Jane Kim

Thu, 20 Mar 2008 03:31:22 GMT

The big fat "Rejection".
To say I didn't expect it, though, would be an utter lie.
Here's to failing to impress!

Fri, 07 Mar 2008 06:06:01 GMT

So I hear Fran, Dougie, Neil and Andy (plus Klaus) are writin' and harmonizin' again for a sixth album. That's excellent news because it automatically guarantees another Travis tour and that hopefully means they'll come 'round LA again. Next year.

Mon, 11 Feb 2008 09:05:58 GMT

I have realized that I've completely neglected doing posts that people will ignore and instead have been "private"ly copying and pasting trivial wiki excerpts. Today, I break that habit to bring you nothing. One day I'll be inspired to type for a good reason. But still, not even a grueling LifeSkillz intercession class has pissed me off enough to make me go on a senseless rant? Blerg.

Sat, 12 Jan 2008 09:24:23 GMT

In 1969 Michael Palin quit smoking, a pasttime he was quite fond of, through sheer will power. Having achieved a victory for mind over matter, Palin decided to raise the stakes — he would keep a diary for the next 10 years come hell or high water. What makes this enterprise interesting to people like you and me is that the decade he chose to document would also see the rise and fall and return of Monty Python’s Flying Circus. In clean, dispassionate prose spanning some 650 pages, Palin documents the trials and tribulations of the daring, off-the-wall comedy ensemble from humble-but-edgy beginnings (the name Flying Circus was foisted on the lads by the bullying BBC) to globally-recognized comedy institution (when translated for Japanese television, it became Gay Boy’s Dragon Show). A promotional tour for Diaries 1969-1979: The Python Years brings Palin to the Free Library tomorrow.

PHAWKER: Let’s start out with a localized softball: You mention Philadelphia rather fondly in the book.
PALIN: I was just looking at that. That’s the beauty of diaries — you look back in hindsight and say, “Oh I love New York, I always loved going over there” and then I read the little entry and I couldn’t wait to get out of New York and Philadelphia was like the Promised Land. The good thing about diaries is they remind you of things like that. If I hadn’t written that down I would have just carried on with this misconception that New York was more fun than Philadelphia, which clearly it wasn’t. We came to Philadelphia two or three times, I remember once, which is in the diary, we get flown in to do the Mike Douglass show and the helicopter flight from New York landed on top of a huge skyscraper, we rushed down to the studio and then back up to the helicopter and back to New York. Crazy times, not the way I’d like to travel nowadays.

PHAWKER: You also write in the diary that you went to the local public television station [WHYY] for a brief a 15-minute interview and it went so well you decided to do a whole special.
PALIN: It was [public television who introduced Python to America] and when we went to these stations on promotional tours, it was a little like Beatlemania, albeit it on a much humbler scale. And I think we sometimes found it very difficult to play up to that. It’s one thing writing the show, but being spontaneously witty 23 times a day didn’t always work out. But I seem to remember we had a good interviewer that brought some sense out of us, as well as the nonsense.

PHAWKER: I was surprised to learn that the name Flying Circus was sort of foisted on you by the BBC.
PALIN: Yes, we originally wanted to call it Owl Stretching Time or The Toad Elevating Moment or the Algae Banging Hour. We were determined that the show would be our own creation and that included the title. Of course, the title is very, very important. To have somebody else put a title on this mass of unconnected ideas that was Python was insulting. The BBC was very keen on Flying Circus — actually wanted to call it John Cleese’s Flying Circus. John, very wisely, was not to keen on having his name connected to a show that was untested and could be the end of his career. [laughs] So we agreed we should just make up a character and he could take all the blame if it all went badly. So I remember we all sat around one afternoon in John’s apartment off Knights Bridge. Up came the name Python as a surname. The name Mr. Python seemed very funny to us then. What will we call him? Brian Python? Eric Python? And somebody said ‘Monty’ and it for whatever reason made us laugh uproariously. So we agreed to give it the 24-hour test and see if it was as funny in the morning, and it was. So we went to the BBC and told them we wanted to call it Monty Python and they were annoyed, basically. ‘What does it mean?’ Nothing, we said. What does anything on the show mean? And so they begrudgingly agreed but with the famous last words that ‘in the future people will remember ‘Flying Circus’ but they certainly won’t remember ‘Monty Python.’

PHAWKER: And when the show aired in Japan, the title translated as “Gay Boy’s Dragon Show?”
PALIN: Correct. Oh, the names for skits when translated were hilarious: Upper Class Twit Of The Year was translated as Aristocratic Number One Deciding Guy Show.

PHAWKER: In a sentence or two can you tell me what each of your fellow Pythons, in your estimation, brought to the table that made the show what it was?
PALIN: I’ll have a try. Terry Gilliam brought American-ness, which was very important. The rest of us were all from very similar background, all from provincial English towns and cities so he brought this trans-atlantic perspective. Terry also brought the animation, which before then had never been used like that on television show, and I think in many ways that was the key factor why Monty Python was remembered. Also it enabled us, as writers, to go from one sketch which didn’t connect to another. Very very important, helped the free form.

Terry Jones, well, it’s hard, he’s my writing partner. But he had great persistence and commitment to Python, and like Terry Gilliam, very cinematically-inclined. He wanted to be a film director since the late ’60s and that pushed Python beyond being a TV sketch show. Along with Terry Gilliam and myself, he also worked out the stream of consciousness theory of Python. John and Graham weren’t so interested in the theory, they just wanted to write funny sketches with a group of people that were sympathetic. Terry Jones understood that Python could be different and saw intellectually how it could be different.

