Fucking stupid Brain

How come you don't see someone for nine months, hear hardly a word from them for six months, talk to them for an hour and spend the next two weeks thinking about them? Stupid fucking human emotions, I wish I was a German Robot, like Kraftwerk...

Table Cop 2

I asked Herr Docktor Clay if he had any Table Cop material hiding in the dark recesses of his computer. Apparently the stupid bastard must have deleted it all, as he said he didn't but I definitely remember him writing at least one script that had a great scene between Manners and his arch Nemesis the Phantom Whittler. I didn't mention the Whittler before, but he was another important character in the show. The Whittler would have been Manners' enemy throughout the series, a mysterious figure of whom only Manners could see the clues, the wood shavings at every crime scene, the bottle of wood polish in the darkened alleyway. I always imagined the Whittler to look a bit like the Phantom Flan Flinger from Tiswas, but with wood tools instead of the pies...

Take that Manners! Oh sorry, wrong show...

Anyway, the scene that Herr Docktor Clay had written involved a battle between Manners and the Whittler atop a miniature train in a park. I don't remember much of it except that Manners would have been foiled again and ousted from the roof of the last carriage. The final shot was the Whittler disappearing around the corner on the train laughing while Manners stood and shook his fist in rage.

Imagine a titanic battle between two opposing but unmovable forces across the carriages of this train and you have an idea of the 'missing' Table Cop scene...

The Docktor and I also had an idea about getting the program commissioned. We reckoned if there was enough public demand to see the show then the BBC would be forced to make it. With this in mind, John produced a teaser poster for the show, to be liberally displayed across the country. Obviously we hadn't made the program but this would lend weight to our pitch when we approached the Beeb with the idea.

Feel free to print out this poster and display it in the shitty office you invariably work in. Get your fellow workers excited about the possibility of a wood themed cop show...

On the subject of the Evil Nazi Herr Docktor Clay, he also sent me a poster he made for his new Political party he tried to set up in York. The Christo-Fascist Party. I'm not sure what his policies were, but I guess it involved not joining Europe and mandatory church for everyone. His main campaign was directed at Heartbeat Candy, a street entertainer in York. Heartbeat Candy is a York institution, he has an array of artifacts surrounding him, a store dummy dressed in Seventies style, various toys and best of all two Border Collies. The dogs help him on songs, like when he plays 'How much is that doggy in the window'. On the last note he plays his harmonica at a pitch that obviously causes the dogs some discomfort and they howl along with the music. Anyway, Clay got it into his head that this harmless old man is an evil paedophile and directed his vengeance against him with this poster campaign:

Communication Breakdown

On the way home tonight Lauren and I had a spot of car trouble. Nick refuses to buy good cars for his fleet so we end up with terrible bags of shit mounted on wheels to run about in. Most of these 'cars' would be of better service if they were set on fire and shoved off a cliff. The cost of keeping them running must be astronomical compared to the original layout cost (about £100 by the look of the things...). When I worked in Lichfield a year or so ago there were at least two instances of the big white Passat breaking down, once on the way to Lichfield and once on the way back home. Both times we ended up getting to the destination about seven hours after we had set off. What was particularly galling was the fact that when we were driving home we broke down only twenty minutes outside Lichfield, I was listening to a program about Kraftwerk on the radio and the breakdown also interrupted that. I then finally got home about eight o'clock in the evening after we'd set off for the two hour journey at about 1.00 pm. It seems to be a trait programmed into these vehicles that they break down on the way home from work rather on the way to work. Anyway, the arse fell out of the VW Golf that Lauren and I were travelling home in tonight. True to form. Twenty minutes away from site and forty minutes left to go on the journey the engine gave up the ghost and we pulled up on the side of a very deserted country road outside of Hooton Pagnell.

I think it might be the clutch

This event further depressed Lauren as she had spent the entire day being told by Robot the Bruce about his 43 inch chest and 23 inch waist. (She was unable to break free of his droning because Stanners, Alice and myself were behind the spoilheap down the bottom of the hill. I think this was done to keep the three of us out of view of the public who had come for the site tour. I think it's no coincidence that we had also been sent 'down there' on Friday when there was another tour on.) I tried to cheer her up by playing MANOWAR really FUCKING LOUD. It worked for me anyway. The RAC man eventually turned up, condemned the car and dragged it back to Rotherham.Two and a half hours after I was supposed to get in.

