Equal and Opposite

Recently whilst enjoying a relaxed state of inebriation with a fellow Thespian I began to formulate a theory related to our profession. 

We were half way through a game of Scrabble and the fact that my “Toddie” was empty and the flagon of dry red my friend had brought with him was almost finished, may have been the reason we were having to consult the dictionary with increasing rapidity.

“Actinism” was the word in question. My friend, Iain Walter Mcpherson another jobbing actor going through lean times, was eager to use his “Z” on a triple letter score. I had no idea what the word meant never mind how to spell it.

I was pleased to discover from my Penguin Concise that it was spelt with an “S” not a “Z” and enlightened to learn that it is the intrinsic property in solar and nuclear radiation that produces photochemical activity.

I was amazed at my friend’s in-depth knowledge of the world of physics and enquired as to when and where he had come across the word.

“Ach,” his Scot’s lips mumbled, “I was playing Rabbit at the time in an adaptation of AA Milne’s Winnie the Pooh.”

“So,” I acerbically retorted, “You gave your character an Einsteinian-like bent?”

“No,” he replied seriously.

Not catching my creative drift he rambled on, “It was roond abute the late eighties and I had to wear some buck teeth over mi own front teeth and during a matinee performance I lost them.”

By now Iain was beginning to lose me too, as my alcohol-bemused mind could find no connection between the loss of Rabbit’s buck teeth, nuclear physics and solar radiation.

My eyes glanced down the page of the dictionary and I came across the very short definition given for an “actor.” A performer in a play for stage, film or television.

My God, I thought. What cheek!

It’s about time the world was given an explanation of what I and thousands of other jobbing actors are, what it is we do and why we do it.

I must formulate an Einsteinian-like theory.

Iain mumbled on as the last dregs of red wine in his enamel mug sat precariously balanced on his knee. He was completely oblivious to the fact that I had crossed into another dimension and was in a world of my own. We were suddenly two reminiscing monologues performing simultaneously in the same time and space.

My monologue took me back to my early days of training at the Royal Academy. A brilliant improvisation teacher, Mr. Keith Johnston, told us we were actors. “Whatcha mean by that?” piped up an ingratiating American student.

“An actor is someone who uses every part of himself, not just his voice, like a singer. Not just his arms and legs like a dancer. Not just his hands and eyes like a painter or sculptor. He uses his whole-being, he has to feed on every physical and mental attribute that his body can muster.”

Deep words for a bunch of young aspiring thespians to grasp.

We all stood dumbfounded in his class and waited for his next words of wisdom.

“Right,” he said, “I want you to blow up these balloons, and you can start by using your lungs.”

As I was blowing up mine I noticed out of the corner of my eye that he too was inflating a balloon, but before he started he took a syringe filled with some liquid out of his briefcase and injected it into the balloon. “Now we are going to take a trip inside one of the vilest monsters you can possibly imagine and one of you is going to slay it,” he said, holding his limply inflated balloon in his hand.

A ballsy female student, Annastasia Vampkov, from Bulgaria volunteered to make the trip.

Had Ms. Vampkov been born in the eighties she would have been excellent in the role of Lara Doon in the 1999 film of The Tomb Raider. This very attractive sultry looking red head was blindfolded and two male students leapt at the offer to be her guides on the trip.

The rest of us, apart from myself who was given the role of storyteller, were to be the insides of the monster. Following my draconian narration finger and toe-nails became teeth, sweaty bodies
became the tongue, hot garlic smelling breath of two Italian students became the breath of the monster, the inflated balloons, arms, legs, fingers, and torsos became the walls of the stomach and intestines.

The teacher whispered an instruction in my ear. “Now, you’re reaching the vital life- sustaining organ of the monster,” I said quickly modifying my narration to fall in line with Keith’s instruction, “if you reach out you’ll be able to feel it.”

The wet liquid-filled partially inflated balloon held tightly stretched between Mr. Johnson’s hands was placed in easy reach of the terrified Ms Vampkov. “Grasp it with both hands and rip it out”, I intoned in her ear.

She did just that. As the balloon burst covering the unsuspecting lass with water she screamed loudly and suddenly vomited. A perfectly natural reaction I thought for a Bulgarian vampire slayer.

It was at this stage in the formulation of my theory that Iain suddenly burst into an hysterical fit of laughter.

“Ye know were they were? I’d spat them rite out! They were sitting on top of this old grandma’s head in the front row of the audience!” he guffawed as he licked the remaining droplets of red wine he’d spilt off his knee.

 It just goes to show that all actors, Sir Isaac Newton and Albert Einstein are right. At any time, in any space, to every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.

Which one is me ?

All professions have written Rules of Conduct, ethical standards and certain unwritten Golden Rules.

The world of Thespians is no different and performers also have their strange list of “do’s & don’ts”. 

Maybe they are not adhered to with such fanaticism as the Hippocratic Oath of Harley street doctors but by and large they are observed. Many of my profession’s rules are founded on superstitions like, never whistle in your dressing room and never mention the Thane of Cawdor by the author’s given name of Macbeth.