Graham Chapman, possibly the best actor of us all and had a very manic kind of inventiveness. His mind would go in directions that nobody else I knew could or would, just all these wonderfully weird connections that brought that surreal quality. Like John, he could also play the straight man. When he plays the Colonel saying, “Stop! This is all getting silly!” You don’t think of him as a comedian doing a TV show, you believe him as a colonel telling you to stop being silly. As with John [Cleese], he had this great ability to look just like the Establishment, yet send it up completely from within.

John had a certain manic intensity in his performances, which I’ve not seen anywhere else except Fawlty Towers where he waves his fist at cars that don’t work and all that. Just wonderful to behold, and a very sharp writer. There’s a lot about John that you would think would disqualify him from doing comedy: this sort of intellectual legal mind and a rather serious way of looking at the world and he could turn that a few notches one way or the other and it would produce the most wonderful comedy writing. Also, and this can’t be underestimated, in comedy size is quite important. It helped in some of those sketches it helped to have two very tall men in the cast, especially when the rest of us weren’t especially tall.

Eric [Idle]? Very quick, very deft, very fast with jokes. Loved puns, loved wordplay and could play those cheeky Cockney characters — “Nudge, Nudge” being the best of those. Outside of comedy he was also the best businessmen amongst us, understood rights and deals, which the rest of us didn’t.

PHAWKER: Funny you should say that, if you were the Beatles I would describe you as The Sensible One. At least that’s the way you come across in the diary — a certain serenity and focus. Everybody else seems to be a little bit of a victim of their own excesses — whether it’s ego or alcohol — and you seem very centered.
PALIN: Well, maybe because it’s my diary and history is written by the winners. I avoid confrontation as much as possible, I prefer to get on with people. And I have a longer fuse than, certainly, John who used to get very irritated at things. Quite early in life I realized there were things you just couldn’t change and you were banging your fist on the wall if you tried to change the way the BBC worked or whatever. Not to say I couldn’t get upset about things as well. But I brought a certain conciliatory side to Python. There were times when nobody wanted to work with anybody else or this one didn’t want to work with that one and I just thought ‘well, I like them all so much’ and I would often act as mediator on these occasions.

There was a centrifugal force that kept Python together from the beginning. I mean, we weren’t the perfect six people to write together or anything like that, we all had different lifestyles and ways of behaving, but if you can control desire to fly out from the center, it actually created something very strong, very powerful and very funny. Because the one thing we all enjoyed was making each other laugh, so I suppose I was responsible for keeping that little group together for as long as possible.

PHAWKER: One thing that struck me was that the book covers 1969 to 1979, which is pretty much Woodstock to Studio 54, and yet there is almost no mention of drug use. I think the most tawdry thing that happens is the SNL cast sneaks into your bedroom at the Essex House for a ’smoke.’ How is this possible? Its the ’70s!
PALIN: Well, you have to be careful what you say these days — you have to say you don’t inhale. When I was editing I would ask myself, “Do I put in that so and so did a line of coke or not?” but it didn’t happen with Python. Eric knew more people that did drugs than anyone else, but we didn’t really get involved at all. Although I think Graham smoked and we all did some marijuana. But it wasn’t central to the work and I think it’s important to say that because there are people who say ‘You guys must have been high as kites when you did this’ when in fact we weren’t and with the exception of Graham, fairly sober. If anything we used alcohol more than drugs.

PHAWKER: I was a little shocked to see how narrow the profit margins were for the Pythons in pretty much all the deals they struck. And likewise it was a little disconcerting to learn that half the Pythons were bankrupt by the end of the ’70s.
PALIN: Well, we never made a great deal from the BBC shows themselves — we were paid something like 200 pounds a week. The only money we saw was from foreign sales, specifically America when PBS bought the series, but even then it wasn’t a great deal of money. And then in 1974 when we made our first movie, nobody apart from a few rock groups were willing to back us financially. We made Holy Grail for [$400,000]. That’s just the way it was, we had a very strong and devoted fan base, but there wasn’t the big numbers that delivered a lot of money. It wasn’t until after Life Of Brian that Python offered any real financial security. And as the diaries show, everyone was off doing other things — commercials, script-doctoring, voice-overs — just to support ourselves. There’s never been crazy money in Python, it’s now coming along pretty nicely but to be honest Spamalot probably pays us more than anything else we’ve done. And that’s Eric’s show.

PHAWKER: One of the most profound passages of the diary is Terry Gilliam’s explanation for Graham Chapman’s alcoholism and how it was connected to him coming to grips with his sexuality and the courage it took to come out publicly back then. I imagine being openly gay in England in the late ’60s was a pretty tough row to hoe.
PALIN: Oh, yes. There were one or two really outrageous people who had sort of gone public, but Graham didn’t fit into that mold at all. Graham was a pipe-smoking, son-of-policeman — and of course none of these things preclude you being gay, but at the time you just wouldn’t have thought Graham was gay. I mean all his work mates and friend and Cambridge chums were, as far as I know, all sort of boring and British and straight. So it was quite a big deal that Graham declared openly that he was going to live with David [Sherlock]. I mean, you weren’t courting imprisonment as you might have five or ten years prior, but there were a lot of voices against homosexuality in the media. I think it’s mentioned in the diary that The Gay News was being prosecuted and the Pythons contributed towards their defense because we thought freedom of speech was being impinged and all that kind of stuff. But in the first instance, it was brave of Graham to do that. Because of his upbringing, he was very provincial, not London-cosmopolitan at all, and once he made that decision [to come out] it really loosened him up and he said “Now I’m going to live how I want to live.” And unfortunately he’d taken to drinking quite a bit as a doctor in training; apparently the bar was open all night at Bart’s Hospital. And it became quite excessive, really, but he was a lovely, lovely man.

