Begging with menaces

Halloween

Hola. Hope you are well.

Last week was half-term, so I wasn’t in school, having said that I did spend most of it either in a prison or on Megabus, which are in some ways quite similar, enclosed conditions, plenty of time to think and being forced to mix with people you wouldn’t ordinarily hang out with. Which brings me on to a young child (about 8yrs old) who at one point of the journey tried to convince me of the existence of God. At one stage she told me that, “I’d done bad things in my life and she didn’t have to ask my family to know this”, cheers for that. Shortly after this her mum moved her to sit nearer to her, which in many ways was a blessing, so maybe there was a higher force at work.

In the prison, I met the brother of a comedian I know and in one of the sessions one of the inmates had just finished reading ‘Dark Star Rising’ written by my mate Pete Kalu. It’s a small world. Also in the prison I took part in a performance, doing some of my poems, in addition to this the inmates read their poems, sung and acted. It made me think there is some talent in prison, which then made me think, there could be a TV programme called ‘Prisons Got Talent’, where talented prisoners compete against one another, to see who is the most talented prisoner in the country. Instead of the winner performing in front of the Queen , like the winner of  Britain’s Got Talent, they would instead get their sentence ripped up. I’m not sure if this programme would get past the Home Office or the Daily Mail but I might just say I’m working on it anyway to get some notoriety from all the offended people. That’s how fame works isn’t it?

In other news, the clocks went back an hour on Saturday morning (2am). I’m not sure I took complete advantage of this extra hour, as at 7am on Sunday morning I was up watching the repeat of Match of the Day.

Also over the weekend, Jimmy Savile passed away, which is naturally sad for his friends and family. His show Jim’ll Fix It, was a show I watched when I was growing up. I can’t help thinking that it wouldn’t be made today, or if it were, not all the children would have their dreams come true. They would probably have to compete against each other for the prize and there would be some kind of text vote. The other thing about Jimmy Savile, is that you don’t spell his surname as you think it should be, ie it’s Savile and not Saville.

Moving on to tonight (31st Oct), and it’s Halloween. Thankfully the bell to our flat doesn’t work, which in normal circumstances can be a bit of a pain but tonight it’s alright by me. I have to be honest and say I’m not a fan of Trick or Treaters, to me it’s just begging with menaces. It’s kinda what heavies do but with silly masks. Anyway this is why, I’ve currently got the blinds drawn and have holed myself indoors.

A few weeks ago I was talking on this blog about the famous people I have been compared to. Well,on Saturday my mate, whilst watching West Bromwich Albion vs Liverpool in a pub in Manchester had someone approach him thinking he was Gok Wan. When I heard about this, it cracked me up, for starters he looks nothing like Gok Wan. My mate isn’t even Chinese, you’d think that the pre-requisite to looking like Gok Wan would be to be Chinese. I know Elvis has people of all creeds imitating him but I don’t think Gok has reached the dizzy heights of fan worship as Elvis.

And Finally… It was my first day back at school, which is always a tricky prospect for staff and pupils alike, but it did also present me with my first opportunity to have a little bit of fun at the expense of the Man Utd fans in the class about their 6-1  defeat at the hands of Man City. I know this probably doesn’t show me in a good light and it’s probably not in any teaching manual but you mustn’t forget, they are Cockney Man Utd fans!

Til next week, stay safe!