d calm down, and actually think about growing up as in this religion, there was always one thing that comes to mind, when thinking about it all: not the Pope, the Vatican, the Bishops, the rituals, the bible, the guilt-stories, the nonce-stories, confessions, communion, transubstantiation, the standard-issue Holy-Water-from Lourdes; no, it’s always the people who made up the parish of English Martyrs, Horley, and the other neighbouring churches and associated schools in Crawley; in other words, the local church community I grew up in. That’s what always comes to mind.

In that community, were some of the most selfless, giving, kindest and caring people I have ever come across in my forty years on this planet; and that includes a few priests too. People that looked out for each other, and others too, inside and outside of the church community.

There were people who probably didn’t have much themselves but would drop-off bags of clothes and food to other families they knew who were struggling (my family benefited from this, many times - I’ll never shake off those memories of sheer joy and excitement, when a bag of clothes would get dropped off on the doorstep, from a family with older kids, and then began the squabbles with my siblings about who got what.)

When we didn’t have a car, there was often someone from the church, pulling over in the street and giving us a lift home when mum had a weeks worth of shopping, even if it was going out of their way. I remember my late Godmother’s husband, driving all us kids the 100 odd miles down to Dover a few times when my nan died, sat through the while funeral and wake (that was also the first time I ever tasted beer) he didn’t bat an eyelid. Or one of the Eucharistic Ministers putting money in mums’ hand to help with the train fares back and forth to Kent, when Nan was sick. Fr Spellman taking the whole parish down to Littlehampton for the day; every year, out of his own pocket; those were great times. And these are just a few examples; there are tons more.

I could probably write a book on the amount of good people I knew, growing up in the church; who were great people. Were there a few wrong’uns? There probably was. Were there a few bellends? There probably was; were some of them a bit nosey and annoying? Definitely, but they paled in significance to the good ones.

I’ve met plenty of good people outside of the church, of course they exist, it’s just whenever I actually think about it, all those old faces all pop into my mind. It’s important to me that I do remember them and try and emulate their great examples of humility and charity (just without the annoying bits).

When people so casually coat the church off, it doesn’t bother me nearly much as it used too; though clearly it still has some effect, as I wouldn’t be writing this. If anything, I feel sorry for them for being so wilfully ignorant about things which are far more complex that just muggy aspersion cast-outs; even if they if they think it makes them look good. The irony often being, that they have a religious-like zeal in their condemnations; let him without sin cast the first stone and all that.

I feel blessed (no pun intended) that I had these kind-hearted people in my life, outside of my own family, who often gave so much and expected nothing in return. I feel like I want to at least try and do all those good people a bit of justice, in my own little way; so I’ll keep fighting the good fight and large them up where I can, and try and emulate them, or at the very least, do like Marcus says and think of them when I’m castigating the world around me. Now, where’s that Twix? I fancy a cup of tea.

Romeo & Julliet@ Polka Theatre

https://polkatheatre.com/event/romeo-and-juliet/

BUY-ME-A-LAGER

https://ko-fi.com/paulcree

THE SUBURBAN BOOK

My 1^st book collection of stories and poems

www.paulcree.co.uk/shop

Beats & Elements: A Hip Hop Theatre Trilogy

2 plays I co-wrote plus Denmarked by Conrad Murray

https://paulcree.co.uk/shop/beats-and-elements-a-hip-hop-theatre-trilogy

Greetings, bonjour, what’s happening

Welcome to Lager Time, legions of lager-lites, grab your tins, your bottles and your pints. My name is Paul Cree and this is my little podcast and blog where I share bits of my writing: stories, poems, thoughts, sometimes music etc.

So what’s been happening? A fair bit. Last week I was in rehearsals for a theatre show, Romeo & Julliet at the Polka Theatre in Wimbledon. It’s a modern retelling, set in Merton, and is all done through live music - Rap, beatbox, singing, guitar and a loop-station. The show opens this Saturday and is aimed at young people, between 9-12 but there should be something for all the family in it. There’s over 26 songs in the show that I have to learn, as well as almost a hundred ques that I need to remember. I’m one of the understudies but will be performing between the 10^th – 14^Th April, much later in the run. Alongside that, it’s my usual work with Dream Arts and Fourth Monkey Drama School.

Before I get round to introducing the next piece in this little Meditations series, I wanted to hark back to the intro post for this latest season (and also the reason why I started this latest series) where I took about reading books, to chat a little bit about what I’ve been reading, as I suppose it’s relevant. I tend to have a couple of books on the go at one time, one fiction and one non-fiction or light-ish  book.