PHAWKER: It says on Wikipedia that the Python cast was at his side when he died, is that true?
PALIN: I was there, and John was there. I just happened to be there. He was very ill and in hospital, and I just thought, “I should go down there, it may be his last night.” And I was there with John when he died.

PHAWKER: The British are notorious for bad teeth and in the in the diary you keep a running tally in the diary of your struggles to avoid the classic “skinny English teeth.”
PALIN: It’s funny the things that wind up becoming a running theme in your life. I discovered I had some kind of periodontal condition right around the time Python was starting and so I associated that lovely time with a certain amount of pain. I’m very serious about my teeth and it was the beginning of a course of treatment that took me about 20 years. And now I know that the last thing you do is have a glass of wine after gum surgery, but in those days we just learned from our mistakes.

PHAWKER: Is is accurate to say that the Pythons were the de facto comedy analogue to the Beatles?
PALIN: People say that, I wouldn’t have said that myself, but oddly enough Python was much liked by rock groups, and it wasn’t just the Beatles. Led Zeppelin was one of the investors in Holy Grail. There was something about us that musicians particularly liked, maybe it was because we seemed a little dangerous, we weren’t particularly Establishment. They thought we were friends, and of course we were. And it wasn’t just George, Paul McCartney would stop recording his album just to watch Python when it first came on the telly back in 1969. Also, the Beatles broke up almost exactly the same month that the Pythons were formed, I think it was October 1969. Also in our material, there was a whimsical side as well as a hard side — there was Jones-Palin material as well as the Cleese-Chapman material, so there was a Lennon-McCartney dynamic. You give them the hard stuff, but mix it in with the surreal and the whimsical.

PHAWKER: How did the recent furor amongst fundamentalist muslims over the political cartoons in Danish newspapers compare to furor created amongst fundamentalist Christians when Life Of Brian came out?
PALIN: Well, there never was a fatwah and I don’t think we had a sense of being vilified we just knew that certain people hated what we did. And it wasn’t just Life Of Brian, there were voices in the media back then that just thought Python was subversive and irresponsible and cruel, and of course it wasn’t. Bits of it might have been, but as a whole it wasn’t. But it was a more benign atmosphere then. Now you see images of people burning copies of Danish newspapers or pictures of the Danish Prime Minister — if they can find one — in continents 7,000 miles away. I mean, nobody knew about Python in Asia. Our opposition were much more closer to home — they were churchmen, or anti-gay, or just thought we were trying to corrupt the youth of the world. And they made it clear they didn’t like what we were doing, but there were no threats. And I think now it is slightly different.

PHAWKER: What is the status of Python, any chance you guys will work together again?
PALIN: No plans at the moment and I can’t really see it happening, but there are different views on this. We have always said that Python was six people writing and performing resulting in a balance which for some extraordinary reason really clicked to produce an enormously diverse range of funny material. So without Graham, it’s difficult. We could get together and write, but then to perform who plays Graham’s parts? And if you bring somebody else in immediately Python isn’t quite what it was and I’m wary of that. Everyone is doing other things and so I don’t see a Python reunion on the horizon, but you never know.

PHAWKER: When does the next installment of your travel series come out?
PALIN: Well, I just completed a series called New Europe, it’s really about Eastern Europe and all these countries that have relatively recently gotten their independence from the Soviet Union. It’s a seven-hour series, which I hope will go on the Travel Channel as the other ones have, maybe end of this year or early next year.

Mon, 07 Jan 2008 01:56:48 GMT

Vat is dis? Monty Python's Fliegender Zirkus?

Sun, 30 Dec 2007 07:09:18 GMT

Fri, 28 Dec 2007 04:59:56 GMT

36 hours of idleness and you want to go completely insane.

Wed, 12 Dec 2007 05:07:22 GMT

With college finally in my face, I can't help but wonder what the future-future would look like. This is tough. On good days, I am surviving, relatively happy, and shopping for samosas at Trader Joe's. On an average sort of day, I am still in Koreatown, living in a shack with my abusive boyfriend while working as an SAT math tutor. On the bleaker days, I am shot in the neck before I reach 20. I swear I'm not all pessimistic about the rest of my life.

Actually my mind seldom wanders to a more pleasant version of the future: a grandiose vision of myself in New York editting sketches, being best friends with famous people and essentially living Tina Fey's life. But I really shouldn't dare trespass upon this sort of dangerous wishful thinking because I know my luck... so back to reality, it is.

I've been on Wikipedia, reading biographies of people who literally "réussir dans la vie". And sadly have been comparing this to my life so far. I always search for some indication that I'm on the right path, like "Ringo Starr's parents immigrated from Korea. As a student, he had a 3.6 GPA and 1900 on the SATs and then carried on drumming and being famous in Liverpool". Or anything that gives me a pat on the back saying life won't be half as bad as I'm making it out to be.

The truth is, I have absolutely no clue where I would end up or if I was at all as confident as I always thought I'd been. I guess it all comes down to what I've been doing the past 4 years of my life. Really? Like, I don't get another chance or anything?

