While having a tidy this morning, I came across some ephemera from my past which, as per usual, started a train of thought that led me back to the PC. The ephemera was a programme from a play what I wrote (TM – Morecambe and Wise) when I was 17. Forgive me if you have heard this one, but the story goes something like this. I am 17 years old and already my literary aspirations are reverberating around the college I attend. I am approached by two fellows from the music department who are looking for someone to write a play for them. They want to use the aforementioned play to act as a framework for their songs and wanted it to be in the vein of “The Rocky Horror Picture Show”.
Of course, I accept. I could never turn down a challenge and so I set to work writing for these two. The leader of the pack was a guy called GL, he was everything I wasn’t. Handsome, out-going, very talented to the point of precocity.He could sing, dance, act, play the piano very well and write music. He could also fit a whole Big Mac into his mouth, but that’s another story. So I deliver the play and forget about it. Weeks later, I read in the local paper that the new drama wing to the college is being opened with a performance of the play what I wrote. However, the title has been changed and the writers are GL and SM, the two guys who asked me to write it. Of course, I respond the only way I know how by writing a letter to the local paper objecting to their story and claiming total misrepresentation.
My actions get me into hot water with the Head of the Faculty. “We don’t wash our dirty linen in public here,” I am told. The letter instantly earns me a promotion: I am to direct the play and get full credit. This is great, but the problem is that I am a shy 17 year old with no aptitude for drama or direction. Oh well, I wing it the best I could and go ahead with the play with only a week to curtain up. On the night of the first performance, I pick up a programme and notice that I have been omitted off the credit list once again. Me and The Missus-to-Be (boy we go back a long, long way) make it our job to print addendums to the programme and slot them in at the last moment. The disaster is averted.
Anyway, I find this programme in my box of literary memories this morning and I remember GL. After the play, GL completely ignored me whenever I saw him around the college. It was if I never existed. As time passed, I realised that he was one of those people who climbed on the back of others to get where he wanted to go. His talent was actually surrounding himself with even more talented people, using their ideas and claiming them for himself. I saw him do this with his musical writing partner, SM, who no longer aspires to creative pursuits and instead made his career in IT.
So I google old GL out of curiosity and discover that he is working in the US. He is the Creative Director for some religious Disneyland in Orlando and bleats on about “putting God into people”. Jesus H Crackers, I think. But then, in a weird logical way, it all kind of makes sense.
Meanwhile, I got The Missus back last night and she told me all about her magical mystery tour in France. She brought back all manner of sweet goodies from a Patisserie she visited. Much lip-smacking went on.
Today, I found a really cool clip of Mike Oldfield and his band playing a snippet of Ommadawn, courtesy of Google Video:

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