Author: Criss Crimz

Avatar Older

Older, yes. I reach the end of this week battered and bruised by the harsh mistress of ageing. My face is lined, my hair grey and thinning, my walking stick arriving in the post tomorrow. The ravages of time leave me enfeebled.

But what has my additional age gained me? Insight, perhaps. I have thought Ian particularly odd since last October, his habits inexplicable, his voice barely intelligible, his strange looks, mannerisms and alarming physical spasms highly distracting. But now that I, too, am 31 all of this is clear. It all makes sense. I won’t try to explain it here but from the other side of 30, from the perspective of an age ending in a one, these things take on meaning.

Has it gained me wisdom? No. I ate pizza on Wednesday night and had it again on Thursday morning, a car crash of poor meal planning that could have been entirely avoided. So much for ageing.

Avatar Great idea

A little while ago I went to a place called Southend, which is like a town, but it’s next to the sea, so it’s a kind of sea-town. It’s not actually in the sea, but it’s, like, right next to it.

Anyway, they have a thing called a “pier” which is like a long thin extension of the ground that lets you see what it’s like to walk on the sea without getting wet. I used the “pier” to walk a long way out on the sea and look at what Southend looks like from the middle of the sea. Normally that view would be difficult to look at because I’d be swimming and the water would get in my eyes.

If you stand in the middle of the sea and look at Southend it looks like this:

Southend from the pier

 

I started wondering whether this novel “pier” concept could be used in other situations too. Here are some of my “pier ideas”.

  1. Mountain pier. A pier extending outwards from the peak of a mountain, so you can see what it’s like to walk flat from the top of the mountain instead of going down. You could then look at what the mountain looks like from up in the air next to the mountain.
  2. Space pier. A pier that goes upwards instead of outwards, maybe not from Southend, so you can walk into space and look at earth from outside the atmosphere.
  3. Desert pier. A pier that goes over the desert because the desert is very hot so if you could walk on a pier instead you wouldn’t burn your feet on the hot sand and also it would be a bit higher up so there might be a nice breeze.
  4. Underwater pier. Like a pier on the sea, but under the sea, so people who want to walk in the sea instead of on top of it can have a nice flat surface to walk on.

Avatar Progress report

Mr. Chang, the shady Chinese businessman financing Pouring Beans Productions’ new documentary film, has now seen a rough edit of “Railways with Smidge Manly” and discussed with me some changes that are still necessary.

Clearly the public are clamouring for the release of this important film, and any delay is going to be met with considerable impatience, so to help tide us over until it’s ready to go, here is a look inside the editing process. This is, in its entirety, the list of changes that I made, explaining Mr Chang’s instructions in full.

  • Wobbly –> red train pat etc. Vertically. + coming out of station at CP
  • –> –> –>
  • Platform-train tighter or clip inb. ? straight to speech on 2nd shot
  • Barry rustling – filter out?
  • Timetables – wind noise – change for station
  • Voiceover still not good (headphones)
  • Longer gap or music between good email and people we met.

I hope this sheds some light on the philosophical and ethical issues with which we are wrestling in trying to perfect our artistic vision.

Avatar My secret tragedy

I haven’t told you about this before, but it’s about time I did. When Kev visited a couple of weeks ago we ended up talking about it and my terrible sadness was impossible to disguise. I can’t live this lie any longer.

A while ago now, I was engaged to be married. We were so happy together, so perfect for each other. I couldn’t imagine anything could come between us. I was her man and she was my bear. (She was a grizzly bear, you see.) But on the day of our wedding, just minutes before the ceremony started, she left me, running away down the street in her bridal dress. I was distraught.

You may find this hard to believe, but thankfully Kev has stepped in and provided the following sketch of that fateful moment, so you don’t have to think very hard to imagine it. In those days, as you can see, I looked a bit like Jeremy Beadle, so all in all this is a chapter of my life I’d rather forget.

Chris's Wedding Day

Avatar Sneaky peeky

Yes! It’s true: Smidge Manly, host of the hit TV show “Essex Highway”, will shortly return to our screens in an exciting new documentary, Railways with Smidge Manly.

In this new programme of as-yet unknown length, Smidge goes on a personal journey to discover the answers to questions he’s had since he was a child; questions like: what are railways? Who put them there? How do trains work? And can they feel love?

Here’s a sneaky peeky trailer.

(You can’t watch the Sneaky Peeky trailer any more because the sound was a bit rubbish and the actual film is now online. Why don’t you go watch the film instead?)

Avatar Been Shopping

After Kev and I wrote “biscuits” and “breakfast” as the first two items on our shopping list, it became clear that our entire shopping trip would be only for items beginning with B.

So we took our bags, browsed the bargains and bought a bounty.

Things we bought:

  • Biscuits
  • Breakfast
  • Buns
  • Beef
  • Burgers
  • Bananas
  • Bread
  • Beer
  • Bacon
  • Big tomato
  • Banoffee pie
  • Brown onion
  • Bow tie pasta
  • Bourneville

Things we listed but decided not to buy:

  • Bath oil
  • Biscotti
  • Bovril
  • Brut
  • Butternut squash
  • Brandy snaps
  • Bearnaise sauce
  • Bruschetta
  • Bassoon

It was, clearly, brilliant.