Wed, 12 Dec 2007 01:30:54 GMT

JUNO
I knew this girl. She had this crazy freak-out because she took too many behavioral meds at once. And she just, like ripped off her clothes and dove into the fountain at Ridgedale Mall and was like "Blaaa! I am a KRAKEN FROM THE SEA!"

SU CHIN
I heard that was you.

JUNO
Well, it was good seein' ya, Su Chin.

Tue, 11 Dec 2007 05:13:56 GMT

But in my head, I'm speaking fluent French.

Mon, 26 Nov 2007 01:38:27 GMT

Rejoice! He finally gets the recognition he deserves. Look at that impressive range.

Chapter 2

Sat, 17 Nov 2007 05:44:28 GMT

The late fifties was a wonderful time to be young and setting out in the world. The grim days of the war and postwar deprivation were over; national service had been lifted and teenagers were allowed to be youthful and unafraid. It was as though the gray austerity of the forties had been replaced by a brilliant spectrum of opportunities and possibilities. Britain was celebrating survival and freedom, and the time was ripe for dreams, hopes and creativity.

I started at Liverpool College of Art in September 1957. I had just turned eighteen and could hardly believe my luck. A year earlier my father had died, after a painful battle with lung cancer. My two older brothers had left home, and my mother and I had little money. Before he died Dad, who was desperately worried about providing for us, told me that I wouldn't be able to go to college: I'd have to get a job and help Mum. I promised I would, but it was hard to accept that my college hopes were at an end. Mum said nothing at the time, but she knew how much college meant to me, and after Dad's death she said, "You go to college, love. We'll manage somehow." She took in lodgers to make ends meet: she crammed four beds into the master bedroom for four working lads, young apprentice electricians who were happy to share. From then on home was more like a boarding-house – there were always queues for the bathroom and I had to get up at dawn if I wanted to be first in, but I was hugely grateful to Mum and determined not to let her down.

When I got into art college, I set out to be a model student. I turned up promptly every day, neat in my best twin sets and tweed skirts with my pencils sharpened, ready to be the hardest-working girl in the place. My dream was to be an art teacher. Art was the only subject I'd ever liked at school and I was thrilled when, at the age of twelve, I got into the junior art school, which was down the street from the art college. It was there that I became best friends with a girl called Phyllis McKenzie. We planned to go on to college together, but Phyl's father refused to let her go and insisted she get a job. She had to settle for evening classes in life drawing, after spending the day working as a commercial artist for a local corn merchant.

A couple of other girls from the junior art school, Ann Mason and Helen Anderson, started college with me. We were thrilled to be there, and in awe of the older students, many of whom wore the kind of bohemian, beatnik clothes we considered incredibly daring and could only stare at with a mixture of envy and admiration.

Most of us starting college then had been born just before or during the war – in my case a week after war was declared. My mother, with a group of other pregnant women, had been sent to the relative safety of Blackpool, where she gave birth in a tiny cell of a room in a bed-and-breakfast on the seafront on September 10, 1939. It was a nightmare birth: she was left alone, in labor, for a day and a night, and when the midwife finally got to her it was clear that, without immediate help, neither my mother nor I was going to make it. The midwife locked the door, swore my mother to secrecy and dragged me into the world by my hair, ears and any other part of me she could get hold of. My father, who had arrived hours earlier and burst into tears at the sight of my exhausted, terrified mother, had been sent for a walk. He returned to find that his wife had survived and he had a daughter.

My parents both came from Liverpool, but at the outbreak of war they decided to leave the city for the relative safety of the Wirral, across the Mersey in Cheshire. They moved with me and my brothers – Charles, then eleven, and Tony, eight – to a two-bedroom semi-detached house in a small seaside village called Hoylake. My father worked for GEC, selling electrical appliances to shops, and had to travel into the city each day to make his rounds, but at home we were away from the worst of the relentless bombing that ravaged so much of Liverpool. When the bombers flew overhead my mother would scoop us into the cupboard under the stairs, where the force of the explosions jolted us off our seats.

I grew up with rationing as a way of life. Like all the other families around us, we dug for Britain, with an allotment where we grew our vegetables and a little hen coop in the back garden. As in so many households in those days, the boys generally took precedence over the girls. When my brothers got bacon, I got the rind, and when they got scraps of meat from a bone, I got the bone to chew. It was my job to clean their shoes and help my mother look after them and Dad. I was a quiet, timid child and I accepted my role in the house, as the youngest and the only girl, without question.

Rationing went on for some years after the war, so for most of my childhood scarcity was normal. I used to shop for two old ladies in our street and in return one gave me her sweets coupons and the other gave me old clothes that had belonged to her children. Both the clothes and the sweets were rare treats. My brother Charles left when he was sixteen and I was five, so I have few memories of him living at home. He went to work for GEC, first in Birmingham, then London. He was a wonderful pianist – the whole street used to listen to him.

I was closer to Tony, and when he was called up for national service in 1950, at the age of eighteen, I missed him dreadfully. After the army he joined the police to please his girlfriend, who wanted the accommodation that went with the job. He hated being a policeman and was relieved when she left him and he could resign.

By the time I was ten it was just my parents and me at home. They were opposites in many ways, but they loved each other and I never heard them argue. My father, also Charles, was easy-going, kind, robust and jolly. I remember him losing his temper with me only once, when I came home from school and used a swear word. I adored him and after I got into the junior art school I traveled into Liverpool on the train with him in the mornings and evenings. He used to carry a bag of sweets for his customers, and he'd slip me a couple on the way home.