No it's not the clutch, it could be something to do with the electronics...

Not only that, but today Sir Stanners found a fucking Roman Trumpet Brooch in the 'kiln' he was digging. I had been excavating a similar feature last week and only found crappy cooking wares. He started his kiln last Friday and immediately found Samian pottery. Decorated Samian pottery at that... Mind you, in the ditch I had been digging for the past two days I have found more pottery than I have found in the past three years combined. I think I have found more pottery than has been found in all of West Yorkshire, ever. I tried shoving it in Stanner's face but he retorted it was a question of Quality over Quantity.

My load of crappy broken olden-days shit is much better than yours!

It was the ARCUS Carcass rats-from-a-stinking-ship party on Saturday, I wasn't going to go, then I went and I'm glad I did. Although it was good to see all the old faces there was only really one person I wanted to see there and I saw her and that's all I'll say on that subject.

Table Cop

I was recently going through my documents and I came across these two scripts that I had begun but hadn't finished. I'm publishing them both here for the first time, unedited. A bit of background first. The Evil Nazi Herr Doktor John Clay and I (I think maybe also Craig and Ross, but memory fades...) came up with an idea for a TV show called Table Cop. It was a detective show based around the Wood Division of the Police force. Actually, John, if you have any further scripts you'd like me to put up here, email them to me and I'll post them. The main character was Pledge Manners, a fiftyish year old career cop. He was an unorthodox, pushy angry man. Early ideas for the show name was 'Against the Grain'. Manners had joined the wood Division due to him needing to get closure on a personal tragedy. His entire family had been wiped out in a yachting accident and he had only survived by clinging onto a table which washed him to shore. He felt he owed something to wood, so vowed to work only on cases involving wood and wooden objects. We'd fleshed the character out pretty well, he even had a girlfriend who was a table dancer in a lap dancing club. He was torn between his need for human contact and the abuse she was dealing out to the wooden tables with her high heels every night. We even had an actor pencilled in for the role, Michael Sheard. You'd know him best as Admiral Ozzel from The Empire Strikes Back and Mr Bronson from Grange Hill. His gravitas and acting ability would have brought a certain 'j'nais c'est qua' to the role. Only the stupid fucker went and died in 2005.

You ruined my chance for BBC light drama you stupid fucking bastard. RIP Michael

Pledge Manners wasn't the only character, he was helped by another wood detective (there were only two in the Wood Division, and they were fighting a losing battle against being closed down due to cut backs in the Police Force as a whole), named Tarquin Sheen. Again, we already had someone pencilled in. Dexter Fletcher was perfect. I remain fairly certain had we got off our arses and actually wrote a full episode and then sent it to Fletcher's agent and the agent hadn't rejected it out of hand and given it over to Fletcher to actually read, he would have been behind the project 100%. Sheen was a Detective Bobby Crocker to Manners' Kojak. A thrusting upstart, Sheen would be ever present on the Wood Scene of Crime.

Never mind Press Gang, Dexter, we'll make you a big star with Table Cop...

A final third character was included, a Female Beat Officer, WPC Ashley Beech. She was to be played by Heather-Jay Jones, who you will undoubtedly remember as the older sister, Melody Parker, in the TV show The Queen's Nose. Not too pretty to be distracting but not too shabby either. Beech would have been continually ignored by Manners, who saw women's roles as being in the kitchen rather than on the beat.

In lieu of finding any decent pictures of Heather-Jay Jones, here is a picture of her younger co-star in the Queen's Nose: Victoria Shalet, who has certainly grown up well...

OK, enough waffling about the background of the show, let's take a look at the scripts and see what brilliance could have made it's way onto our screens. As I said both are unfinished and I was unsure as to were they fit into an episode, you'll have to work that out yourself. let you fucking imagination run away with you.

Table Cop Script Fragment One

Ext: Wooded area in mist, several Police Forensic Officers are working on what is obviously a crime scene. Close up on a body wrapped in a plastic bin bag, the arm is sticking out. It has been bothered by animals. Photographs are taken, samples sampled, etc.