I recently finished ploughing my way through Mister Good Times, which is the autobiography of soul DJ Norman Jay, the man behind the Good Times sound system. It was a decent read as it charts the development of lots of the music that came out of London from the 70’s onwards. The book was given to me as a birthday gift, from a good pal of mine, Richard Purnell, who himself is a writer (and wrote one of my favourite blogs about old books with the old dick and balls scibbled in them) Richard has recently started his own Substack blog, which you can find a link to HERE or in the notes of the podcast.

So in that Norman Jay book, when he talks about his younger years, getting into football and the like, he mentions reading these Skinhead books by a writer called Richard Allen. The way he talked about them, was that at the time they were some kind of street phenomenon, lots of working-class teens were reading these books; which took my interest. Last month, whilst having a few beers with my two oldest brothers and a few of their old mates, one of them, Dom, by chance was telling me he was re-reading all those Skinhead books. He consequently sent me a link to a BBC documentary from back in the 90’s, about the books and the writer, Richard Allen, who seemingly no one knew much about, and was pretty far removed from that culture, yet, he wrote a boat-load of these cult classics, which have become collectors items. So I’m currently reading the first, Skinhead, and it’s alright. There’s a lot of violence, racism, and sexism - the main character and his mates are horrible, it pulls no punches in that regard, but if it’s a snapshot of those times, even if it’s somewhat exaggerated, then I think it plays a part. I certainly don’t find myself rooting for this main character, he’s an anti-hero in that respect – but I’m enjoy it. It reminds me of a lot of Irvine Welsh books, many of which I’ve read, or that BBC film Made in Britain that Skinnyman sampled on his first album Council Estate of Mind. I wonder if all those people were influenced by these books.

Aside from Skinhead, I’m ploughing my way through a book I first read a couple of years ago, called New Class War by Michael Lind, which came out in 2020 I think, if you want to get a good understanding of the political climate of the last few years in the UK and the US it’s well worth a read. And I’ve also been reading a book by the comedian Rob Becket, off the back of other comedians’ books - Romesh Ranganathan and Geoff Norcott. All of which make me a laugh a lot more when reading what they’ve written, than they do when they perform their stand-up; I’ve no idea why that is.

So, continuing with these pieces I’ve been writing, inspired by the 12 books of Mediations by Marcus Aurelius, this week I get stuck into a quote from Book 5 and it’s called On Mad Skills vs Try Hard. Almost half-way through this series, hope you’re enjoying it as much as I am.

As ever, if you like this odd little niche thing that I’m doing over here, please recommend it to a mate, and if you fancy whipping the wallet out, you can make a donation on my Ko-Fi account, Buy-Me-A-Lager – there’s a few copies left of my first book the Suburban, which you can grab on my website alongside a couple of other bits – then of course there’s some music on Spotify, Apple, and videos on You Tube and all that caper

Keep it Larger   

Peas and taters

Paul

BUY-ME-A-LAGER - https://ko-fi.com/paulcree

The Suburban Book: - https://paulcree.co.uk/shop/thesuburban

Romeo & Julliet @ Polka Theatre

https://polkatheatre.com/event/romeo-and-juliet/

Richard Purnell is Writing -

By The Factory Wall (Richard Purnell) – Why a Kindle is Not for Me

https://richardpurnell.org/2011/04/23/why-a-kindle-is-not-for-me/

Mister Good Times – Norman Jay MBE

https://www.waterstones.com/book/mister-good-times/norman-jay/9780349700670

Skinhead Farewell – Richard Allen Documentary

Made In Britain Film

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0084287/

Skinnyman – Council Estate of Mind

On reading Books – Paul Cree

https://cree.substack.com/p/on-reading-books

On Mad Skills vs Try Hard

They cannot admire you for your intellect. Granted – but there are many other qualities of which you cannot say, ‘but that is not the way I am made’. So display those virtues which are wholly in your own power – integrity, dignity, hard-word, self-denial, contentment, frugality, kindness, independence, simplicity, discretion, magnanimity. Do you not see how many virtues you can already display without any excuse of lack of talent or aptitude? And yet you are still content to lag behind. Or does the fact that you have no inborn talent oblige you to grumble, to scrimp, to toady, to blame your poor body, to suck up, to brag, to have your mind in such turmoil? No, by heaven, it foes not! You could have got rid of all this long ago, and only be charged – if charge there is – with being rather slow and dull of comprehension. And yet even this can be worked on – unless you ignore or welcome your stupidity. 

BOOK 5 - 5

Back in the mid-nineties there was this striker at Millwall called Chris Malkin. I remember we signed him from Tranmere, after we got relegated from what was then Division 1, I think, which is now the Championship, I think. He was a target-man, very tall - scored the majority of his goals with his head, of course. I don’t remember him being prolific, but he would get ten to fifteen goals a season.