My mother, Lilian, was unusual for her day: she had no interest in housework and cleaned our home about once a month – the rest of the time it gathered dust. But Mum had a strong artistic streak: she always had a vase of flowers in the window, which she took pleasure in arranging, and she knitted fantastic Fair Isle sweaters. Her real passion, though, was the auction rooms to which she would head every Monday to spot the latest bargains.

On Monday evenings Dad and I would arrive home to find the front room changed. There might be a new sofa, carpet, curtains, table or even all of them, the old ones already dispatched to the same sale rooms. We didn't mind: it was always fun to see what she'd done and, most important, it made Mum happy.

When Dad became ill, at the age of fifty-six, everything changed. Like so many others in those days, he smoked untipped cigarettes, unaware of the damage it was doing to him. When he developed lung cancer he went downhill rapidly: his solid frame wasted away and his breathing was labored. Before long all he could do was sit in his chair in the bedroom, where I would sit with him after school each day. After his death only Mum and I were left, grieving for him and wondering how we would manage. Art college gave me a new focus, something to be excited about, to work for, and to take me out of our quiet little house of mourning into the world.

Watching the older, more confident kids at college, I longed to be like them. I envied their casual, arty style and their long hair. I had arrived with my short mousy hair in a neat perm, courtesy of my mother's friend who was a hairdresser. The trouble was, most of her clientele were over fifty and she made me look middle-aged and dowdy. Every few weeks she would experiment, giving me a different style, but they were all ghastly. And, to make things worse, I wore glasses. I'd arrived at college thrilled to be rid of my school uniform and pleased with my smart new clothes. But I soon felt frumpy and dull, with my matronly hair and conventional outfits. I longed to be more daring, but in those early days I didn't have the courage.

To add to my problems I was saddled with the "over the water" posh image that Scousers had of anyone who lived across the Mersey. I spoke differently, and to them this meant I was stuck-up, even though many of them were better off than I was. My shyness didn't help: it made me seem aloof, when most of the time I was going through agonies, trying to think of the right thing to say. I was hopeless at sparkling conversation and witty repartee, and watched enviously as others bantered while I remained tongue-tied. But despite the drawbacks I loved college. It gave me a sense of independence and freedom I had never experienced before.

During my first year I was seeing a boyfriend I'd met while I was still at school. Barry was a bit of a catch: he was the son of a window cleaner but he looked Spanish and exotic, and he was the Romeo of Hoylake. I was the envy of the local girls when he asked me out. He'd seen me in my white duffel coat, walking my dog Chummy on the beach, and one day he followed me and asked me to the pictures. I was just seventeen and he was five years older. Flattered, I said yes.

By the time we'd been together for a year I was starting college and we were thinking of getting engaged. Barry was working for his dad and saving in the building society for our future. One day he persuaded me to make love with him on the sofa in my parents' front room when Mum was out. It took him hours to talk me into it, promising we'd get married and telling me how much he loved me, but when I finally agreed I didn't think much of it: over in a flash and no fun. I went on seeing Barry, but I made sure we never got the chance to be alone in the house again. One day he announced that he'd fallen for a red-haired girl who lived up the road, and I was heartbroken. It was the first betrayal I had experienced and I vowed I'd never forgive him. But, a few months later, when he begged me to go back to him, swearing he'd made a mistake and I was his true love, I relented.

Two-thirds of the way through my foundation year Phyl arrived at college. She had won a grant, and had finally persuaded her father to let her attend full-time. We were both delighted and in between classes we hung around together most of the time. At the end of that year we had to choose which areas we wanted to specialize in. I went for graphics, but I also signed up for a twice-weekly class in lettering. Phyl decided on painting and lettering, and we were glad of the chance to do a class together.

I arrived for my second year in college just as keen as I had been in the first, but I'd softened my appearance a little. I'd plucked up the courage to say no to Mum's hairdresser friend and was growing my hair. I'd acquired some rather hip black velvet pants to replace the tweed skirts, and I'd begun to ditch my glasses as often as I could. I could hardly see without them – I'm very short-sighted – so this caused me all kinds of problems: I'd frequently get off the bus at the wrong stop or misread notices in college – but I didn't care. I hated my glasses so much that it was worth the odd hiccup. I only put them on when I was working in class, because without them I couldn't see the board or even what I was drawing on the paper in front of me.

We had all taken our seats for the first lettering class when a teddy-boy slouched into the room, hands stuffed deep into his coat pockets, looking bored and a shade defiant. He sat at an empty desk behind me, tapped me on the back, twisted his face into a ludicrous grimace and said, "Hi, I'm John." I couldn't help smiling. "Cynthia," I whispered, as the teacher, who had begun to talk, frowned at me.

I'd seen John around the college but had never spoken to him, as we moved in completely different circles. I was surprised to see him in the lettering class – he didn't seem the type for the painstaking, detailed work involved. He hadn't even brought any equipment. As soon as we started work he tapped my back again and asked to borrow a pencil and a brush, which I reluctantly handed over. After that he always sat behind me, borrowing whatever he needed from me. Not that he used it much: most of the time he did no work at all. He spent his time fooling around, making everyone in the class laugh.

It turned out that John hadn't chosen to do lettering. He'd been ordered into the class when most of the other teachers had refused to have him. He made it clear he didn't want to be there and did his best to disrupt the class. When he wasn't teasing someone he'd give us a wicked commentary on the teacher, or provoke hoots of laughter with his cruelly funny and uncannily accurate cartoons of teachers, fellow students or of twisted, grimacing, malformed figures.