Enter Pledge Manners and Tarquin Sheen. Manners strides ahead, Sheen trying to catch him.

Sheen: No, Pledge, please, for your own sake.

Manners: DI Albridge? Albridge?

Detective Inspector Albridge looks up from the body. He has a Yellow High Visibility Jacket on and PC’s Helmet. He is fortyish, stout, life long cop. There is tension between Manners and Albridge.

Albridge: (quietly) Christ, who let him in? (To Manners) Pledge, ah, how good to see you. Is this business or pleasure?

Manners: Business, always business. Listen Albridge, you’re searching for the wrong clues.

Albridge: Pledge, how can we be looking for the wrong clues at the scene of the crime? (Loudly to all in earshot) Has the Wood Department increased its arrest quota sufficiently to start telling us Forensics how to do our job? (The Forensic officers titter among themselves at Albridge’s put-downs) Do you think you two jokers can solve this murder with wood? (More laughter) (Mockingly) Oh look at me, I’m in the Wood Division, this murder was committed with a… WOODEN STICK! (Uproarious laughter) in a… WOOD! (Laughter, shouts of ‘Oh Yeah!’, ‘you d’Man!’ etc) by Pinocchio!! (Lots of ‘ooh ooh ooh ooh’ like in the Jerry Springer Show) Get out of here you clowns!

Manners: This time I know what I’m talking about Albridge, you are looking in the wrong area. You Forensic boys have your noses so far up a corpse’s arse you can’t see what’s in front of you.

Albridge: (Angrily) I’ll tell you what’s in front of you if you don’t get out of here, the fucking Police Commission Complaints board. Now take Marionette here and fuck off back behind your plastic desk.

Manners: (slowly and quietly) we’ve found paint chippings from the murderer’s car on some of the trees back there. (Indicating into the woods)

Albridge is momentarily shocked, but quickly recovers his composure. He moves in close to Manners.

Albridge: (almost whispered, barely contained rage) Listen, you fir fucker. I’m running this show. What I say goes. There is no paint on those trees, in fact there isn’t even any trees. If we haven’t found it, it doesn’t exist. And if someone goes around flapping his big mouth about things we may or may not have missed then they are going to find themselves in a world of pain. Do I make myself clear, monkey puzzle?

Manners and Albridge have a stare off for a few seconds.

Manners: C’mon Sheen, let’s get back to the office, I think I left the cap off that tin of wood polish.

Manners and Sheen walk off, leaving Albridge fuming.

Table Cop Script Fragment Two

Int: Backstage at the Cock and Balls Public house. A small time rock band, Bloodgoat, are readying themselves for a gig. The band is Ian; Keyboards, Nigel; Vocals, Ray; guitar, Roger; bass and Neville; drums. Ian is sitting in the corner with his hands down his jogging bottoms.

Nigel: For Christ’s sake Ian, give it a rest.

Ian: I’ve told you, me name’s not Ian, use me stage name, it helps me get in character.

Nigel: Alright Axe-lord, but will you stop playing with yourself. We’re meant to be a serious fucking band here.

Ian: That shows how much you know about rock and roll, man. I’m only doing what Iggy does before every show.

Nigel: Iggy doesn’t fucking tug himself off before a gig, you nobhead.

Ian: No but he makes his cock look bigger for the birds, you’d know if you’d ever seen him play live.

Nigel: I would do, but you never told me the fucking Stooges had reformed and were playing did you? You twat.

Ian: Don’t get bitter about it man, that’s history anyway.

Int: Bloodgoat are on stage, finishing the set. Ian is almost bent double over his keyboard his erection making it difficult for him to play. Nigel comes over to him after the last song.

Nigel: You idiot, you ruined the whole show. You’re on thin ice Axe-Lord.

Manners: Bellingham? Ian Bellingham?

Ian: (bent over) yeah, who wants to know?

Manners: (holding up his plastic badge) Pledge Manners, Wood Division. I want to ask you a few questions.

Ian: (still bent over) What about, is this about Shirley? I’ve already been through this with the cops. I thought you lot had finished with me.

Manners: Not us. I still have a few questions about the sawdust found on your trousers. We’ve run some tests…

Ian: (still bent over) I had nothing to do with the murder, I wasn’t even in the fucking country.

Manners: (shouting) Don’t interrupt me when I’m talking!

