Author: James Lark

I thought it was worth mentioning that our book about the Edinburgh Fringe, the cunningly titled Fringe, is now available for pre-order on Amazon. Although it’s not actually out until July I can only imagine you’ll all want to be first in the queue to read it. Also, in this digital age it is entirely feasible for a book to become a bestseller before it is even published, and hey, I reckon we could have a good go at it!

Information about the book can be found here and you can order it at Amazon here. Happy anticipating!

Many thanks to the people who expressed their commisserations about this. As a natural Lark I did my best to have a restful weekend, and due to my “larkishness” I have decided to do no work over the next six months. I hope people will try to be understanding.

I have just one thing to say:

DREADFUL CAPITULATION.

Since my so-called dreadful capitulation in my alcohol-free Lent, Alastair has been whinging about Lenten solidarity and the like, so yesterday evening I showed my solidarity in an act of joint penance by going out on an alcohol-free pub crawl across Cambridge. Our mission: to discover how many exciting types of alcohol-free lager were sold in the public houses of our town. Cambridge is a cosmopolitan kind of place, after all – you’d imagine there’d be quite a variety.

We’d had a tip off that the Slug and Lettuce did alcohol-free lager, so that is where we started. After all, beggars can’t be choosers. However, it turned out to be a hoax, the man behind the bar pityingly informing us that they had nothing of the kind, so we shook the dust from our feet and embarked on our journey.

Onwards we went, via the wanky bars in the vicinity towards less classy regions, taking turns in the humiliation of politely asking what they had in the way of alcohol-free lager, and each time getting a different sort of negative response (varying from downright bewilderment to people laughing in our faces and, in one instance, fetching the bouncer).

Six pubs and six misses later we were beginning to despair – but then we remembered that Cambridge is the proud home of the largest pub in England (at least that is what I was told when I arrived in Cambridge seven years ago), a huge Wetherspoons which surely would have a full and exciting range of non-alcoholic lagers for our enjoyment.

We reached Wetherspoons with excitement welling up inside us, only to hit an obstacle which nobody could have predicted: we were asked for I.D.

A slightly vain 26-year-old, I would usually be flattered by such an incident, as would Alastair (who claims to have looked forty since the age of sixteen). But in our growing lager-lust we weren’t in the mood for compliments, and fumbled quickly for our various means of identification.

“Can’t accept that,” the bouncer (who had the face of a killer) said to us, “has to be a driving licence or a passport.”

Cambridge (if you don’t know it) is now largely pedestrianised and has a ridiculous one-way system that means it is quicker to walk across it than it is to drive, so few of its many residents bother driving into the town centre and I presume as a result, like me, tend not to go around with their licences. And just how many people walk around with their passports on a day-to-day basis?

Wetherspoons clearly having adopted a policy of putting ex-convicts on their doors to keep out as many customers as possible, we were forced to turn away. It was almost enough to make one pack in Lent altogether and have a good double gin.

And so we might have done, but for the fact that our next stop came up trumps – The Cow off Market Square dutifully supplied us with two bottles of Kaliber. The formica table tops and general lack of atomsphere was a bit of a downer, and Kaliber is the least appealing non-alcoholic lager we have discovered, but by that stage it felt like a major victory – as you can tell from the looks of triumph on our faces:

And this marked a turning point in our evening, because from there it was a short step to the Baron of Beef, which also had Kaliber, and then old favourite The Eagle, which had – well – Kaliber.

By this time we were feeling the need for more variation. As already suggested, Kaliber is not the nicest of drinks, and our least favourite option in what we had hoped would turn out to be a much broader field. Furthermore, by the third bottle of Kaliber, a yeasty sediment appears to form at the bottom of one’s stomach as if one has been gorging on suet, and the drink itself starts to taste of shredded wheat. Although the surroundings of The Eagle are welcoming and oak-panelly, as you can tell from our faces we were beginning to be overcome by Kaliber-fatigue:

We decided on one last-ditch attempt to discover one, just one establishment that would sell us a bottle of alcohol-free lager which was not Kaliber, without having to cycle all the way out to the Traveller’s Rest. Alastair was particularly desperate – “there must be something else to drink if you don’t want alcohol,” he insisted, the Harold Bishop madness rising in his eyes, “what do you do if you have epilepsy?”

Alas, we optimistically entered The Anchor only to find more Kaliber. The rules we had set ourselves meant that we had to have a drink, so on we laboured. Our faces say it all, really:

And so I ended our evening with a firm resolution to write sternly worded letters to at least eleven pubs (starting with Wetherspoons) and to maybe start a campaign to get our drinking establishments fully stocked with non-alcoholic lagers. I bet I could get funding from a fundamentalist group somewhere – I could call it the Harold Bishop Trust.