When I'd first looked at John I'd thought, Yuck, not my type. With his teddy-boy look – DA (duck's arse) haircut, narrow drainpipe trousers and a battered old coat that was too big for him – he was very different from the clean-cut boys I was used to. His outspoken comments and caustic wit were alarming: I was terrified he might turn on me, and he soon did, calling me "Miss Prim" or "Miss Powell" and taking the mickey out of my smart clothes and posh accent.

The first time he did it I rushed out of the room, red-faced, at the end of the class, wishing he'd disappear. But as the weeks went by I began to look forward to seeing him. We never met anywhere but the lettering class, but I found myself hurrying to it, looking out for him. He made me laugh and his manner fascinated me. I had always been in awe of authority, anxious to please and do well, but John was the opposite: he was aggressive, sarcastic and rebellious. He didn't seem to be afraid of anyone, and I envied the way he could laugh about everything and everyone.

A mutual friend told me that his mother had been killed in a car accident at the end of the previous term. I missed my father desperately, so I felt for him. He never mentioned it and neither did anyone else, but the knowledge that he was hiding grief behind the acerbic front made me look at him more closely.

One morning the students in the lettering class were testing each other's eyesight for fun. It turned out that John and I were equally short-sighted; just like me he couldn't see a thing and hated wearing glasses, most of all, ironically, the little round lenses you got on the National Health. Instead he had horn-rimmed black ones, which had cost quite a bit. Laughing about our rotten luck and the blunders we'd made when we couldn't see gave us our first real connection, and after that we often chatted during class.

John usually had a guitar slung across his back when he arrived and he told me he was in a group, the Quarrymen, named after his old school, Quarry Bank High. Sometimes when we were sitting around after class he would get it out and strum the pop tunes of the day, by Bo Diddley, Chuck Berry or Lonnie Donegan. As soon as he began to play I saw a different side of him. It was plain that he loved his music: his face softened and he lost his usually cynical expression.

Halfway through the term I realized I was falling for him and scolded myself. I was being ridiculous: he wasn't at all the type of boy I'd imagined myself with and, in any case, I couldn't see him being interested in me. But that changed one day when everyone else had left the class and I was packing up my things. John was sitting a few feet away with his guitar. He began to play "Ain't She Sweet," a song that was popular at the time and which the Beatles were later to record.

I blushed scarlet, made an excuse, and fled before the end of the song. But I'd seen the look in his eyes, which he'd kept fixed on me as he sang – could it be that John fancied me, too?

I confided in Phyl, who told me he wasn't my type and not to be so daft. She knew John: they lived near each other and traveled together to college on the seventy-two bus. Although she often had to lend him the fare, she liked him – but she didn't think he was for me. She reminded me that I was thinking of getting engaged to Barry … but my plans with Barry were taking a back seat. I saw less and less of him as I continued to moon over John, and the lettering class was the highlight of my week.

One lunchtime I saw John staring at a girl as she walked up the staircase. She was dressed in a tight black skirt and had long blond hair. John whistled. "She looks just like Brigitte Bardot," I heard him say to a friend.

I wasn't about to be outdone. The following Saturday I went out, got the latest Hiltone blond dye and got to work on my hair. On Monday I arrived in college by several shades blonder. I was delighted when John noticed: "Get you, Miss Hoylake!" He laughed, but I could see he liked it.

One afternoon all the intermediate students were asked to be in the lecture theater for a discussion. John was a few seats away from me, and my friend Helen Anderson, who was also friendly with John, suddenly leaned forward and stroked his hair. Helen didn't fancy John – it was a friendly gesture in response to something he'd said. But when I realized how jealous I was it brought me up with a jolt.

Although John and I chatted in lettering classes we spent our free time in college with our different groups of friends and virtually ignored each other. I thought of him as unattainable and, despite my fantasies, still didn't think for a minute that we might actually get together.

We were all getting excited about the holidays, when someone suggested we hold a party one lunchtime before we broke up. One of the staff, an ex-boxer named Arthur Ballard, a tough but excellent teacher, gave us permission to use his room, provided he could come, too. We happily agreed, found a record player and chipped in for the beers.

I was looking forward to the party, not because I thought John would be there – I felt sure a tame little students' do wouldn't be his style – but because I thought it would take my mind off him. After that we'd be on holiday break. I was looking forward to that and was determined to get over my crush on John

The day of the party was warm and the sun streamed through the grubby windows of Arthur Ballard's first-floor room, where we gathered once a week to produce paintings on a chosen theme. We pushed the tables and chairs to one side, set out the food and drink and put on a pile of records. The usual gang were there, a group of ten or fifteen of us who'd been friends since our first year. I arrived feeling good: I was wearing a new baggy black cotton top over a short black and white skirt, with black tights and my best black winklepicker shoes.

By now several romances were budding so the atmosphere was heady. Ann Mason was getting together with Geoff Mohammed, a close friend of John's. They smooched away – Phyl and I glanced knowingly at each other. Then John walked in. My face was hot and my stomach contorted as I pretended not to notice him. Like me, he was in black – his usual drainpipe trousers with a sweater and suede shoes. He made a beeline for me and said, "D'you want to get up?" I blushed, but leapt to my feet to dance with him.

While we were dancing to Chuck Berry John shouted, "Do you fancy going out with me?"

I was so flustered that I came out with, "I'm sorry but I'm engaged to this fellow in Hoylake." The moment I said it I wanted the ground to swallow me – I knew I sounded stuck-up and prim.