The unwritten rule of not putting your daughter on the stage has been broken so many times by no other than Sir John Mills and Sir Micheal Redgrave, that the general public must think actors have no time at all for Noel Coward’s twee advice. They must suspect that my fellow knighted Thespians break rules with a regularity similar to the way that general practitioner Dr. Harold Shipman broke his Hippocratic oath during his fifteen-year serial killing spree.

Not so!

The majority of jobbing actors do follow a very strict Code of Conduct and behave in a discreet and respectable manner. It is more often than not that producers, with their uncreative heads wrapped around their balance sheets that bend the rules to suit their pockets.

But more of that another time.

A Never-do rule I personally have adhered to is to stoop below my station and accept work as an extra. No matter how empty my “Toddie” has been, even if I’ve had to resort to filling it with cooking sherry or Chateau cardboard dry red wine, I have never taken work as an extra or a walk-on.

Unfortunately a dear old friend of mine did.

Mr. Leonard Smirkovski, known as Smirnoff to his friends, found himself in the unenviable position of being very low on the readies. For over a six-month period prior to a trip to the United States, he never managed to stretch his social security Giro cheque sufficiently so that he could cover the cost of his addiction. As many quadruple vodka, lime and soda waters as he could drink before he reached the all-fall-down stage.

Lenny Smirkovski was born and bred in the East End of London and had he been born thirty years later he would have been rewarded with a leading role in the English TV soapie Eastenders. He had an impish sense of humour and was a superb con artist. At the tender age of eighteen he convinced the principal of his drama school to loan him two hundred pounds. In the late fifties this was a considerable sum of money and Lenny had carefully planned his ploy. He had lost one of his front teeth in a bar room brawl and wore a National Health plate.

“I need a root canal treatment and a bridge,” he announced to the principal. On bended knees he pleaded his case. No father, a sick mother, a younger brother and sister living in a squalid terraced house in East Ham. Finally the principal and unsuspecting bursar agreed to the loan. At graduation two years later, Mr. Smirkovski was still soaking his plate in a jam jar overnight, his front tooth was still missing and the loan remained unpaid.

By the end of the seventies Leonard was still living in the States. He was working as barman in a low life establishment in down town Chicago when he spotted a short newspaper article related to the filming of Star Wars. Absconding overnight with the bar-takings in his back pocket he boarded a flight to London and twenty four hours later was camped with several hundred hopefuls outside the gates of Pinewood studios.

He stayed with me in my Kings Cross basement flat during his stint as an extra in George Lucas’s epic. He spent five weeks clad in a storm-trooper’s plastic outfit. One evening he returned home in high spirits beaming from ear to ear.

“What’s the joke? I enquired.

“I did a great scene today.” He said, “I stood guard outside Princess Lea’s cell and did this.”

He demonstrated his action. Standing to attention, as a menacing storm-trooper should, he waved his arms up and down. “Were you on your own? Just you outside the cell?” I asked.

“No.” He replied seriously, “There were one hundred of us.”

“Then why the arm waving? I asked. “So when I see the movie I’ll know which one is me.”

Mr. Leonard Smirkovski was a true professional. He stuck to another Golden Rule of coarse acting. Never lose your character’s individuality!

His final role was in the hit English TV series “Silent Witness” which deals with case histories of a pathologist played by Amanda Burton.

He played a corpse.

May he rest in peace.

Something For Nothing

 

UK Telephone boxes

 Getting something for nothing is desired by us all. The advertising industry across the globe constantly offers us “Freebies”.
 
As a writer I am constantly bombarded with ways I can publish my novel by clicking on a web address that will guide me through to a newly released hard back, or to a free domain and my own web site. I’ve clicked on many of these offers only to realise after many hours of clicking that there is a huge $ sign at the end if I am to fulfill my dream.
 
Genuine “Freebies” are hard to come by and virtually impossible to find, unless of course you are prepared to cross the boundary and enter the world of crime.
 
During my life I have acquired the occasional “Freebie”, usually a drink and a few buffet snacks at some launch or other, either of a book or a theatrical first night party. Very occasionally I have crossed the line into the realm of petty larceny like in Harrods delicatessen counter while working as a night watchman.
 
It was during this latter adventure that I discovered another way that I could get something for nothing.
 
In the late sixties and early seventies I was an avid reader of spy fiction and science fiction and the operations of the CIA, MI5 and 6 fascinated me.
 
Trunk dialing had just reared its head in the UK. From a coin operated telephone kiosk you were able, after inserting coins, to make calls anywhere in England or overseas. The Frederick Street flat were I was staying in Kings Cross London had just had a coin operated telephone installed by the landlord. This was a wise choice on his part as he wouldn’t be left with huge bills after his tenants had scarpered into the London smog. It was a blessing to us as tenants as we could give
our number to friends and receive calls.

 

Frederick Street

 One evening after I’d just finished reading John Le Care’s novel “The spy who came in from the cold”, when Bat, a fellow tenant at the time rushed in clutching a tattered piece of paper with numbers, written with a kid’s crayon scribbled on it. He dived for the phone and punched in six of the numbers. He waited anxiously, about two minutes later he entered another six numbers, another delay, then he said proudly, “You want to talk to my mate in LA?”
 
