Harry Potter and the Final Draft...!

I'm writing THE screenplay.  You know, the one that is going to sell for thousands - if not millions - and means I don't have to worry about paying the rent ever again.  Because I can tell you, with rents as high as they are in London, it's a very big worry indeed!

I actually wrote the story for the screenplay when I was still at school in Birmingham.  That's a few years ago, believe me!  It's about a boy called George, who is 12 years old and when all the adults in the world disappear, including his parents, he has to find them and along the way, save the world. He's a bit of a wimp, but has certain powers that he knows nothing about although he learns how special he is as the story develops.

I turned this story, called George’s 7th Dimensions, into a film script when I managed to wangle my way onto the screenwriting option for my Masters degree.  This was about 8 years ago.  A former executive with the Hollywood film studio, Warner Brothers, got quite excited when he read the first act.  He told me the Harry Potter film franchise was coming to an end and he could see similarities between Harry and my George. I'd not read Harry Potter so couldn't really comment.  And it was only the first act because that was all I had to write for my Masters course.  The first act.  So that was all I did.

Then a few months ago I heard about the 20th Anniversary of Harry Potter and it reminded me of what the former Warner Bros exec had said.  He was comparing my script with Harry Potter.  A story that had made its struggling creator one of the richest women in the world.  I aint after that, of course.  Let’s face it, I’ll never be the richest woman in the world!  But having a  major player like my work and having a film made and sharing George and his foibles is Rather A Good Thing.  So I decided to try and get my finger out!

The point of this post though is not so much about how, once again, I’ve possibly looked a gift horse in the mouth then kicked its teeth in - but more about having decided to get the script finished, I then had to decide HOW to write it.  And what programme to use.

If you’ve listened to our podcast, (www.LondonLiteraryPubCrawl.com) you’ll know we get a lot of interest from other writers about the process of writing.  The hugely successful TV writer, Glen Chandler, who invented Scottish detective ‘Tagart’ (“There’s been a murder!”) just uses Word or any other programme. He doesn't think it’s important and didn't grow-up with screenwriting software.  But Final Draft seems to be the industry standard.  I’m working on a TV documentary script with chum Riaz and his go-to programme is FD.  It’s also horribly expensive though and when I updated my mac, it simply stopped working!  I found out I was not alone.  Marc Eliott, former Eastender and Holby City-er actor also writes and he had the same problem.  We compared our useless programmes over a pint one night.

What do you think?  Do you have a favourite writing programme?  Please let me know.  I’m writing this blog in Pages on a MacBook Air.

I sold an article though so I finally decided to take the plunge and upgrade Final Draft.   And I’m now putting the final touches to the last scenes and life has got easier.  Or has it?  FD has some cool features.  But when I tried a cast report, you can see from the photo what happened.  Characters names are in the left column.  Some names are repeated often and I can tell you there are not characters called EXT. DAY. ELSEWHERE.  And certainly there is no character called IT CAN NOT BE:

Where’s the pen and paper.

I’m doing something wrong.

Check out the character names.  Not sure how this happened...

THING 6 to do In London - SHOOT THE RIVER THAMES IN A DUCK!

THING 6 - SHOOT THE RIVER THAMES IN A DUCK!

There’s a very specific reason for including this in 52 Things To Do In London, because after 17th September, 2017, the Duck Tours in London will be no more! And it might be why this post is on time... ;-)

If you’ve not been to London, it might sound a little strange - but it’s a great idea, replicated in other cities around the world.

The company procured a few amphibious landing craft - half boat, half truck - turned them tourist friendly, painted them yellow then toured London.  Not only on the streets of the capital, they splashed-down into the Thames and carried on down the river.  Fairly unique.  They’ve had a bit of trouble lately, but they are ending because they are loosing their slipway. This is what their boss, Matt Watts, said on the website…

August 21, 2017 6:02 pm Published by Matt Watts
"We are sorry to advise that Thames Water has exercised its statutory rights and given notice to acquire our launch pad at Vauxhall.  This means, regretfully, London Duck Tours’ current business of carrying fare paying passengers on the River Thames must cease from 09.00 on Monday 18th September 2017 to make way for the construction of the Thames Tideway Tunnel.
Managing Director of London Duck Tours, John Bigos said, “The 18th September will be a very sad day for the company, which was going from strength to strength, but it was vital not to delay construction of this much needed infrastructure project.”
“Tourists worldwide and Londoners will surely miss our iconic bright yellow DUKWs travelling around town. They have become a landmark in their own right.  I would like to thank our staff many of whom have been with LDT from the start and the 1.8 million passengers that have travelled on a London Duck Tour”.
We will be operating tours up to and including Sunday 17th September and we very much hope you will be able to take a tour before then.
Watch this space and we will update you on events in January 2018."