As we got on our bikes to cycle soberly homewards, we asked ourselves how much longer we have to do this for. Lent has been going on for several months already, but Easter still seems to be weeks and weeks away – how is that possible? And why has Lent never taken this long before?

“There ought to be a sequel to It’s a Wonderful Life set at Lent,” Alastair sighed.

Yes. Called It’s a Terrible Life.

– I got a text message from Mary this morning saying that this morning’s Thought for the Day was brilliant thanks to “good old Angela“. Once upon a time I shared a room in silent suffering with somebody who set his clock radio to wake him up with this institution every morning (so my mood for the rest of the day would be determined by the speaker*). These days I rarely find myself waking up at the right time for it – I’m either far too early or far too late – thus today I became in all probability the first person in the history of the world to use the BBC’s “listen again” feature to hear Thought for the Day.

– I spent the weekend making a short film, assisted by the pillar of organisational strength who is James Aylett. It all went rather well – there were some complicated scenes to choreograph and (thanks in part to James’ copious note-taking prior to shooting) all went smoothly and remarkably quickly. Notable moments included a disgusting shot in the freezing cold involving profiteroles (don’t ask – but I’ll never eat profiteroles again); filming a scene in the toilets in Borders (and the weeks it took to get permission to do so because everybody assumed we wanted to film porn); and filming porn (or at least discovering quite how pornographic you can make something that is not in the least bit pornographic).

– Otherwise, I have been spending my time intensively writing my biopic. So far it’s been as much research as creative thinking and I’ve written reams and reams of absolute crap. Which would usually depress me, but I notice that on Joe Craig’s website it says “The first draft of anything is rubbish”. When I first saw this I indignantly thought “nonsense, my first drafts are always superb”, but after a week writing absolute crap I find myself gratefully thinking “good old Joe Craig, what a wise chap he is – why isn’t he on Thought for the Day?”

– The most recent episode of Neighbours was entitled “Turtle eclipse of the heart”. Is there any end to this programme’s brilliance?

*And for reference purposes, those Thought for the Day speakers and corresponding mood forecasts in full:

Angela Tilby – a calm, wise and thoughtful mood; and a second helping of pudding at dinner.
Anne Atkins – an extremely bad mood and a day full of aggressive confrontations.
Rabbi Lionel Blue – a good mood, though slightly camp and prone to bouts of tap dancing.
A random humanist – a very bad mood and determination to write strongly worded letters to the BBC; since when have humanists been allowed to have thoughts?
The timing’s gone slightly wrong on the Today Programme and John Humphreys is now interviewing David Blunkett – the foulest mood possible, of course.

In an email from my mother:

“Had a dream the other night that you were the new vicar of Brockworth and we went to your induction. You lived in the most enormous vicarage all by yourself. Hope it’s not prophetic.”

Don’t know which I find more disturbing, the “enormous vicarage” or the “by yourself”…

I didn’t even realise that today was Saint Patrick’s day until I turned up at what turned out to be a Saint Patrick’s day party and had a can of Guinness thrust at me.

“Nope,” I said firmly, “I’ve given it up for Lent.”

“Although I suppose Saint Patrick’s day is a feast day,” I added, “so officially I’m allowed.”

“But I think that’s cheating,” I explained, working my thoughts through out loud, “so I’m not having any. No, sorry, I can’t. I mustn’t.”

At which point I thought: Lark, stop being a literal protestant. You’ve proved you don’t need to drink, you’ve proved you can even turn down a drink on this most important feast of Saint Patrick, but it’s not even about self-discipline now, it’s a superstitious avoidance of alcohol for reasons which at best you’re hazy on but which this particular day you can’t even find justification for in medieval religious law. Do you want a drink? Have a bloody drink then.

So I had a drink.

Which is not to say I got plastered. I tasted a tiny bit of the Liffey, I chased it with a single lager, and that was all.

Alastair arrived at the party as I finished my lager and told me with contempt that I had failed. I patiently explained to him that, having proved I was self-disciplined enough to give up, turn down and generally abstain from alcohol, on this day I was demonstrating that I was not bound to an irrational fundamentalist adherence to a self-imposed regime of suffering, and also that – faith and begorah – I think Saint Patrick was a jolly good chap.

Alastair replied “you make it sound like some kind of triumph when in fact it’s just a dreadful capitulation.”

But it is clear that Alastair’s abstinence has become something of an aggressive obsession, and as he himself admits he is now afraid to so much as walk past an off-licence for fear of contamination. And lest you feel this is all empty self-justification, let me remind you what we have learned this week about the dangers of obsessive religious fundamentalism: it only leads to you creeping up on your next door neighbour and attempting to strangle him to death.