“Los Angles, in the States?” I enquired.
 
“Yep, and it’s free!”
 
Back in the sixties we were intrigued as to how, and from whom Bat had acquired this marvellous twelve digit number.
 
“From a guy drunk in the Arms who said he’d joined MI6.”
 
“From a pissed spy?”
 
“Yeah, said he’d just been released from the cop-shop opposite, they were holding him because he’d been tailing some professor from Cambridge who had a connection with Philby and Burgess.”
 
“The Cambridge five? They were caught in sixty one, he’s a bit out of touch. How does the number work?”
 
“The first six numbers put you through to a computer, you wait for a dialing tone, then in you put the next six, wait again for a dialing tone and then dial the code and number you want; You’ve just seen it works.”
 
And sure enough it did. For the rest of that night and all of the next day we all dialed our mates up and down the country and in America, Australia, and Europe without having to put a single coin in the machine.  The scam lasted about six months and then suddenly it didn't work.
 
If like me, you don’t believe that spies like their drink and get pissed you may find my explanation a little more credible.
 
I think Bat’s pissed reprobate was a disenchanted Telcom technician who had given him the numbers to get his own back for firing him for being pissed.
 
To this day I still do not know the explanation, but I have just read on the Net even in today’s high tech environment the secret way of making free telephone calls drew the attention of time magazine in 2011when they published the following article.
 
“If you’re willing to go to the trouble of dialing your own number, waiting for the prompt, hitting 2, and then dialing the number you really want, then, yes, you get a free cellphone call. You’ll never be billed for any minutes at all.”
 
This information was released by David Pogue of the NY Times and he details the  legal, not-entirely-secret hack for making free cell phone calls, which involves Google Voice, careful selection of your cell plan’s Friends & Family numbers, and jumping through a few annoying hoops. But the reward for punching in a bunch of extra numbers on your phone is: free calls!
 
The high tech available to today’s hackers certainly beats the method I learnt in childhood from my days as a Boy Scout. Then the technology was almost non-existent and we had to rely on very fine sewing thread, cello-tape and an old penny.
 
You attached the thread by cello-tape to the penny, using the minial ammount possible, and dropped it into the slot. Very carefully you moved it up and down through the mechanism four times, hence you’d paid your four-pence and retrieved your coin. It was a time consuming and often the thread got caught but nine times of ten it worked. And if you were really lucky you could press button B and get the money you hadn’t used back, a reimbursement from the previous caller. 

This was a bonus “Freebie”.

Petty Larceny & Bar Snacks

My memories of student days are all a bit misty.

This is for several reasons related to both studying and pleasure. 

Days at RADA are easier to remember as they were part of a fixed routine.

RADA

Up early about seven o’clock, a quick shower, some breakfast, usually porridge  or cornflakes,  depending on the season, a boiled egg and then my fifteen walk from my Frederick Street flat in Kings Cross to RADA in Gower St at about eight.

Classes varied from day to day, but voice and movement were always on the itinerary.

Movement was either classical leaning towards restoration, or modern under Ms June Kemp with her cassette recorder, churning out the pop music of the sixties.

Voice and diction then followed, in the latter we mastered standard Queen’s English and various dialects, under the supervision of Ms Pursley who had us pulling faces, stretching our facial muscles and making “Piggies”.

Our voice classes in the first two terms consisted mostly of us lying on our backs viewing the peeling paint on the ceiling, and discovering how to use our inter-costal-diaphragmatic muscles in our lower chests, so that we could count to a hundred on one breath.

After voice, diction and movement, which happened every day, we would then either have classes in mime and improvisation or go into rehearsals for our term production. The day finished between five and six in the afternoon unless we had evening rehearsals.

Marlbourgh Arms

 Then it was time to visit the nearest hostelry which was called The Marbourgh Arms on Torrington Place, a five minute walk or two minute run from RADA’s front door.

This pub was the starting place for many a night of festivities. My three mates, George, Leonard and Bill were regulars for an early evening pint of Courage Best Bitter, but Leonard was soon onto his favourite, a quadruple vodka and lime, leaving us stragglers to catch up on tots of whiskey if we could afford them.

Len, who had already appeared in the movie “Loneliness of a Long-Distance Runner”, was a master con-artist not just in the bar but also at RADA, where he once managed to get a few hundred quid out of the registrar for some new front teeth that never materialized.

The three of us then drifted on our own excursions into the swinging life of London in the sixties. George usually back to his home in Welling-Garden-City where he lived with his wife and two kids, Bill to his wife-shortly-to-be, a nurse Irene, Len to the bars of Soho, and myself to The Carpenter’s Arms, the local pub opposite my flat in Kings Cross.

The Carpenter’s was a pub with a capital “P”, a remnant from the war years.

Carpenter's Arms

 It had all the attributes that I wish drinking hostelries still had today. A Men’s-Only bar, called for some inane reason the public bar, a lounge in which both sexes could frequent, a snug which was for ladies only.

