Blog No.6
Friday, December 19, 2008 at 1:01AM If I’ve been a bit quiet it’s because last week I was in Liverpool. While I was there I did a couple of events I forgot to mention I’d be doing. One was at the Bluecoat Arts Centre on the 5th of December. I was there because I contributed a short story to an anthology called Reberth, this is part of a project entitled Cities on the Edge which tries to link artists in cities that have a similar “outsider” feel to them. Cities such as Gdansk, Marseilles, Naples and Liverpool. There was a reading then a Q&A from three writers, one from Gdansk, a woman from Naples and me. Typically for Liverpool there was a lot of shouting out from the audience, most of the shouters were people I had interviewed for my documentary though the woman from Naples was also heckled by the Italian Consul. My story entitled “Bread Circuses and Replica Shirts” is one of those that is a real pleasure to read out aloud because, I think, it’s funny and its got lots of different voices in it. On the 10th I also did a signing at the new Waterstones in the Liverpool One centre which went very well and there were mince pies and wine. That’s it for me now and appearances, I think my next appearance will be the Laugharn Festival in April, though I am doing a workshop for people who started writing in prison, for the Arvon Centre in March. But if you wanted to come to that you’d have to commit a crime, go to prison, begin writing, come out and then get on the course, so its up to you really. There may be other appearances that come up and I will try to remember to put them in the appearances section of this website which is sort of the point really. Back in London I notice that my nearest off licence has started selling fruit and in fact off licences all over Camden seem to be doing the same thing. Tony Blair was right after all, things can only get better. Over the last few years I have noticed a couple of exciting innovations in the fruit retaling business, firstly there seem to be a lot more fruit stalls in Central London (is there a goverment grant available?) the second innovation is “The Scoop”. I first noticed The Scoop in the late 90’s in Berwick Street Market in Soho - big bowls of slightly odd sized fruit sold for the single price of a pound. Now the concept has spread to outside off licences which is a good thing. I am very much in favour of The Scoop, sometimes you can get as many as 25 bananas for a pound. Of course it can be a bit of a lottery, I did once buy a consignment of plums from a stall in Leather Lane market that tasted slightly of fish but those are the breaks, the fruit is still a lot cheaper than you’d buy in the supermarket and of course because it is being sold on market stalls or independent grog shops it all helps challenge the grip that the big supermarkets have on food retailing. It’s a funny a thing that these days when you buy something from a sandwich bar or a fruit stall, the paper bag you get your purchases in always seems to have an advert for some dot. com company or website printed on it in cheap colours? What’s going on here? Is there some attempted ironic juxterposition between the determinedly low tech nature of a paper bag with slightly gone off tangerines in it and the futuristic complexities of the internet, or is advertising just dead cheap on the sides of paper bags? Would I be better off writing my blog on the side of a paper bag? And while on the subject of sandwich bars it might be a good time to talk about my imaginary sandwich bar. During the time when I have been writing columns in newspapers or magazines I would occasionally mention in passing, events that had happened in a sandwich bar that I owned. These events were always fictitious, although I have met several people over the years who’ve told me they’ve been to my sandwich bar. There’s a sequence which we didn’t use in the end in my documentary of me telling the Duke of Westminster in his one billion pound Liverpool One development that it would be an ideal place for my imaginary sandwich bar, he just acts confused. Anyway I thought I might extend my non-existent business venture to the net, so that now I can announce I will be not taking orders for your Christmas party, I can not do selections of any size from ten people to a hundred including our famous Mexican Feast and our Taste of the Balkans platter. Please not order now. Actually when you think about it my imaginary sandwich bar is rather like the internet, you can’t make any money out of it and its not what it seems. In fact this website is not what it seems, it’s not even written by Alexei Sayle, he contracts out the writing of his blog to a giant blog-writing centre in Chennai Southern India. These words are written by me, my name is Anand and I have a degree in media studies from Calcutta University but I can still only get a job masquerading as a fat failure of a comedian who thinks he can write books for five dollars a day, and they treat us very badly here, they check up on us all the time and they....ow...ow...not the cattle prod...ow!
Reader Comments (12)
Fat failure of a comedian? Stop feeling sorry for yourself. I am a fat failure of a computer programmer. And you should see some of the bollocks that Anand has produced for me - cattle prod is too good for him.
yeah, and I'm not even fat, just a failure of an internet marketing manager. Cheer up, Alexei! (and get back to writing that auto-biography)
Come on Adnan, I never had the cattle prod up that high! I also had the very embarassing honour of being, along with my Boris-Johnson-like boyfrend, the first customers at Burger King, Westfield. It was highly cringing to get your picture taken by the manger for an Aberdeen Angus flavour inspired Hall Of Fame, be promised a spot in the Burger King newsletter, and get a round of applause for just ordering.
Would I have got that in your sandwich shop? Any Subway inspired rip-offs? Tuesday all you can eat Pork-Pie hat flavoured 6-inch's?
Jay x
This comment was produced by child labour in Luton.
I wrote a really loooooong but not-so witty comment. Think it got lost or got deleted. Was so proud of my Burger King story!! Happy Christmas and peace for the new year to yourself and your family Alexei, love and peace dude, Jay x
opps! sorry! there it is!
Come on sir, a thought for the new year, or anything. You haven't stopped blogging already, have you?
Happy new year Alexei!
Hi Mr Sayle
I just wanted to let you know that I have just finished reading Weeping Women Hotel this afternoon. I have never contacted an author before but felt moved to do it now. I recently also read Overtaken. I enjoyed both of those books for making me laugh and taking me to some dark emotional places. My poor wife rolled her eyes when I told her you wrote about Pontius Pilates opening up, as I had made a similar crack too often for her to bear.
I used to laugh so hard at Stuff that I had asthma attacks and Slobbo Arsich has long been a favorite character name.
Thanks for continuing to amuse, entertain and disturb me.
Antony
Ah come on Alexei, the nutters have gone, please write your ninth blog entry soon. I really really miss reading your comments. You don't let them win, do you?
Come on Mr. Sayle, get back online! I agree with Evelyn totally, hope you're well. Jay x
Hello Mr Sayle.
Could you help me to get hold off one of your older sketches, its about you and a friend on your motorbikes, you are both extraditing, at the end your girlfriend has her head knocked off? I heard it about 5 years ago on Radio 2 comerdy hour and I have been trying ever since to get hold of it. Got any suits that you can't fit into anymore. Raiders film No3, how did you get into that? anyway, chop! chop!
Thank you
Cary