The fact they want us to look out for them in the new year may mean they have a cunning plan… to find another slipway, perhaps?  You can check ‘em out and book quack... I mean, quick at...

www.londonducktours.co.uk


BONUS PUB(S). Again by Nick..!

The Hole In The Wall.
5 Mepham Street
London SE1 8SQ
+44 20 7928 6196

There are not that many decent boozers down by the London Eye or the Duck Tours splash-down site.  It's not that kind of area. But for a real authentic London local, check out The Hole In The Wall.  It's situated under a railway arch across the road from Waterloo Station.  It's got a rugby themed front bar and a back bar with TVs and one-armed bandits.  The food is basic but okay.

To be honest, it's not the type of place you'd visit if, for example, you wanted to impress a first date.  Gastro pub it ain't.  But there have been locals drinking here for years and it was one of the first pubs to care about selling real ales when not many others bothered.  So it's a genuine offering.  In fact it's so traditional it doesn't even have a website!  If you want to know more, you'll have to phone.  Remember phone calls?


For a slightly more creative experience, walk a bit further round the corner to the beautiful Old Vic Theatre.  It was run by actor Kevin Spacey until recently and has more history than you can shake a stick at.  There’ll be a

 post about it later, but mainly it has two bars - Mark’s Bar for cocktails and craft beers, and the Penny Bar, artisan cafe by day and cultural boozer by night.


Unusually for London Theatre-land, both bars stay open late.  I bloody love The Old Vic.  You should too.  If you can resist the charms of The Hole.


Cheers!

Nick.
Writer. And occasional drinker.

Suggest your favourite things to do in London.

52 Things To Do in London - Thing Five! Notting Hill.

THING FIVE.

NOTTING HILL - THE CARNIVAL, THE FILM AND GEORGE ORWELL.

The Notting Hill Carnival is the biggest street party in Europe and the second biggest in the world.  

It takes to the streets of West London every August Bank Holiday.  Notting Hill is a fascinating area.  It's gone from slum to showbiz in a relatively short period of time.

It now has the more tragic fame of the terrible fire at Grenfell Tower, the high-rise block of flats in North Kensington.  It was the worst civilian fire in London since the Second World War.  The burnt-out building is a horrible sight to behold.  And the neighbourhood of North Kensington is also fairly unique.  A poorer part of one of the richest areas of the UK, one of the best Pantomimes I ever saw was in Notting Hill.  The handwritten programmes, groups of school children and community groups performing were off-set by cameo performances by some very famous actors and musicians who live in, or near the area.  It was brilliant and democratic and everything a community should be. 

There was some talk of cancelling the Carnival this year, but Carnival will continue, with a pause and silence as a mark of respect for those lost. 

Tragedy aside, the first Carnival was arranged in the 1960s by those newly arrived in London from the West Indies, to celebrate their culture and help diffuse racial tensions.  It worked wonderfully on all levels although it was some years before the establishment recognised it as an ‘official’ London event.  Carnival runs over Bank Holiday Sunday, with a family day; then a more festive, full-on carnival parade on the Bank Holiday Monday.

The only problem with Carnival today is that it attracts crowds of over a million!  So you need to work out travel and transport in advance.  Forget the Tube Map - many of the stations are closed, so see the TfL journey planner in the link below.

Notting Hill also became internationally famous with the film of the same name, written by  Richard Curtis.  Richard still lives in the area.  I first saw the film ‘Withnail and I’ in his barn conversion home cinema near Southwold a few years ago.  So I love him! 

If you’d like to know more about Notting Hill and it’s history, I interviewed writer Fiona Rule about her book ‘Streets of Sin - a dark biography of Notting Hill’ for my radio show on Resonance FM and our podcast.  You can buy the book HERE and listen to Fiona at  Podcast Number LLPC - 045

And of course, George Orwell lived here too. See below and party on!

www.thelondonnottinghillcarnival.com

BONUS PUB. By Nick.  Again....

Notting Hill has some great boozers, especially around the Portobello Road.  The Prince Albert is very central and five minutes from Notting Hill Tube station and has the fab Gate Theatre above,  but walk a little bit further down toward Portobello and at number 7, is The Sun in Splendour.  You can’t miss its bright yellow frontage.




It dates back to 1852 and there was a fairly spectacular Sun and Rays model on the roof, but that was lost to a storm a few years ago.  There's a garden too, although like many pub gardens, it's been a bit taken over by smokers. But it's a good writing boozer especially in the week.  Saturday, it's full of Portobello Market folk. Generally the staff are friendly and ‘get it’, although if you're a tourist just looking for the loos, you might be in trouble!  

