UPDATE (October 2008): this video has ‘retired’ into the archives. I’ve left the production notes below.

Bargain Hunters is our reality shopping programme. Can we get some good last-minute deals at the local grocery stores? It’s a race against the clock!

This one was filmed at Easter but I only just got it edited. I think it turned out great — especially considering we had a few issues.

Five minutes into filming it started to rain (April was just SO wet here). Rain has to be extremely heavy to show up much on screen, but even light drizzle isn’t too good for the camcorder. Then my voice recorder seemed to stop working, so we abandoned one thing we had planned (it turned out later I had hit a ‘helpful’ switch which prevents recording and which I’d forgotten was there).

As usual, here are my thoughts on this episode and some of the ideas behind it…

I’m going to scream if I see another lazy PR person, estate agent or journalist refer to ‘vibrant Manchester city centre‘. It’s become a cliche and we need an organised campaign to take the piss out of the unimaginative people who do it. Even churches and the Arndale Centre (with its tacky new catchphrase ‘come together’) are ‘vibrant’ supposedly.

Big Brother starts here this coming Thursday. It was, of course, Big Brother contestant Michelle who famously offered Stuart the chance to squeeze her ‘baps’. As usual I expect to watch the start of the 13 weeks, get bored and stop tuning in, and then return for the last few days to see how it ends.

One of the things I love about editing video is the way all the different elements — picture, live sound and music — sometimes combine to create something unexpected. As I filmed Chris in the lift, in the background there was the sound of a rather emotional woman talking in a loud voice. During editing, when I added the music, I found it became almost like some weird operatic version of our regular theme music. Bizarre.

Chris makes me laugh an awful lot, with his enthusiasm and that slightly-eccentric British thing he has going on. Like a Kenneth Williams or Frankie Howerd, he can make the most innocent remark sound suggestive.

Memo to self: remember not to film broccoli or salad in front of a green screen.

UPDATE (October 2008): this video has ‘retired’ into the archives. I’ve left the production notes below.

It was Marie Antoinette who supposedly said ‘let them eat cake.’ We found that Sainsburys in Manchester takes a different line…

STORY LINKS: Polari on Wikipedia, Polari, Julian & Sandy (audio clip in ogg format) from BBC Round the Horne, Spar, Sainsburys, Manchester sun & rainfall.

Bargain Hunters is our reality shopping programme. Can we get some good last-minute deals at the local grocery stores? It’s a race against the clock!

Amusing to see the two signs as Chris walks into the second shop: ‘hello’ and ‘play here’. I think you’ll get me when you watch the video… We were both suffering when we made this one. I had a cold and could hardly speak and Chris had just given up smoking.

ABOUT THE SHOW

Chris and I have been going shopping together for a long time now. It’s always a laugh and, recently, we decided to see if the fun would come across on video. Making the videos has added a whole new aspect to it for us.

We’re very genuine and honest about the whole experience, though we wouldn’t want anyone to think we take it too seriously. Being alpha-males, I guess we both enjoy the thrill of the chase ;-D

Oh and Chris doesn’t want you to think he is a cheapskate who lives entirely on 50p bargains!

FRIENDSHIPS

I’ve known Chris since 2001, when he was 18 and moved in next door to me. We’ve been friends ever since, though he no longer lives next door. Yes I’m old enough to be his dad — and I’m sure we’re both glad I’m not!

He keeps me up-to-date with the things that twenty-somethings are interested in and sometimes I can help him because I’ve had a bit more experience of life. Plus we have some cross-over in interests.

It can be tough being young and gay and I believe that older men have a responsibility to help the younger ones stay out of trouble. And, for the cynical people out there, often there is no sexual side to these friendships.

RICHARD

When I was with my partner of almost nine years, and both aged in our 20’s, one of our friends, Richard, was in his 60’s. We used to visit him every Sunday. We valued his friendship and I’m sure he felt the same. He had some marvellous stories to tell, like the one about him being allowed to take home a German prisoner of war for Christmas!