I know all you free thinking liberal readers of today will think that this is archaic and conservative thinking but I think this separation of imbibing areas was highly successful.

There were “rules and regs” in place that prevented bar room brawls, allowed the ladies to gossip unmolested & peacefully, the men to play bar billiards and darts uninterrupted and swear to their hearts content.

The lounge where the sexes met had a very peaceful feel to it, and the drinks were tuppence or threepence more expensive. No swearing was allowed and meals were served, believe it or not on white linen table-clothed tables with sterling silver cutlery and napkins and the beautiful situation of this pub right opposite a police station made after-hours consumption a normal occurrence when the landlord, Paddy made the correct noises to the most senior officer in the bar.


I shared the Frederick Street basement flat with four, sometimes five, fellow students who were studying to become, accountants, scientists and general loafers. During the three years I stayed there the occupants changed, usually by word of mouth. This happened mostly during the summer break when, apart from myself who had a commitment to the NYT, or as in one summer to a company called Securicor, most of my fellow inhabitants returned to their parent’s homes.



In the summer I was a night security guard, I shared my room with a Scots lad called Agnus. It was he who introduced me to his boss at Securicor, and hence I worked all night guarding such institutions such as Harrods and the Metropolitan Police Ticket archive offices. 

All jobs, as I’m sure you know, have what are called their “Perks”. Free lunches, petrol coupons, tickets to football matches, reduced fares on the transport facilities are a few. With Secuicor it was pens, pencils, fresh exotic cheeses, cold meats and free international phone calls.

A night’s work went as follows.

Between five and six in the afternoon you arrived at the place you were to guard. You telephoned in your arrival to the head office and settled yourself into the security cubicle with book and crossword and hoped that you would not have any intruders. You had to patrol all floors of the establishment every hour and clock in to the check points on every floor, then telephone the head office with the password for that night that told them all was OK.

This usually took about twenty minutes leaving you free for the remaining forty minutes to while away the hour either reading, cross-wording or if you were lucky watching an in-house TV.

Some of the office blocks I watched over were international global companies with offices in all parts of the world. These offices also had to be cleaned. To do this the companies hired teams of cleaners who were brought in around seven in the evening. I had to check them in and search them when they left the following morning at six am.

It was these cleaners who taught me the in & outs of my job and taught me how I could avail myself of the hidden “Perks”.

These Perks involved what was called petty larceny, but one justified the taking of things as the only person loosing out was the international conglomerate, and they could easily replace the missing pens, paper, pencils, typewriter ribbons, ashtrays, cups, saucers, cutlery, tea and coffee that disappeared, either in the cleaner’s handbags or my shoulder bag.

A Molly McIntyre, a young lass from Glasgow let me into the secrets.

“Never take new things! Always used-stuff!”

I never worked out how a used tea-bag could be a profitable acquisition but half finished biros, and half worn down pencils made their way back to Frederick Street.

The main switchboard was my favourite place to spend time.

The sixties model of a switchboard looked a bit like the code-breaking Enigma machine named “Christopher” by Alan Turing who made it. Plug in cables and a wind-up ringing handle. 

Centrally placed at the top of the machine was a time or unit counter that made a record of all calls made out. I made a note of this number, let’s say it was 231 units, I would then press a button which would reduce it to zero. I would then begin my overseas and long distance trunk calls to mates in America, Blackpool, Manchester, Liverpool and Australia. I would constantly watch the counter, and when it was close to the used number of 231, I would cease the calls and dial the speaking clock to get it precisely back to 231.

While I was whiling my nightly hours in the office blocks of Shell, BP and Whimpey Construction, Angus had got himself a fantastic place to guard. 

Harrods Store in Knightsbridge and he made a point of recommending me to his supervisor that I join him for full over-time sessions at the weekends. In those days there was no Sunday trading so that meant we were on duty from 2pm on Saturday till 6am on Monday morning.

Of course this lengthy period would not happen today with the restrictive rules laid down by the government and Trade-Unions, but back in the sixties a thirty-six hour shift was not uncommon. It meant we patrolled Harrods unrestricted by cleaners till they arrived on Sunday night and we could cruise the isles of their delicatessen counters searching for prime Scots fillet, partridge pie imported Brie and Camembert Cheeses from France, and imported European salamis and sausages.

After these long sessions we were given a forty-eight hour turn-around of days off. On these days off the regulars in the Carpenter’s Arms Men’s-Only bar and dart’s team enjoyed delectable bar snacks.

Not a word passed our lips especially to the senior detective from across the road, who really enjoyed the Polish Kielbasas, gherkins and Hungarian Korbacz that was on the snack plates.

Dehli Belly in The Nilgri Hills

The Nilgri Hills

During my illustrious career I have been involved in the making of several documentaries as a presenter, a writer, a voice over artist and even at one time a producer.

This involvement has taken me to several foreign climes, in including Australia, Swaziland, Zimbabwe, Malaysia and India. The latter is the country which is home to the Nilgri Hills, a mountain range that crosses the centre of the sub continent. The range of mountains form a
part of the Western Ghats situated in the western part of Tamil Nadu state.