That’s right. Alastair is well on his way to becoming the next Harold Bishop. And there, frankly, but for the grace of God, go I.

Neighbours might have got a cheery new title sequence with cartoon backgrounds, but there’s nothing cartoony about the programme any more. Since Harold’s attempted murder of Paul, Ramsey Street has become a dark, unsettling place.

Harold now walks around with trance-like music playing in the background and delivering scary religious voiceovers to himself. Paul has upped the security surrounding his house and swears bloody revenge on whoever strangled him, alongside lines like “I feel like I’m living in my own nightmare”.

There was a tense confrontation in which Harold popped round to Paul’s house with some mince pies, meeting his unsuspecting victim’s eyes unflinchingly as he no doubt planned a way around the tightened security for his next murder attempt. The whole thing is like film noir meets arthouse cinema and it’s unbelievably compelling. With all of that excitement, frankly who cares if Ned’s family don’t approve of his career or whether Steph gets treatment for her cancer?

Bring on a spin-off series featuring Harold as a Godfather-like figure and Paul as a young mafia upstart, each making multiple murder attempts against the other every episode whilst the inhabitants of Ramsey Street get diced in the crossfire.

Forget the incineration of Lassiters. Forget the plane crash. Neighbours has entered a new and bold area that it has surely been leading up to since the death of Madge.

Harold has gone psycho.

I jest not. Here he is with a mad look in his eyes sneaking up on Paul Robinson.

Moments later, as the BBC website dutifully reports, “enraged Harold strangled him”.

That’s right, Harold Bishop strangled Paul Robinson.

I think it might be the greatest television moment ever.

You’d have thought people at church would be a tiny bit understanding about the period of Lent. Apparently not.

During coffee after church this morning I found myself speaking to a parishioner who is usually smartly turned out with a neatly trimmed moustache, but for the last two sundays has turned up looking like a tramp and is growing an increasingly unkempt beard.

“Have you given up shaving for Lent?” I asked him, because this was a more polite question than “have you been made redundant?” To which he responded that, yes, he has given up shaving for Lent, because he is appearing in a play and has been instructed to grow a beard.

“I suppose it’s a bit of a cheat,” he added.

“Yes,” I agreed, adopting a look of righteous suffering and adding “I’ve given up drinking for Lent”.

“You’re drinking now,” he said, gesturing to my coffee.

I chuckled politely. “I mean I’ve given up alcohol for Lent.”

“Yes,” he replied. “There’s alcohol in that.”

After wednesday’s incident I’ve been in a state of near-manic paranoia about anything alcoholic coming near to me, so I was aghast at the suggestion that somebody was slipping alcohol into the church coffee. It didn’t strike me as the least bit unlikely in an institution where probably over half the members do slip a little something extra into their coffee on a regular basis, but nevertheless it seemed extremely foolhardy. “You mean…who…what…” I stuttered in horror, as my shaggy bearded persecuter watched my reaction with enjoyment.

“There’s alcohol in everything,” he smugly explained. “Minute traces.”

It was several minutes before my palpatations died down. Minute traces, indeed.

My torment continued a little later when I joined the other young adults of St Mark’s for our weekly sunday lunch. I had just finished off a sizeable plate of extremely nice spag bol made by somebody called Kristen and was enquiring what had gone into it. “It involves a lot of chopping,” Kristen said. “Tomatos, carrot, celery, garlic…wine…”

“What?” I exploded, palpatating again, and wondering what medieval rules about Lent have to say about tactical vomiting. An unsympathetic ripple of laughter went round the table.

Kristen’s husband Jason began to tell me that Sundays didn’t count, but I told him I was having none of that one-day-off-a-week nonsense. “I know,” he said, “I read it on your blog.”

“Actually,” Kristen went on, “he was reading that bit of your blog when I was making the bolognaise, and I couldn’t help laughing when I poured the wine in.”

Suddenly I was confronted with a mental image of Kristen cackling to herself as she poured a bottle of wine into the bolognaise sauce she knew I would be eating, and what had at first appeared to be a careless oversight took on a new and horrible reality as a deliberate act of SABOTAGE.

I suppose I shall have to forgive her, because 1. it was very good bolognaise, 2. no doubt her husband will read this out to her as she prepares a sherry trifle or something to tempt me with, and 3. Jason, who is in fact yet another trainee Priest, did absolve me on account of it being Sunday.

It’s like the trainee Priests are lining up to make my struggle easier for me. And if his theological credentials are not enough, somebody who blogs about food this much must surely know what he’s talking about.