Ian: (still bent over but shouting) I could sue for Police harassment, you know

Manners: (shouting) you’re still a prime suspect Bellingham! You don’t have a leg to stand on!

Ian: (Stands up to reveal the erection poking obviously in his jogging trousers) This case has nothing to do with you Manners!

Manners: (shouting) We deal with any case involving wood!

The two are faced off close together, the only thing between them is Ian’s erection.

Fin

Arc Light (Sonar)

I finally got hold of the Finding the Fallen Series Two DVDs on Friday. I'd been pestering Dr DK for ages to send them up to me and he eventually relented and posted them. It's great to see the finished version that you spent so much time and effort working on. It brought back lots of good memories, drunken nights in France and Belgium, great archaeology and good company. I feature on one episode in particular where I had to go out to Germany for the filming. I ended up spending a few hours freezing my balls off in a swimming pool in Rastatt in the South West of Germany. I suffer for my art, I tell you.

Look! It's me! On the fucking Telly!!

Over this past weekend I went to see District 9 with Mark, Sarah, Lauren and Steve. Beforehand we went for a meal, it was quite an adult evening really. The waitress was taking her sweet ass time over clearing the table, however, and I got to wondering what would happen if I was to just sweep the entire table top onto the floor. If you had every intention of paying, could they throw you out? I mean, it's not like you would be causing trouble, just clearing your table. One quick sweep and it would all be over and in a way you'd be helping the waiting staff, especially during busy times. In the end I didn't do it anyway, we paid the bill and left meekly. Like good customers should. Even with Lauren's heel coming off her shoe.

Waiter! Bill Please!

District 9 is great, I won't tell you anymore about it, except go and see it. On Sunday I drove up to Bolsterstone to drop in on Tim and his excavation there. I had heard he was having a cake and arse party up there and everyone was invited. I wasn't disappointed, the first thing I saw was that his main trench was butted up against a house wall. Now, call me stupid, but the last thing I would want to do is undermine a house side. Luckily his other trench was in a better position, health and safety wise, but he had decided to excavate around the roots of a tree. Again, my reasoning would be: gauge the size of the tree roots by the size of it's crown and dig in an area where the roots were likely NOT to be... I suggested both of these points to Tim, but as usual my recommendations fell on deaf ears. I then pressed him on his record keeping and he started shuffling his feet like a scolded schoolboy. In all actuality I wasn't interested in the Bolsterstone's dig records or even the archaeology there. It was Sunday for Christ's sake and I wasn't at work. I really called up to see Tim and whoever else happened to be there that day. I gave Tim a lift back to his house and Yuki, his wife, gave me some Japanese Cakes, which were lovely. I also was given a tour of the lair of the beast, where Tim paints his toy soldiers. After Amelia had ripped my hoody to shreds I left for home.

Far more interesting than some crappy archaeology...

Well Paid Scientist

I turned up at work late on Wednesday morning due to taking the wrong exit on the motorway (I ended up going through Horbury, the streets really are paved with gold and the roofs glitter with Bronze.). As punishment Wincey sent me off to the frozen North at the top of the site. Alice must have also done something similar to incur the wrath of Wincey as she was sent to work in the same evaluation trench as me. We were as far away from the site hut as could be and in perpetual shadow all day. It was freezing cold and I swear there was ice covering the trench and snow laid about. The gale force winds tore our normal clothes to shreds and so dressed in Arctic explorer gear we set about excavating tree roots.

Alice and I prepare Evaluation Trench 6 for excavation

I think it was something to do with the fact Alice and I are both blow-ins, she is about to start an MA at York University in something non-archaeological and I am an unknown quantity, with my constant drifting in and out of contracts. I think this is Wincey's way of breaking us both down so he can then remould us in his shape. Today Barry Onions rolled in, I was, yet again, sent to the 'Land of Thule' Eval Trench 6 to plan the natural features and Barry was given his choice of the good archaeology at the bottom of the hill. As I was drawing tree boles with frostbitten fingers, I could hear the sounds of laughter and music drifting up from around the cabin, where everybody else was working.

What I imagined was going on the bottom of the hill...