It is on this range of hills that the Jack fruit grows. This is a remarkable fruit as it is the only fruit that grows directly from the trunk of the tree and not from the branches. It grows to a great size,
some a long as four feet with a girth almost as large.

In the Hindu religion it is held to be food for the Gods.

The reasons for this are threefold. To start with it is not easily accessible; secondly it is covered by very small spikes that are poisonous to touch. Although not fatal they give a nasty prick that
causes a rash on the finger.

It is for this reason that the collectors of this gigantic fruit and those that dissect it to get to the very tasty edible part, coat their hands in cooking oil. This coating gives protection from the spikes also from the gelatinous substance that surrounds the absolutely delicious inner kernel. The flavor is comparable to a combination of apple, pineapple, mango, and banana.

The Jack Fruit

Tea Pickers in The Nilgri Hills

The third reason for the protective oil coating is the gelatinous substance is like super glue when you touch it, and a visit to a local clinic is necessary to part your glued together fingers.

I mention this exotic fruit to give you an idea of the unusual fodder that crossed my lips while on this particular assignment.

I was in India travelling by road from Bombay, or Mumbai as it is now called, filming a doccie called “Behind the African Mask”. We travelled from Mumbai to the southern most tip of the sub-continent ending at the town of Trivandrum.

The premise of this documentary was exploring the theory of a Dr Cyril Hromnik who believes that Dravidian Indians crossed over the Indian Ocean as far back as 8000 BC to mine gold in Southern Africa.

This Cape Town based historian Dr Cyril Hromnik has produced a vast body of research. He paints a compelling picture of an ancient settlement of gold miners in the Eastern Transvaal and Swaziland with roots that go back to the early Dravidian seafarers who had expert navigation skills and a lust for African gold.

So the documentary attempted to answer the question; did ancient Dravidian Seafarers establish the first gold mines in Southern Africa?

Also grown of the lower slope of the Nilgri Hills is tea. Nilgiri tea is generally described as being a dark, intensely aromatic, fragrant and flavoured tea and is grown in the district of Tamil Nadu.

It was whilst I was trekking up the slopes amongst this aromatic tea that I had my first rear end explosion.

It was a low-budget production. The producer stroke writer, director and camera operator, his wife as coordinator and general dogs-body, Dr Hromnik and myself as the on screen presenter and  carrier of what else was needed, made up our full crew.

We had a hired a driver four our four wheel drive jeep as driving in India is a nightmare for anybody brought up in the western world. The driver Habba was also our interpreter and our go-between when any bribes had to be negotiated for entrance to certain historical sites.

We were on a climb through the terraced tea plantation to see an ancient dolmen, also known as a cromlech, a portal tomb or a quoit. I suppose it’s a type of single-chamber megalithic tomb.

All these strange words entered my vocabulary while I was on this shoot. I had already been made familiar with the Yoni stone and the Shivaling or Lingam, which are representations of the male phallus and the female vulva.

In Hindu philosophy the Yoni is the origin of life and an abstract creative force that moves through the entire universe, so during the climb Dr Hromnik had said we were going to see the most enormous Yoni very close to the Dolmen.

To this day I still do not know that the thought of seeing a giant Vulva or Vagina set my bowels in motion, or if it was the curried paste of the Jack fruit I had eaten the previous evening, but set in motion they were.

I quickly had to remember all the advice I’d read in Kathleen Meyer ‘s humourous , environmentally sound and explicit book entitled “How to shit in the woods”.

I borrowed a small trowel from our director, which he’d brought along for leveling the ground for his camera, and dug Kathleen’s suggested six inch hole while I squatted, hidden from the tea picking ladies, between two lines of tea bushes.

The relief was gratifying and as I strode effortlessly on an empty fuel tank up the hill to catch up with the rest of the crew, I wondered how my six inch buried semi-liquid donation would affect the aroma of the Nilgri Tea picked from the nearby bushes.

The Yoni was enormous and the dolmen was as it should be, two vertical stones with a large slab stone lain across the top. Dr Hromnik had dragged us all the way on this four hour climb to see something that we had already seen many times on our travels in the Eastern Transvaal of
Southern Africa, in Zimbawe, and in Swaziland.

His point was that he wanted to show us how the construction of this particular Dolmen and it’s orientation toward the setting sun was very similar to the ones we’d seen in Africa.

Down the hill we trekked back to our waiting vehicle and driver, who told us we had still another four hours drive till we reached our overnight stop-over in the city of Mysore.

We were visiting this city for two reasons.

Firstly our director had to cash in some dollar traveler’s cheques and we were going to see the Holi festivities in the city.

In Hinduism, Holi also called Holaka or Phagwa is an annual festival celebrated on the day after the full moon in the Hindu month of March or Phalguna, as it is known in the local tongue. It celebrates spring, commemorates various events in Hindu mythology and is a time of disregarding social norms and indulging in general merrymaking.