To me, he didn’t play or look like a professional footballer. What is a professional footballer even meant to look like?... to a twelve year old at least; but to me back then he looked about 50, like he should be wearing some cheap ill-fitting suit, cheerily teaching science in a secondary school to a load of dis-interested mouthy twelve year-olds, constantly mugging him off - This gangly awkward guy, with dark hair that jumped with all the grace of a giraffe on a bouncy castle; at least that is how I remember him. But the main thing I remember thinking about Chris Malkin, was: how is this geezer a professional footballer?

Here’s the thing, making that statement would suggest he was shit, he wasn’t. He was an effective striker at that level, who had a decent career in the lower leagues. I think for my simple young mind, to be a pro, and a striker at that, you needed to have loads of mad skills. As in overhead kicks, multiple stepovers, taking on ten players and scoring hattricks (not that Millwall ever had anyone like that… except maybe Christophe Kinet, the smoking Belgian) – all the while looking like you’re the popular kid in school that gets all the chicks, like the smoking Belgian Christophe Kinet.

There were a couple of kids I knew growing up, who I remember as being amazing players: too good for the playground, too good for the school team and too good for the local teams – they both got on the books at professional clubs, Crystal Palace and Southampton I think  - but never quite made it as pro’s. How?! I remember thinking, they’ve got mad skills

I never quite understood it, because when we are at school, what these kids could do with a football was out of this world, so it often made make me ponder If these kids mad skills aren’t mad-skills enough - how much in the way of mad-skills do you need to make it as a pro?!

Much later in life, in my early twenties, there was another guy I played 5-a side with, who’d played non-league for a stint. He was amazing, so much so that our main tactic was – just give the ball to Matt, and he would ping goals in from impossible angles, using both feet, whenever he felt like it. I believe he got as far the reserves for a sixth-tier side, but never even made it at that level; so, again, I’d think How much mad-skill do you need to make it as a pro??? And what is the average mad-skill level of a pro? Insane skill???

Not until many years later, did I start to think, that maybe there is a bit more too it than just being technically brilliant with a  football at your feet. Obviously, just not to me.

There’s that famous Alex Ferguson quote, which goes something like ‘Hard work will always overcome natural talent when natural talent does not work hard enough.’

Now the case of Chris Malkin, I’ve no idea if this is true or not, but I imagine he was on that training pitch early every day, putting a 1000% into every drill, following every instruction exactly, attending every charity appearance or children’s ward trip at Christmas, boots always clean, performing every task to perfection. And a cursory glance on-line, tells me he’s running his own physio-therapy practise, which would suggest he would’ve had to undergo training for to get certified; which was probably hard work. I think this is how the Neville brothers made it as pros at Man United – they’re tactic was just work your bollox off and be as diligent as possible. In my mind, these are the people that mainly make it in the world of professional football and probably life in general. Even the tiny percentile of players who genuinely have mad-skills, like a Ronaldo, have probably dedicated their entire lives to this football caper, obsessively, since they were kids.

For the last fifteen years (give or take a few where I had to go back to part-time) I’ve (just about) made my living (on and off) in the arts, working as a writer and a performer, of sorts. Prior to this, I’ve had a number of different low-paying jobs, some of which were pretty tough, at times. This job, at times, believe it or not, can be tough, but not tough like grafting on a building site, in the depths of winter, eight hours a day, for not-a-lot-of-dough. The toughness of what I do is in the insecurity of it and the occasional difficulties of trying to work with vulnerable people. I’m self-employed. Most of my money is earned through running workshops or working on community projects, often in and out of educational settings, working with mainly young people, but not always, showing them what I do, or working with them to create something: theatre, poems, music etc – and occasionally, I get paid to perform or write something, that gets performed in some sort of performance-venue, with lights and that.

What I do is related to shows: stages and lights, dusty velvet curtains, I guess. Occasionally I’ll meet people who’ll ask what I do, when I tell them, sometimes, they say something like I’d love to do what you do… which I’m never quite sure how to respond to it, but sometimes, they’ll go on elaborate; because:

I write songs / I paint / I write poems  / My mates say I’m funny and I should do stand-up  / I was amazing in my school play as the donkey.…  / I wrote this amazing song once…

none of which I have any problem with, until it occasionally goes beyond this into the tricker conversational waters of:   

I’d love to do what you do…. But how did YOU get to do it?? You?? If I had YOUR luck I would be amazing at what YOU do

What I often interpret as being implied here is: I’d be much better at it than YOU if I was as lucky YOU, YOU don’t deserve to do what YOU do

The latter example, being the bitter one, is quite rare to be fair; but it has happened on a few occasions. The most common comment is I’d love to what you do implying something is stopping them from doing something they want to, due to something beyond their control, like some invisible force of unfairness, which I’ve somehow avoided.