"I didn't ask you to f------ marry me, did I?" John shot back. He walked off and, convinced I'd blown it, I was plunged into gloom. But a couple of hours later, as the party was breaking up, John and his friends asked me and Phyl to the pub. This was good news – perhaps all was not lost.

I persuaded Phyl we should go and we followed them to Ye Cracke, a pub where the students often hung out. The place was packed and we had to yell to each other above the hubbub. We'd never been there before, we'd always headed straight home like the good girls we were, and this was our first taste of student social life. We loved the noise, the laughter and the buzzy atmosphere – and realized what we'd been missing.

John was with a couple of his cronies, Geoff Mohammed and Tony Carricker, on the other side of the pub, and made no move to come over to us. Phyl and I had found some friends and were chatting with them, but after a couple of black velvets – the mix of Guinness and cider that all the students drank – I felt a little wobbly and decided I'd better head for my train home. I was disappointed that John hadn't talked to me, and wondered if, after all, he had been laughing at me when he invited me to the pub.

As I made for the door he called me over, teased me about being a nun and asked me to stay. Phyl said she had to get her bus home and asked if I was coming. I knew she didn't approve of John, but I was hooked: if he wanted me to stay I was staying. I smiled apologetically at her. She gave a helpless shrug and headed for the door. John and I had another couple of drinks and then he whispered, "Let's go." The two of us slipped away from the crowd.

By this time it was evening and the street outside was quiet. Almost as soon as we'd left the pub John kissed me, a long, passionate, irresistible kiss. He whispered that his friend, Stuart, had a room we could go to, grabbed my hand and pulled me down the road. I was happy, hugely happy, to be with John and that he felt the same. At that moment I would have gone anywhere with him.

Stuart's place was a large room at the back of a shared house, with no curtains, a mattress on the floor and clothes, art materials, empty cigarette packets and books scattered around it. We couldn't have cared less about the mess and headed for the mattress, where we made love for the next hour. For me it was special and very different from my previous brief experience. And I think it was equally special for John, whose cockiness and tough-guy demeanor melted away as we lay wrapped in each other's arms.

Afterward John said, "Christ, Miss Powell, that was something else. What's all this about being engaged, then?" I told him my romance in Hoylake was over. John grinned and said he thought I was incredibly sexy and he'd been lusting after me all term. "By the way," he added, "no more Miss Powell. From now on, you're Cyn."

We snapped back to reality when I realized I was about to miss my last train home. We pulled on our clothes and raced to the station, where we managed a hasty good-bye kiss before I leapt into a carriage. "What are you doing tomorrow, and the next day, and the next?" John called, as I waved out of the window.

"Seeing you," I shouted back.

Others might have seen us as an unlikely couple, but I knew from the outset that we had made a deep connection. My feelings for John were very different from those I'd had for any other boy – more powerful, more exciting and totally unshakable. And I sensed in John the same strong feelings. Perhaps each of us recognized and was drawn to a deep need in the other. But at the time I didn't analyze it. I simply felt certain that this was no passing fling. It was real love.

Sat, 17 Nov 2007 04:14:42 GMT

The only thing more frustrating than tipping a glass of water over all of your books and DVD collection is tipping a hot Cup of Noodle over all of your books and DVD collection.

Wed, 07 Nov 2007 05:28:14 GMT

Graham Chapman, co-author of the 'Parrot Sketch,' is no more.

He has ceased to be, bereft of life, he rests in peace, he has kicked the bucket, hopped the twig, bit the dust, snuffed it, breathed his last, and gone to meet the Great Head of Light Entertainment in the sky, and I guess that we're all thinking how sad it is that a man of such talent, such capability and kindness, of such intelligence should now be so suddenly spirited away at the age of only forty-eight, before he'd achieved many of the things of which he was capable, and before he'd had enough fun.

Well, I feel that I should say, "Nonsense. Good riddance to him, the freeloading bastard! I hope he fries. "

And the reason I think I should say this is, he would never forgive me if I didn't, if I threw away this opportunity to shock you all on his behalf. Anything for him but mindless good taste. I could hear him whispering in my ear last night as I was writing this:

"Alright, Cleese, you're very proud of being the first person to ever say 'shit' on television. If this service is really for me, just for starters, I want you to be the first person ever at a British memorial service to say 'fuck'!"

You see, the trouble is, I can't. If he were here with me now I would probably have the courage, because he always emboldened me. But the truth is, I lack his balls, his splendid defiance. And so I'll have to content myself instead with saying 'Betty Mardsen...'

But bolder and less inhibited spirits than me follow today. Jones and Idle, Gilliam and Palin. Heaven knows what the next hour will bring in Graham's name. Trousers dropping, blasphemers on pogo sticks, spectacular displays of high-speed farting, synchronised incest. One of the four is planning to stuff a dead ocelot and a 1922 Remington typewriter up his own arse to the sound of the second movement of Elgar's cello concerto. And that's in the first half.

Because you see, Gray would have wanted it this way. Really. Anything for him but mindless good taste. And that's what I'll always remember about him---apart, of course, from his Olympian extravagance. He was the prince of bad taste. He loved to shock. In fact, Gray, more than anyone I knew, embodied and symbolised all that was most offensive and juvenile in Monty Python. And his delight in shocking people led him on to greater and greater feats. I like to think of him as the pioneering beacon that beat the path along which fainter spirits could follow.