The central ritual of Holi is the throwing and applying of coloured water and powders on friends and family, which gives the holiday its common name "Festival of Colors."

The ritual is said to be based on a story of Krishna and Radha, when Krishna playfully splashes maids with water, but most of all it celebrates the coming of spring with all its beautiful colours and vibrant life.

Dr Hromnik said that similar festivities were also conducted by the Nguni tribes of Southern Africa, thus adding more credence to his theory that The Dravidian Indians had crossed to Africa and left some of their culture.

The following morning after spending over four hours exchanging dockets for wooden discs and then pieces of paper with hand-written instructions and signatures on them, our director finally got his hands on almost a small suitcase of Indian Rupees.

The Indian banking system is archaic and adheres to Nehru’s political doctrine of every man
having a job no mater how menial it may be.

In our hotel too this was highly evident. If I lit up a cigarette, immediately a man would appear with an ashtray. I’d drop my ash into it. Again immediately a boy would rush up and scoop the ash into a bucket. Then another boy would appear from nowhere and take the bucket across the room and empty the contents into a dust bin. Then suddenly I’d be surrounded by two boys and a man with their hands open expecting payment of a few Rupees for disposing of my tobacco ash.

Back in the bustling city, we then weaved and threaded our way through the throngs of people who were in the city for the festival. We were heading for the river where most of the “splashing” would take place.

It is estimated that over 4.5 million people come to Mysore for the Holi festival that lasts for four days. It is amazing to think that we Westerners believe we’re in a crowd at a Rolling Stone’s concert that has sixty thousand people crammed into a stadium and here we were watching close on one hundred and twenty thousand people splash around in the Kabani River.

Negotiating our way through the crowded streets was like moving through a tin of sardines, sweat, splashing water and coloured powders engulfed us and only once or twice would the crowds thin out. This was usually when a “Bloodletting” ceremony was in progress. To my eyes this event was horrific.

In a small clearing we came across a mother, son and father. The young boy was being held by his mother who was deep in a self induced trance. 

The father slowly circled the boy whose right arm was out stretched and tied tightly with a coloured silk scarf above his elbow. The father increased the rhythm of the mantra and moved in closer to his son, suddenly with a downward movement of his hand the cut-throat-razor he carried sliced into the boy’s lower arm. The mother broke her trance and held an enamel cup below the gushing blood.

We could watch no more and squeezed our way back into the thronging mass of people.

We later learnt from Habba that this practice still occurs throughout the country, particularly amongst the Shi’a Muslim community, the practitioners believing that they are ridding the victim of impure blood.

It’s called “Ashura” and is one of several ceremonies marking the death of the Prophet Mohammad's grandson Imam Hussein at the 7th century battle of Kerbala.

That night we stayed in a hotel, the one and only hotel apart from our first night in Mumbai. The budget was restrictive and most of our stops where at hostels that catered for the trade representatives that roamed the country trying to sell their merchandise, These hostels certainly
would not rate a semi-colon let alone a star.

Washing facilities were an enamel bowl and a rather unclean looking face cloth. Latrines were long drops outside, few were a little up-market as they were pig-cleaned. That means a ravenous pig quickly consumed your droppings.

Early the next morning we set of on the final leg of our journey, a drive through the rest of the Western Ghats mountain range and onto the town of Trivandrum.

My bowels were still not in a stable mood although I’d taken some Imodium tablets so I had to request several stops at what I was told were public toilets.

Fortunately we’d learnt to keep several rolls of loo paper in the vehicle as there was never any at these latrines.

All were of the “Stand or Squat” variety and all had a supply of tap water. I was told that this was for the washing of one’s hands, particularly your left hand, as this was the one you should wipe your arse with.
 

I only believed this when I noticed that all the locals, left or right handed, ate their food with the fingers of their right hand.

When I landed back at what was called Jan Smuts airport in Johannesburg the first thing I did was rush to the ablution facility and give the attendant a twenty Rand tip after I’d finished using the first flushing Thomas Crapper I’d used for three weeks.

I wish you continued happy bowel movements & use of the loo.

 A Google search will tell you more about the ducmentary "Behind an African Mask"

http://www.google.co.za/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0CB4QFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.imageworks.co.za%2Findex.php%2Fgallery%2F2%2Fbehind-an-african-mask%2F&ei=2c9iVduZDKOf7ga09oGwAQ&usg=AFQjCNGfUFWZT4Z84FS0-mSim85r0GzPmQ&sig2=Cv0WwE3cttqvAhOfaXLJyQ&bvm=bv.93990622,d.ZGU 

Cabbages, Ripe Tomatoes & Eggs

The title of this post should clearly tell you what actors and politicians have in common.

Both these professional groups have been on the receiving end of all three.

The two professions of course have other things in common. They tell lies or porky pies if you are more familiar with the Cockney rhyming slang.

Ronald Regan, ex-president of the USA and Arnold Schwarzenegger ex-governor of California are two very well known actors who became successful politicians.

The actors that have dabbled in the machinations of governance cover all countries.

