PUP

I had a really exciting four days at the end of last week. It makes blogging worthwhile to be able to recount some of the bittersweet experiences of yours truly. Be prepared for a long read, O faithful reader!


I suppose Wednesday's experience really began on Tuesday April Fool Day with a series of texts and phone calls. A friend and Waitender, Carole Cunningham, had promised me that good luck would come my way at the beginning of April. The cynic in me sneered and indeed on that very same Tuesday I had turned down lucky heather from a gypsy lady in Havant Market. How could I have so badly misjudged you, Carole? Mind you, seeing the date, I did think the first text message was a hoax and that you were not beyond sending it yourself, Carole!


The text read: " MAD DOG are looking for men to be extras in a new film shooting over the next fortnight. Please call Brett if you can attend a casting tomorrow. (Phone number given)" Mad Dog Casting are one of the agencies with whom I had shared my information last year. They wanted to know if I was available for a casting audition on the Wednesday. Of course I said yes on the phone and dropped everything in order to get up to London that Wednesday. I had to take my passport with me to prove I was eligible to work in UK. I decide not to go up by train as there are still problems on the line to Waterloo and i didn't fancy twiddling my thumbs for two hours on the train. I, therefore, took the car up to Wimbledon and used the Tube to get me to Kentish Town. I have used the Wimbledon route many times but still have to check that I have taken the right exit past Wimbledon Common. I had a cornish pasty at Wimbledon station and hurtled across London. I got to Mad Dog at about 12 noon so took about three hours to get there. The casting took about 30 minutes of an interview with Brett, mainly concerned with getting all my details for where my pay would go, and a photocall. The film is being directed by Richard Linklater and stars Zac Efron and Claire Danes. They have been filming on location in the UK but next three weeks are at Pinewood Studios. The film is set in the Thirties. No one will be asked to work the full three weeks but we are all on standby for occasional days here and there. We will be phoned by Roger, the Team Manager, if and when we are needed. There was a steady stream of people as I was at Mad Dog but fingers crossed I could be one of the lucky ones to get a phone call. If not at least I have been seen by Mad Dog and am now firmly on their books so am in with a chance of future films. I do hope I get a chance on this one though as it would kickstart my film extra CV a treat. I am now awaiting that phone call. It can come as late in the day as 5.00 p.m. depending on the filming schedule and director's decisions relayed to the second assistant director who is in charge of hiring extras. The second assistant director contacts Mad Dog and they phone us to say, "You are wanted at Pinewood Studios at ....... in the morning. You should report to........ at..........." After that, you have to make sure you are there on time and prepared to spend a 10 hour day doing very little except wait around for your scene. You hope you do a good enough job that if the second assistant director needs more extras the next day or in a few days he asks Mad Dog to send you.


That was Day One of my exciting four days and though a bit of an anti climax had set in on the way back from Wimbledon I owe my chance to a lucky email from Carole Cunningham. Part of the anti climax was that I have had some really exciting days out centred around trips starting at Wimbledon and this wasn't quite in the same league.


The next day, Thursday, I was picked up by my county councillor, Councillor Ann Buckley, at 0700 a.m. and taken to Winchester. I was privileged enough to be allowed to sit in on the LibDem pre-meeting before the April County Council Meeting in the Great Chamber. The LibDems are the main opposition party in Hampshire with an even smaller Labour representation. Hampshire is a Conservative stronghold. Sitting in the public gallery, I was reasonably interested in the motions and debates and watching the traditional workings of the full County Council. Most of the really important work is done by the Cabinet and in committees. However it got a bit tasty when the party politics hove into sight. Apparently an absent LibDem and made a political comment in a LibDem election broadsheet that upset the Conservatives and the Leader of the Council. Until then I had almost forgotten that he was also the leader of the Hampshire Conservatives as well as Leader of Hampshire County Council. Harsh words were exchanged between Party Leaders. I am still not convinced that party politics have any real place in local government but haven't developed my ideas on that matter too clearly yet. Anyway I was very grateful to Anne for a most interesting day out and I found a pound coin in Winchester High Street. I intend buying a lottery ticket with it as my luck seems to be in.


I have covered about 500 houses in Bedhampton over the last week or so giving out election leaflets on behalf of John Sawtell, the LibDem candidate, for whom I am - and get this, folks!- his political agent.