And if you come out of the pub, turn left and head down the road, keep you eyes peeled for the blue plaque on the white house on the right. Yep, George Orwell lived there for a while. So get back to the pub and start writing! 

52 Things To Do In London. Thing Two! Anglo-Texan love.

My first ‘Thing’ To Do in London, was more about where to stay for around £20. My Second ‘Thing’ is not so much linked to Literary London and the London Literary Pub Crawl, as America! And specifically, Texas.

That my second ‘Thing’ is Texas-orientated is for two reasons. Firstly, because recently a young woman from Austin, Texas, who had flown in to London the morning of the Literary Pub Crawl and not eaten or slept for 48 hours, got a bit tipsy. Only a bit, you must understand. (In fact in nearly five years of the Pub Crawl, we’ve only had two or three people ‘tired with the wine’! And that’s usually when I host the show and get carried away, as it were!) 

The second reason is that we are trying to raise some money to promote the London Literary Pub Crawl and expand into other areas, and a friend of mine who used to live in London is from Austin, Texas. He bought a £2k share in the company. Or a ‘Unit’ as they're known in the theatre world. Sort of like non-tradable shares. So I’m loving the USA. And Texas. And especially, Austin, Texas. It’s apparently a growing area in the USA, and has an annual arts and music festival. As a struggling writer, I can’t afford to go there yet - although I did wonder about creating a poetry slam or doing some readings, but that is perhaps for another time - but if you are from America or Texas, then this is what you should do in London.

Because in 1842, Texas was an independent republic. Nope, nothing to do with the USA.

In fact the Diplomatic address of Texas was in St. James!  So, Thing Two To Do In London is to get to Texas in London!  St James is the diplomatic area.  To visit Texas, go to St James’s Street - or more precisely, Pickering Place. The nearest tube station is Green Park. The tiny Pickering Place is an alley off the east side of St. James's Street near St. James's Palace in a building that also houses Berry Bros. & Rudd, a prestigious wine merchants' that has been there since 1730. 

On the north side of the building is a plaque - in fact there are TWO plaques - marking it as the site of the Texas legation. At least until 1845, when Texas decided to be less independent and became a United State of America. Then they left London, but didn't pay the rent. In fact the outstanding rent bill, due to the wine merchants next door, wasn't actually settled until the 1980’s!  Then 26 Texans dressed in buckskin, showed up at the wine shop to settle the Republic’s outstanding debt of $160, repaid on the spot in Republic of Texas bills.

This may be due to the fact that an organisation called the Anglo-Texan Society - who had author Graham Greene as a member - came over in 1963 and installed a commemorative plaque.  In 2013 they installed another plaque, probably relieved that their forebears finally sorted the rent. At the far end of the alley lies Pickering Place, a paved square with a sundial in the centre. One of London’s smallest public squares and once a notorious venue for duels and bear-baiting apparently. Pickering Place also boasts that it was the last place in London where a duel was fought and the place where Napoleon III plotted his return to France (he was in exile in England between 1838 and 1848). 

But never forget this is all next to a wine merchants. That in itself should be worth a visit! 

Yee-hah! Go see!

52 things to do in London.

As part of www.LondonLiteraryPubCrawl.com I am going to write about a years worth of things to do in London. Yep, 52 weekly posts. As a writer/boozer, it's a tall order, but here goes. If you are thinking of ever visiting London, or even if you live here, you should subscribe. You can try them all and if you have any suggestions or comments, please get in touch.

This is a bit of an unusual one to start with, because it's not so much about things to do in London - more how to base yourself in London, for as little as £23 per night!

Hotels are notoriously expensive, but if you are on a budget, why not consider camping - or even caravanning! It's not widely known, but there are a couple of caravan and camping sites just half an hour from the centre of London.

They both have all the mod cons - hot showers and Wi-Fi
They are at Crystal Palace and Abbey Wood.

The Crystal Palace Caravan Club,
Old Cople Lane, Crystal Palace Parade, London, London, SE19 1UF
https://www.caravanclub.co.uk/club-sites/england/south-east-england/london/crystal-palace-caravan-club-site/

And the Abbey Wood Caravan Club site, Federation Road, SE2 OLS.

https://www.caravanclub.co.uk/club-sites/england/south-east-england/london/abbey-wood-caravan-club-site/

Enjoy!


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

A Year Worth of Things to do in London!

As part of www.LondonLiteraryPubCrawl.com I am going to write about a years worth of things to do in London.