Eva Peron from Argentina, Sidney Poitier US ambassador to Japan, Stephen Harper a conservative ex-Prime Minister of Canada, Jaya Bachchan an MP in India, Gina Lollobrigidia an unsuccessful candidate to the European Parliament, Jaroslaw Kaczynski a Prime Minister of Poland, Glenda Jackson a Labour Member of the UK’s Parliament. The list goes on and on and can easily be found by doing a Google search.

In the last few years Nigel Farage leader of UKIP, David Cameron the UK Prime Minister & Ed Miliband leader of the Labour opposition have all been pelted with eggs while campaigning for support, and others have received cabbages and rotten tomatoes.

The one and only time I have been pelted with assorted fruit, vegetables & eggs was when I was in the company of Charles Hawtrey of The Carry-on movies fame, Peter Bowles co-star of the BBC sit-com “To the Manor Born” with Penelope Keith, and John Challis.
  

 

 John was a young actor at the time and was yet to gain fame as Boycie in “Only Fools and Horses” and “The Green Green Grass”, both highly successful BBC comedies.

We were all in Tom Stoppard’s wonderfully satirical play about a Parliamentary Select Committee called “Dirty Linen & New-Found-Land”.

It is actually two separate plays but Stoppard, for some unexplained reason coupled them together.

Dirty Linen is a masterpiece of cynical political comedy. They are a pair of plays that are always performed together and were seen first as an Ambiance Lunch-Hour Theatre Club presentation at Interaction's Almost Free Theatre on April 6, 1976.

New-Found-Land is slipped in between the two halves of Dirty Linen. The curtain falls after the first half of Dirty Linen and then rises again for New-Found-Land in which an older and a younger man, two other Members of Parliament, briefly discuss the naturalization of an American into British citizenship. They laud the American nation as a whole, including every American patriotic cliché they can remember. 



After another fall and rise of the curtain the audience is returned to the Select Committee of Dirty Linen for the closing scene.

The production enjoyed a critical and box office success in South Africa and was invited to what was then Salisbury in the UDI state of Rhodesia.

Thus theatre entered the realm of politics. The whole cast was approached and after much deliberation it was decided that we would go to Salisbury for one week, Bulawayo for one week and have two stops at the towns of  Kwekwe and Gweru, two mining towns in the centre of the country.

At the time Rhodesia was in the state of what can only be described as Marshal-law. Driving between the major cities had to done in convey as both Mugage’s ZANU forces and those of ZAPU under the leadership of Joshua Nkomo, were roaming the country.

The South African producer and the producer from Rhodesia that invited us made a huge mistake.

They assumed that the reaction from the audience in both countries would be the same. The quasi-liberal theatre going audience in South Africa at the time enjoyed the way Stoppard ridiculed the UK parliamentary committee system and the producers expected the same reaction from the Rhodesians.


It was not to be.

Little did they know the Rhodesians were very Pro-British, loved the Queen and were enamoured of the UK Parliament, so anybody who said anything bad about the system would be in for a bad time.

Throughout our opening night in Salisbury we did not get the expected laughs or rounds of applause, just a few gasps, titters, and occasional boos.

When the curtain fell instead of the rapturous applause we received in Cape Town and Joeys, we got boos and were pelted with eggs,cabbages and over-ripe tomatoes.

Charles Hawtrey and Peter Bowles, the stars were quickly whisked away in the producer’s Mercedes back to the hotel, leaving us junior actors to fend for ourselves.

John and I went to the front of house bar and had a couple of drinks before going to the car park to our hired vehicle.

It was here we were confronted by about eight burly soldiers from the Rhodesian Front Army, these were the young white Rhodesians who were conscripted into the local army. The confrontation was what can be described in military terms as “A stand-off”. They hurled insults at us.

“Commie-Bastards!|” seemed to be the most insulting. “Monkey-Lovers!” and “Libby-Limeys!" were another two.

John and I decided to skirt around the group off soldiers and make our way to our car, but we were out-flanked by two enormous young men who blocked our path.

“Toddie” came to our rescue.

“You like a drink?” I said as I offered “Toddie” to the larger of the two.

He grunted a duo-syllabic reply, “What’s it?”

“Good Commie-Polish vodka, you can’t get it here.” I said.

He looked at his mates, and took a huge gulp. The normal coughing spluttering ensued, “You trying to poison us as well?”

“No”, I said, “Trying to make friends.”

His buddy laughed and grabbed “Toddie” and took a sip. He smiled and said, “Kowalski”, offering his hand. I tentatively took it and almost had the blood squeezed out of my palm.

“Please to meet you, Cess Poole,” I said.

The ice was broken and the tension eased, and within the next hour John and I were being introduced to the night life of Salisbury by Dave, Stephen, George and Stephan Kowalski. The latter was of Polish-Jewish extraction and his parents had been moved from Warsaw to Rhodesia during the last years of the Second World War.

During our conversations on that night I learnt a great deal about the Terrorists and the war going on in Rhodesia.

The news filtering through to the world was very one-sided as most liberal European countries were siding with the Africans and supporting the independence stance of ZANU & ZAPU. But I had no idea of the amount of arms that were being smuggled into the country from the communist block.