Barry also made his uncanny appearance on the day we had finished all of Sir Stanners crap biscuits and were about to make a start on the Chocolate covered Caramel digestives I had bought a couple of days previously. Sir Stanners had gone to the Supermarket (or sent his butler) and bought the kind of biscuits he thought us lowly peasant folk would enjoy. His choice was Asda's Smart Price Biscuit selection, the cheapest biscuits around. No Jaffa Cakes for us, oh no, we'd be happy with what Squire Stanners had provided and think ourselves lucky we got anything off him at all, the ungracious cunts that we are. Anyway, we'd spent two fucking days working our way through the bad stuff when Barry waltzes in and starts troughing the good biscuits with both trotters like the fucking pig he is.

Leave some for us Barry!!

On an altogether different subject I went to see Jello Biafra and the Guantanamo School of Medicine play on Wednesday night. I've waited twenty years to see Jello play live and, fuck me, it was worth every minute of waiting. He is the closest I will ever get to actually having a hero. I've been a Dead Kennedys fan since I was 14/15yrs old and Jello Biafra has shaped the way I think about the world and has to be one of the best unheard outspoken political commentators in the world today. I think his stance is best summed up by the lyrics in the DK song 'Stars and Stripes of Corruption'. A song which was written 24 years ago but is still as relevant now as it was then. Read the lyrics here and try to prove me wrong.

Fuck Censorship!

I was thinking about Jello Biafra and how he has worked tirelessly his entire life (and continues to do so) with little or no reward against corruption, censorship, misjustice and a whole host of other causes and goes completely unnoticed by the public at large. Then a little cunt like Boner pops up (pun intended...), says something trite about everybody should be giving their money to feed Africans whilst evading paying tax in Ireland in order to make himself more money and everybody flocks to worship at his temple of shit. Jello practically starves because of his beliefs whilst Boner sits on a vast fortune because of someone else's ideas. Where is the fucking justice in the world?

'So, Mister Bush, what are ye gunna do aboyt de Tird World Debt?'

'Fuck all, Mr Boner.'

'Sure, that's grand, Oi'll get de stupid peasents dat buy me fucken records to give oop dere hard earned nicker instead.'

Dad's Army

61 visitors since I posted the last entry and only 16 comments? Thank you for those that commented and fuck you for those that didn't. You shower of shit. I work my fingers to the bone writing this for nothing and you don't even bother commenting. And to answer Herr Docktor Clay, I imply you are an Evil Nazi Doctor, simply because you are an Evil Nazi Doctor.

The Evil Nazi Herr Docktor Clay explains his 'Doomsday Device MKII' to head Evil Nazis

With Brodsworth now finished for another year, I began work with Onsite again on Monday. I worked out it is almost exactly two years since I first worked for them on the Barbican site in York. All the old familiar faces were there: Lauren, Lord Sir Stanners, Alice and Wincey Willis. We are working at Nostell Priory outside Wakefield, it's Sir Stanner's country pile, he uses it as a summer house for siring himself upon the local wenches and virgins. Mind you, trying to find a virgin over the age of twelve in Wakefield is pretty tricky. He was showing me the front of the building today and I asked him which window was his bedroom, he said 'Second floor'. I asked which room on the second floor. He said 'No, all of the second floor.' In all seriousness, we were chatting about the house and Stanners said that it was too big to live in and he'd get paranoid that someone was having a party somewhere else in the house that he wouldn't be able to hear it.

Dudes! Where's the party at? No, Seriously, which room are you guys in?

In other unrelated chats, Wincey was telling us how to get a seat on a train. The method is to carry a bottle of piss with you and sprinkle it on yourself as you enter the carriage, this way no one will want to sit next to you for the duration of your journey. Whether he'd actually tried this out or not, he didn't say. Other funny things that happened over the last two days included a man with a 20 ton truck full of Aggregate who pulled up at the side of the site and asked me if we'd ordered it, I told him no, we were taking the stuff out rather than putting it back in. In sadder news I did something today that I never done in eight years of being a field archaeologist: I broke my trowel. That's right. It was a sad day for the 4" WHS that had accompanied me to Iceland. Like all archaeologists, I'm rather attached to my trowel and wept buckets for its demise. Actually, I didn't I just said some thing like 'bollocks' and used Wincey's instead.

The all new WHS 4" for excavating around corners!