Yep, 52 weekly posts. Probably on a Friday. Although as a writer/boozer, it's a tall order and if you’ve been on our Literary Pub Crawl tour, you’ll know the trouble writer Jeffrey Bernard got into in the West End and Broadway hit, ‘Jeffrey Bernard is Unwell’ when trying to write a regular column. Penned by fellow boozer Keith Waterhouse and starring Peter O’Toole, all three of these famous hell-raisers drank at The Coach And Horses in Soho. As I now drink there too, I can use them as an excuse if I miss a week. “Nicholas Hennegan is Unwell!”

I’m genuinely looking forward to it though. Especially the first post, which will show you how you can stay in London for only £20 per night! Subscribe, or follow me or whatever you are supposed to do now and I’ll reveal all on Friday. Probably...

Location:Saint Peter's Villas,London,United Kingdom

20 years since we lost the Alan Ginsberg, Beat!

Although our ‘manor’, as they say in all the best cockney gangster films, is most definitely London, there was an anniversary this week involving an American writer that I had to mention. - especially as he came to London for a while.  Now, as you know, I love Americans.  I’ve not met a bad ‘un yet.  It’s interesting that since His Trumpness became boss of the good old US of A, there has been a huge rise in the sale of George Orwell’s dystopian novel, 1984.  Shows you what a good bunch most of the Yanks are really.  They've done a pretty good job of things since we left them to it in, ooo, what was it… 1776?

But joking aside, this week saw the 20th anniversary of the death of poet Allan Ginsberg.  His first name was actually Irwin, but he obviously didn't like it, ‘cause he dropped it sharpish.

He was born on 3 June in 1926 and was one of the leading figures in what was the ‘Beat Generation’ in the 1950’s USA.   And he became a leader of the counterculture that would follow.  

Alan Ginsberg was born into a Jewish family in Newark, New Jersey, and grew up in nearby Paterson.  As a young teenager, he began to write letters to The New York Times about political issues, such as World War II and workers' rights.  While in high school, Ginsberg began reading Walt Whitman, inspired by his teacher's passionate reading.  (We all need a good teacher, er?  Thanks to Mr Hewitt of Wheelers Lane School,  Birmingham.  But that is for another time…!)

In 1943, Alan Ginsberg graduated from Eastside High School and briefly attended Montclair State College before entering Columbia University on a scholarship from the Young Men's Hebrew Association of Paterson.  In 1945, he joined the Merchant Marines to earn money to continue his education at Columbia.

Young Al was no literary slouch!  While at Columbia, he contributed to the Columbia Review literary journal, the Jesterhumour magazine, won the Woodberry Poetry Prize, served as president of the Philolexian Society (a literary and debate group), and joined the Boar's Head Poetry Society!

Ginsberg has stated that he considered the required freshman seminar to be his favourite course while at Columbia University. I'm not sure what that means, but I know why he liked whatever it was.  Its subject was The Great Books and was taught by Lionel Trilling.  Thrilling!

Alan vigorously opposed militarism, economic materialism and sexual repression.  He was known as embodying various aspects of this counterculture, such as his views on drugs, hostility to bureaucracy and openness to Eastern religions.  He was one of many influential American ‘Beat’ writers of his time which included famous contemporaries such as Jack Kerouac and William S. Burroughs.

Ginsberg is best known for his poem Howl, in which he denounced what he saw as the destructive forces of capitalism and conformity in the United States.  Needless to say, in post war America, it caused a stir!  In 1956, Howl was seized by San Francisco police and US Customs and in 1957, it attracted widespread publicity when it became the subject of an obscenity trial, as it described heterosexual and homosexual sex at a time when homosexual acts were a crime in every U.S. state.

 Howl reflected Ginsberg's own homosexuality and his relationships with a number of men, including Peter Orlovsky, who he met in San Francisco and was to become his lifelong partner.  

But another reason I love Americans, was the Judge in the Ginsberg obscenity case.  Not only did the judge have a fantastically theatrical name - Clayton W. Horn! - but he ruled that Howl was not obscene.  And what a brilliant summation from an ‘establishment’ figure so apparently derided by Ginsberg.  Judge Horn said,

"Would there be any freedom of press or speech if one must reduce his vocabulary to vapid innocuous euphemisms?"

Way to go, Horn!  

You can hear an old recording of Alan reading Howl on the LondonLiteraryPubCrawl.com Podcast page.