Hungarian and Czech tanks that were being reconditioned by the South African company Armscor were appearing on the battle front. American small arms and the Russian rifle, the Kalashnikov, were also appearing. The young Rhodesian soldiers where capturing arms from all around the world. They described the situation as “A total shitty mess of money & politics”.

They informed us that Britain, for one, kept on supplying oil to the rebels. Washington was dealing in strategic materials, especially chrome. The Soviets accounted for more than half of Rhodesia's illicit deals. These transactions were arranged through pliant companies in Austria, West Germany, Switzerland and Belgium. Heavy machinery came from the East, usually in shipments brought by Yugoslavs who had no qualms about flying to Salisbury, as long as their passports were not stamped.

My eyes were opened and continued to be on stalks even on the next day, when Dave and Stephan took John and I into the African township called Harare.

It was here that I was introduced to Rape & Mopani worm stew.

These worms are not worms but caterpillars and are found usually on the Mopane tree and known in Zimbawe as Macimbi if your’e from the Ndebele clan, or Madora if you’re from the Shona tribe.

Dave and Stephan said they were an important source of protein and were a common snack for the “Ters” and themselves. The stew was delicious. Cooked on the roadside in an up-turned metal dustbin lid, it slid down our gullets and was washed down with a Carlsberg lager bought from a near-by “shebeen”.

I often wondered why the African name for an illicit drinking abode was stolen from the Irish, but that’s another story.

So the Danes were in on the illicit trading deals!

I digress, sorry.

We learnt that the worms are hand-picked in the wild, often by women and children. In the bush, the caterpillars are not considered to belong to the landowner (if any), but around a house permission should be sought from the resident. When the caterpillar has been picked, it is pinched at the tail end to rupture the innards. Then they squeeze it like a tube of toothpaste to expel the slimy, green contents of the gut.

The traditional method of preserving the worms is to dry them in the sun or smoke them, whereby they gain extra flavour.

The dried worms can be eaten raw as a crisp snack, as Dave and Stephan had told us or they are soaked to rehydrate, then fried until they are crunchy, or cooked with onion, tomatoes, spices and the green spinach like vegetable called Rape.

After our tour of Harare we were returned to the Meikles Hotel where we were billeted, to be told by the rest of the cast, that we were only going to do two more performances in Salisbury before we travelled south to Kwe-kwe , Gweru and Bulawayo for our final week. The producers had cancelled the other mid week performances and we would only be doing the last two shows on Saturday.

John and I were delighted as this meant we had more time to spend with our newly found friends.

We invited them for lunch at the hotel and they told us the whole history of the Meikles Hotel. It was named after the founding family who came to Sothern Africa from Strathaven, Lanarkshire in Scotland in 1915 and they gave us the address of one of the great-great grandchildren who now lived in Bulawayo. A young girl of twenty one called Wendy. John, who unlike me, at the time was unattached, quickly jotted down the name and address for future reference.

 

 The rest of the week was spent visiting the Salisbury Sports Club, which is now the Harare Sports Club and hosts all the international cricket teams that visit the country.

The ground is surrounded by Jacaranda trees and has a beautiful gabled pavilion. It’s in the heart of the city and was an easy walk from Meikles Hotel for John and I to avail ourselves of the cheap alcoholic beverages on offer.

We bade farewell to Salisbury and travelled in convey on Sunday to Kwe-Kwe for two performances on Monday and Tuesday, then another convoy to Gweru on Wednesday for three shows, before we moved onto Bulawayo the following Sunday.

The production was received far more cordially in Kwe-Kwe and Gweru.
 
The audience was composed mostly of ex-Brit-Pats who worked in the chrome and coal mining industry in these towns. They were working class Brits and warmed to Stoppard’s cynical ridicule of the Uk’s parliamentary system, and particularly enjoyed our leading lady’s entrance clad only in her bra and panties.

Our final week in Bulawayo was also better received than Salisbury but even so the early week performances were cancelled and we only performed on Thursday, Friday and Saturday.

This gave John time to track down Wendy and discover that she had a younger eighteen year old sister, so John and I had a foursome swimming pool party on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday in Douglasdale. The suburb was named after The Douglas family, descendants of William de Duglas , the leader of late 12th century Scotish clan.

The sisters were fantastic hosts and at a party after our closing night they served omelets to the whole cast with a side salad of fresh tomatoes just to remind us of our reception in Salisbury.

Sir Cess would like to welcome all these people in these different countries who have visited his blog page within the last week, and invite them to join his facebook page "Sir Cess Poole's Diary".

Please click on the blog page picture to visit and take a look.

THANX . 
Total viiews of the blog has now risen to 5602 and last week's list of countries was as follows:
South Africa 63 United States 23 France 11 Ireland 9 Russia 9 Australia 3 Ukraine 3 United Kingdom 2 Taiwan 1

He also invites all visiters to make a comment on the stories the visiters have read. Don't be shy you can use the annonymous tag when you make it.

THANX AGAIN.