So that was my second busy day and on Friday I had rather a sad experience. I attended the farewell assembly for my old headteacher at Waite End Primary School. I had retired in December 2006 and she was taking early retirement at the end of the Spring Term 2008, of which Friday was the last day. I had sworn blind that I would never go back into school under any circumstance and some ex colleagues, especially the same Carole Cunningham as above, had wagered I wasn't going to turn up. In the circumstances, I thought the loyalty I owed to Anita Williamson was greater than my promise never to darken the doorstep. I had spent more time together with Anita than either of us had with our spouses over the years we worked as a management team. The children and staff gave her a great assembly and a great sending off. She managed to hold back the tears though her grown up daughter and the chair of governors were both seen to blub copiously. Apparently my presence hadn't been expected so as I entered the assembly hall I was instantly aware of my name being whispered by the children who had once been in my own class back in 2006. I was greeted warmly by my ex colleagues and was shown around the newly decorated school even as prospective candidates for the now vacant headship were being shown around by my successor as deputy head. I was even invited to the pub with the staff, who were looking forward to letting their hair down after a long and strenuous term. I turned down their kind offer as I was beginning to feel an outsider. The school had changed, I had changed and my ex colleagues had changed. I envied their collegiality but knew I could no longer be a real part of their team but was only an onlooker, a supporter on the sidelines. Some of those colleagues had been as close to me as my family and it was with real reluctance and a sense of anti climax that I dragged myself away. I still have that sense of loss three days later.

On Saturday I was at Fratton Park at 0600 a.m. waiting to board a coach to Wembley with the Natty Chap, Geoff and Matthew. The four of us were on Coach 26 and soon on our way to London. I texted this information home via the landline and unfortunately Kat was a bit p****d off to get an automated message at 0630. I ask you - I only thought my family would be interested in which coach I was travelling in case there was one of those dreadful crashes on the motorway - I was only trying to save them unnecessary worry after all! We reached Wembley at about 0830 and took another 30 minutes to go round it to park in the coach car park. The stadium didn't open until 1015 so we joined the Pompey blue masses swarming up and down the Olympic Way as Wembley Way seems now to be called. we met up with other members of the Natty Chap's family, we ate unhealthy cheeseburgers, we joined in the raucous but good natured song of the somewhat limited Pompey repertoire, we met hundreds of people we knew from all different walks of life and other interests. It is amazing that despite going to several home game sin a season and meeting some people on a weekly basis such as exercise classes it still came as a shock to find them at Wembley as well. I never found Terry the Tiger but there was young Alan, one of the youngest (40's?) and fittest members of our rehab exercise class stuffing his face with a cheese covered hot dog. I tried to reprimand him, Debbie, but I was stood in the cheeseburger queue at the time. Finally we were allowed into the stadium. God it looked enormous on the outside but once we were through the stringent security (they removed the top from my water bottle and frisked me and searched my shoulder bag) and up the escalators to Level 5, we saw the sheer size and magnificence of the seating and pitch. I had worried that we would be so far away and so high up it would be like watching a subbeteo game. However it was nothing like that although I did get touches of vertigo and panic attacks whenever balloons drifted past me. The stadium filled with supporters and we certainly seemed to have more blue clad Pompey supporters than the Baggies had. Over and over again we sang the Pompey chimes and worked our way through the limited but stirring repertoire of Pompey football songs. The game started and Pompey were crap in the first half! Obviously 'Arry Redknap had a go at them in the interval and we sang even louder and more supportively than ever. The two wide players moved in to stifle the Baggie midfield and lo and behold we scored one hell of a scrappy goal. My Little Bro watching on telly at home texted me to tell me it was handball by Milan Baros and shouldn't have been allowed to stand as a goal. However we in the stadium didn't care and the Pompey Chimes, "Play Up Pompey, Pompey Play Up", rang and rang around that stadium. The Pompey luck which had seen us through so many stages of the FA Cup this season was still with us and perhaps 2008 is the year with Pompey's name on the cup. The exit down several flights of stairs surrounded by several thousands of Pompey fans singing "the Blue Army" raised the hairs at the back of my neck. It was tribal and primitive and I was a part of it.
We are now waiting to see what the arrangements are for tickets for the Final between Pompey and Cardiff City managed by ex Scummer, Davy Jones (not he of the Monkees). The numbers for fans of the two clubs are reduced for the Final as the FA use the tickets as a way of thanking its county and grassroots FA members. I am hoping that Natty Chap can once more work his magic and that we shall be there on May 17th. PUP! Play Up Pompey!

Mam's birthday on Sunday the 6th and we raised a glass at the roast beef and Yorkshire pudding family dinner cooked by yours truly. She would have been 91 this year but died shortly after we married and had been too ill to attend our wedding. I am not sure she would have recognised the son who has turned his hand to roast lamb, roast pork, roast goat and roast chicken dinners during the Best Beloved's recuperation period. I think she believed me to be a lazy b****r even if she loved me. I still am, Ma, but have just got better at disguising it as at disguising so many other things!