Down the years there were probably always these old ‘aunties’ who took younger men under their wing. I hope it continues today, though I’m not confident it does so much. I see a lot of ageism now: guys who won’t talk to any gay man who is over 30. They are missing out…

Maybe this is another sign of the breakdown of the gay community, which seems to have happened over the last 15 years. I’ll be returning to this subject soon…

CAMP NAMES

It was a tradition for these old aunties to give you a ‘camp’ name. Which was a hark-back to the days when gay men referred to each other using female names. Like Polari, the ‘gay language’ of the 1950’s and 1960’s, camp names allowed gay men to talk about each other openly in public without raising suspicion: ‘did you hear what happened to Myrtle? She was seeing this guy…’ etc.

This was not connected with how effeminate the men were. Often, even the roughest, toughest gay man would have a camp name and probably would answer to it! Which all added to the fun, as you would see some tattooed ex-convict called Terence, with a face like a pitt-bull, answering to the name ‘Tess’. As Oscar Wilde said: ‘the only thing worse than being talked about is not being talked about’…

My camp name was Linda and my partner’s was Angie. I was named after Linda Lewis — a woman journalist on BBC North-West Tonight — and my partner after Angie Watts from Eastenders!

Camp names are a part of British gay culture that appears to have been throttled by the political-correctness of the 1980’s and ’90’s…

Actually, Chris has a camp name: Marigold, which came about because he helped someone clean his house and he wore rubber gloves to do it: ‘Marigold’ brand.

I really am alarmed by how often I’m charged the wrong amount by the checkout staff at Sainsbury’s Local.

Today I was charged for three four-pint bottles of milk instead of two…

This afternoon I went to Bolton to meet a friend to discuss business. We went into Rhode Island Coffee, in Knowsley Street. We bought a latte and a cappuccino (total cost around £5) and sat at a table near the window, where we looked through a document together.

The staff behind the counter were friendly enough. But were rather too keen on clearing everything away from the tables immediately a plate or cup was empty. We finished our drinks and, soon after, a short bossy woman dressed in black, who seemed to be some kind of ‘floor walker’, asked us to vacate the table so other people could sit there.

I visit coffee shops almost every day and I don’t remember this happening to me ever before. I am not the kind of person who buys one coffee and makes it last several hours.

Even my friend, who is the easiest-going person I know, was fuming about it. He was also embarrassed, as it was my first visit to Bolton in twenty years and he was showing me around.

I said to the woman that I had never been asked to leave a table in a cafe so quickly and that we were probably going to order another coffee. She just said ‘thank you’ and had already sat other people at our table.

This is sheer rudeness and there is no excuse for it. To top it all, I then had the embarrassment of going back to the same shop later to meet two other people, as we had agreed on that location. Before I arrived, they had also noticed this woman’s behaviour and said, if they had known what had happened earlier, they would have met me somewhere else.

I understand that Rhode Island Coffee has its head office in Warrington. My friend remarked that they seem to have adopted the appearance of the American coffee shops but not the same standards of customer service.

In all, the Rhode Island Coffee chain lost four customers today. If you want to relax with a coffee, I recommend you find somewhere else too.

< 2005 entries in the Daily Journal

NOTE: a New Year and a slightly new look to the Journal which will now be known as the Photo & Video Blog. From today I’m using the software Wordpress. Which should save me a lot of time.

I was awake early and so was my neighbour. So we went shopping. It was drizzling and the first day back at work for many people after New Year. Some of them were trooping along almost like robots.

I wanted to try and capture the awfulness of a grey and wet winter morning in Manchester. But, with the blue sky, street lights, reflections in the wet roads and the vivid way my Canon Powershot A70 camera handles this kind of scene, it actually looks quite colourful.

It was good to know we would be heading straight back home afterwards and would be able to dry out and enjoy some reduced-price Sainsbury’s mince pies and cream. Unlike the poor damp office workers.