When these rare conversations take place and get to the this point, being the judgemental prick that I can often be, my response in my head to their statement of longing is no, you probably wouldn’t want to do what I do, because chances are:

you’re not going to want to spend half the time skint, and the other half worrying about where the next load of work is coming from.

You probably like holidays and probably won’t want to go years without a holiday to go on, you probably expect holidays every year

Or more importantly, whilst you’re in the formative years of any artistic pursuit long before you get paid even the smallest bit of money for your art:

you’re not going to want to make the necessary sacrifices, like choosing to not go with your mates on a Friday night, or play computer-games or watch Love Island when you get home from work, so you can work on this weird little arty-thing you do, which they probably won’t understand or mug you off for

And then then once you’ve got a bit of something that you might want to share to the world:

haul your arse round a load of half empty open-mics on a cold Monday evening, where no is listening or you are routinely heckled by drunk locals who think you’re a cunt just for stepping in front of a mic, or whatever the laborious soul-destroying equivalent is for other art forms.

All of which is necessary, in order to develop and hone your craft. It can also be pretty boring and repetitive. It takes a long time to get even remotely good at something, especially, when you don’t have that much talent or self-confidence to begin with; which is true in my case.

I’ve met a few people in the game, who may well have had a shiny spoon hanging out their arse to begin with, or who’ve had the red-carpet rolled out for them in terms of funding and opportunities, with neither examples having ever earned any of it, but most people I know, who are successful in this, have had to work their arses off and made plenty of sacrifices in order to get where they are. Or they just didn’t have many mates in the first place, even then, they’ve still had to graft and wade through the self-loathing.

For all my many faults, and I have many, this is the one thing where I can say I’ve worked pretty hard at it and made plenty of sacrifices. And look at me, I’m flying, mate…. Well not quite, I’m surviving, just about, but it helps to keep things in perspective for me when I think about the vast majority people who have an artistic craft or passion, but never make anything from it, not that financial gain should be the objective, but it does help, because you need a lot of time to persue this crap and still keep the roof over your head.

For me, part of my drive to make a career out of all of this, was that I thought it was the only thing I was remotely good at. I wasn’t academic, I had no qualifications and since dropping out of college, I’d worked in a string of low-paying shit jobs, which I myself was mostly shit at; trying to pay bills and have some sort of life on top of that was really hard. It was a pretty miserable existence; minus a few laughs, most of which involved me being drunk or stoned (though there were plenty of times I did turn this down in favour of staying in to do this) – the only other times I remember being happy was sitting on my own, beavering away trying to write rap lyrics or stuff like this. At least doing this, skint or not, I’ve created some stuff, that exists in the world, that I’m proud of, met tons of people, had some great experiences and made loads of memories. Being a brain surgeon, plumber or programmer just weren’t on the cards, mate, maybe this was the only way to live some sort of meaningful life. But to get this far, has involved a lot of sacrifice.

A lot of the gigs and opportunities I got, in the early days, were probably because I was in the right place at the right time, so I got lucky in that respect - but I had to put myself into the place, in the first place, in order to be in the right place and make sure I had something to offer should someone notice me there. Most of the work I get now, is from people I’ve worked with before, or my name has been given to someone, because I turn up and do the best job I can; and I do feel like I have a unique skill-set and a load of experience under my belt, so I have something unique to offer.

What I didn’t have, at any point, was mad skills. I had some ability, which was undeveloped, as in, I could perform a bit, rap a bit and write a bit but nothing polished or super stand-out. I may have stood-out amongst my friends, none of which did anything like this; but that’s easy. Some people are happy being that geezer in the local pub who plays guitar / is well funny / does magic tricks but that was never enough for me. Putting myself into places where there were lots of people like me, doing something similar, but with more talent, or honed skills, experience and confidence, kicked me up the arse to get much better at what I was doing and made me realise I’m not special at all, just another prick in the arty-haystack (see what I done there). So I had to graft, and even then, it’s not like I’ve made it. Whatever that even means.

When working with young people, I often come across ones with natural talent, and naturally, they’ll shine in the groups they are in, and the groups will want to elevate them to front and centre; even when they don’t always deserve it. Whenever I see them not trying that hard, I try my best to implore to them that, it’s just now how the game works, and try and paraphrase that Alex Ferguson quote, as opposed to blowing smoke up their arse and letting them sit on their laurels; because life aint that long, and in the end, has little sympathy or patience for a 40 with rapidly fading good looks, who should’ve been a footballer, painter, actor, rapper, because they had mad skills