In 1957, Ginsberg surprised the literary world by abandoning San Francisco. After a spell in Morocco, he and Peter Orlovsky joined Gregory Corso in Paris. Corso introduced them to a shabby lodging house above a bar at 9 rue Gît-le-Coeur that was to become known as The Beat Hotel. They were soon joined by Burroughs and others. It was a productive, creative time for all of them. There, Ginsberg began his epic poem Kaddish, Corso composed Bomb and Marriage, and Burroughs (with help from Ginsberg and Corso) put together Naked Lunch from previous writings. This period was documented by the photographer Harold Chapman, who moved in at about the same time, and took pictures constantly of the residents of the "hotel" until it closed in 1963. 

During 1962–3, Ginsberg and Orlovsky travelled extensively across India, living half a year at a time in Calcutta and Benares.  During this time, he formed friendships with some of the prominent young Bengali poets of the time, including Shakti Chattopadhyay and Sunil Gangopadhyay.  Ginsberg had several political connections in India; most notably Pupul Jayakar who helped him extend his stay in India when the authorities were eager to expel him.

Continuing his travels, in May 1965, Ginsberg finally arrived in London and offered to read anywhere for free.  Good lad!  Shortly after his arrival, he gave a reading at Better Books, which was described by Jeff Nuttall as "the first healing wind on a very parched collective mind.”  Tom McGrath wrote: "This could well turn out to have been a very significant moment in the history of England – or at least in the history of English Poetry".

Soon after the bookshop reading, plans were hatched for the International Poetry Incarnation, which was held at the Royal Albert Hall in London on 11 June, 1965. The event attracted an audience of 7,000, who heard readings and live and tape performances by a wide variety of figures, including Ginsberg, Adrian Mitchell, Alexander Trocchi, Harry Fainlight, Anselm Hollo, Christopher Logue, George Macbeth, Gregory Corso, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Michael Horovitz, Simon Vinkenoog, Spike Hawkins and Tom McGrath. The event was organized by Ginsberg's friend, the filmmaker Barbara Rubin.

Peter Whitehead documented the event on film and released it as Wholly Communion. A book featuring images from the film and some of the poems that were performed was also published under the same title by Lorrimer in the UK and Grove Press in the US.  I've not seen the film yet, but it's on my must see list!

Alan returned to the USA and continued to form a bridge between the beat movement of the 1950s and the hippies of the 1960s, befriending, among others, Timothy Leary, Ken Kesey, and Bob Dylan. 

Ginsberg's poetry was strongly influenced by Modernism (most importantly the American style of Modernism pioneered by William Carlos Williams), Romanticism (specifically William Blake and John Keats), the beat and cadence of jazz (specifically that of bop musicians such as Charlie Parker), and his Kagyu Buddhist practice and Jewish background. He considered himself to have inherited the visionary poetic mantle handed down from the English poet and artist William Blake - who spent almost his entire life in Soho and is a personal favourite - the American poet Walt Whitman and the Spanish poet Federico Garcia Lorca.  The power of Ginsberg's verse, its searching, probing focus, its long and lilting lines, as well as its New World exuberance, all echo the continuity of inspiration that he claimed.

Using his fame as an international podium, Ginsberg spoke out on such controversial issues as the Vietnam War, gay rights (he listed his lifelong companion, Peter Orlovsky, as his spouse in his Who’s Who entry), and drugs (he was an early participant in Timothy Leary’s psilocybin and LSD experiments). At times, his opinions landed him in trouble: he was expelled from Cuba and Czechoslovakia in 1965 and, like many outspoken artists and activists, became the subject of a voluminous FBI dossier. His opinions and knowledge, however controversial, were highly solicited. He testified before Senate subcommittee hearings on drugs and his political essays were in constant demand. Accredited with coining the term “Flower Power”, Ginsberg became a figurehead of the global youth movement in the late 1960s.

Ginsberg continued to help his friends as much as he could, going so far as to give money to Herbert Huncke out of his own pocket, and housing a broke and drug addicted Harry Smith.

Alan Ginsberg gave his last public reading at Booksmith, a bookstore in the Haight Ashbury neighbourhood of San Francisco, a few months before his death in April, 1997.

He died surrounded by family and friends in his East Village loft in New York City, succumbing to liver cancer via complications of hepatitis. He was 70 years old.

Gregory Corso, Roy Lichtenstein, Patti Smith and others came by to pay their respects. 

Alan Ginsberg is buried in his family plot in B'Nai Israel Cemetery in Newark, NJ.  He was survived by his life-partner, Peter Orlovsky who died in 2010.

What a guy!  I would loved to have met him.  I guess the echoes of the New York Beats seem very close to the Verse of the Soho Shrieks!  

And let's face it, any fan of Blake, is okay in my book!