Some memories. I remember writing the undertaker speech with him, and him suggesting the punch line, 'All right, we'll eat her, but if you feel bad about it afterwards, we'll dig a grave and you can throw up into it.' I remember discovering in 1969, when we wrote every day at the flat where Connie Booth and I lived, that he'd recently discovered the game of printing four-letter words on neat little squares of paper, and then quietly placing them at strategic points around our flat, forcing Connie and me into frantic last minute paper chases whenever we were expecting important guests.

I remember him at BBC parties crawling around on all fours, rubbing himself affectionately against the legs of gray-suited executives, and delicately nibbling the more appetizing female calves. Mrs. Eric Morecambe remembers that too.

I remember his being invited to speak at the Oxford union, and entering the chamber dressed as a carrot---a full length orange tapering costume with a large, bright green sprig as a hat----and then, when his turn came to speak, refusing to do so. He just stood there, literally speechless, for twenty minutes, smiling beatifically. The only time in world history that a totally silent man has succeeded in inciting a riot.

I remember Graham receiving a Sun newspaper TV award from Reggie Maudling. Who else! And taking the trophy falling to the ground and crawling all the way back to his table, screaming loudly, as loudly as he could. And if you remember Gray, that was very loud indeed.

It is magnificent, isn't it? You see, the thing about shock... is not that it upsets some people, I think; I think that it gives others a momentary joy of liberation, as we realised in that instant that the social rules that constrict our lives so terribly are not actually very important.

Well, Gray can't do that for us anymore. He's gone. He is an ex-Chapman. All we have of him now is our memories. But it will be some time before they fade.

Sat, 20 Oct 2007 05:54:31 GMT

Words that I like:

regalia
banter
ipso facto
jettison
discotheque
frumpy
yegg
papoose

Sun, 14 Oct 2007 05:35:15 GMT

To briefly summarize the night: Lots O' Laffs

Thu, 06 Sep 2007 06:11:20 GMT

I will forever cherish the anonymity on the Internet.

Thu, 06 Sep 2007 05:34:10 GMT

I'm sorry (air quote) Tanster of OfficeTally (unquote), have you turned into a grammar-Nazi as well as a small nefarious pirate?

Please don't regard your title as "Tanster of OfficeTally" as anything spectacular. I know you're a moderator and all but this is absolute tyranny. You need not set the rules for your supporters. These people take time to come to your site for the information and to discuss Office matters, not to boast about their intellect.

Thu, 06 Sep 2007 05:03:29 GMT

Once upon a time, when I was an avid member of every The Office fan board ever to exist online, I created an ingenious Office-related contest. Proudly, I pitched the idea to Tanster of OfficeTally and received no reply. So I resorted to the LiveJournal community where like 2 people submitted their entry. I recovered from my wounds eventually, but months later I visit OfficeTally and what do I see? The same idea, now the central-buzz of every screaming Office fan, supported by Kent Zbornak. Come on, mentioning my name in small letters would at least suffice.

Mine (look at the fucking date on that thing)
Hers

Laugh all you want, but I mean business.

She might be racist

Wed, 05 Sep 2007 00:59:52 GMT

Here's the deal with the new girl. I think she might be racist. I don't know this for sure. But it's definitely not something I can blatantly confront her about as opposed to just asking her "Do you have a tissue?" That is unless she replies with "No, but I'm racist." It could very well be all in my head. I probably, subconsciously, want her to be racist because I've never encountered one before. Thus I can embellish my life story with anecdotes about how hard it was to be brought up by immigrant parents and so on about my hard knock minority life. Regardless of my wishes, she's probably a pleasant girl. From what I've gathered she's pretty amiable, brazen even; generously promising lap dances to some (boys). But she can do whatever her adorable heart desires. She can flaunt her cute butt-chin and perky New Jersey attitude about but I'm just going to wait until the day I overhear her say "I hate that lanky ass Asian girl" then I'll know never to approach her. And that she's more or less a racist. And that I was right all along.

Tue, 04 Sep 2007 03:20:09 GMT

I am honored to share my first name with the first four letter of her first name.

Fri, 31 Aug 2007 02:15:54 GMT

Fri, 31 Aug 2007 02:05:50 GMT

Stage Crew - Fris
AP Français - Morrison
Play Prod - Fris
AP Stats - Wong
AP Lit - O'Connell
AP Gov - Jeffries

Now tell me that isn't the best scheduling you've ever seen.
Oh snap.

Wed, 08 Aug 2007 21:11:15 GMT

The Superbad craze. I am counting down the hours until its official premiere. Seeing the posters everywhere doesn't help the fact that 17506 hours won't come any sooner. Also, shrieking "I love the guy on the right!" everytime I spot the poster doesn't help either.

PS: The life of Augusten Burroughs is vaguely reminiscent of my own. I can't see why though; my mom's not a lunatic poet and I don't quite have OCD.

Wed, 13 Jun 2007 03:36:15 GMT

I think it's that ugly time of the year when everyone is en masse at the peak of their menstrual cycle. That vicious cycle of fluctuating hormones, constant eating and bearing at least 8 different emotions at once. About the time when everyone stops to yell at each other just because their books were arranged in the wrong order. What the hell is it exactly? Is it being in school for the past 4 months, living the same day over and over? Or is it because it's the beginning of that shitty end when summer begins? Whatever it is, it needs to come to a halt before we start having to count the number of casualties and deaths.

*For the record: Mr. O'Connel was sporting this shirt today.
I heard that Korean jingoism ring in every corner of his classroom.