I do not go to the theatre enough. Leeds has four main theatres (West Yorkshire Playhouse, The Grand, The Carriageworks and The City Varieties) and I am sure that if I did a bit of research I would find several others within spitting distance. A few years ago I had a phase of going several times a year, but this has dwindled dramatically. This week, however, I went to the City Varieties for the first time.

Now, those of you who read this blog who grew up in Britain and watched television in the 1970s may remember a programme called ‘The Good Old Days’, which was essentially retro televised Music Hall. It was a show that I was aware of being on, but I never watched it myself. I will have been too young to find it interesting. The reason I mention this is that ‘The Good Old Days’ came from The City Varieties, and for good reason. This theatre is a wonderful Victorian construct, full of red velvet and gold brocade. It is small, but if you asked a child to create a theatre, this is what they would make. There are several boxes in the Circle, looking onto the stage, where those who wanted to be seen could go, and for those who wanted to remain anonymous or save their pennies, the seats in the stalls and the gallery go far back.

What we saw borrowed from the Music Hall tradition. It was a show called ‘The Big Society’, set in 1910, when the country was ruled by old Etonians and was in thrall to big business and royalty. The plot (such as it was) centred around the back stage shenanigans of a Music Hall, but with plenty of on-stage acts thrown in (‘Barry and his Mystical Wardrobe’, ‘Eve the Escapologist’, that sort of thing). The big name draw was Phill Jupitus, but we went to see it because a friend who plays trumpet in WYSO, Jude Abbott, was in it. She had a non-speaking role that alternately involved playing the euphonium and knitting. It was a riotous night out, though was an angry piece of work. Well worth going to see. I will try putting a You-Tube clip from the show below, but never having tried that before will probably fail. If I do, click here to see that, and here to see an amusing Christmas greeting from the cast (which I appreciate is a bit late!)

The Big Society

I have just finished reading Tess of the D’urbervilles, a book that I studied for A-Level English and last read when I was a law student in Chester in 1992. The book group that I am in reads a ‘Classic’ each year over Christmas, and this year it was the turn of Tess.

I loved the book when I was 16 – it is, I think, an ideal book to hand to an A Level class as ‘proper literature’. There is a good story, excellent and consistent characterisation, a huge amount of author comment and an eye-opening view on lifestyle and attitudes of the mid-to-late nineteenth century. Lots there for a class of intelligent not-quite-adults to get their teeth into.

So, has the book retained its power to enchant this older and more cynical 41-year-old version of myself? Yes, and yet also no. It is beautifully written, and there is more that I understood this time round. There is also less ‘black and white’ than I had believed when I saw the world in those hues. Yes, Alec is a pantomime villain in one light – but in another, he is as obsessed with Tess as Angel is, and it could be argued he actually treats her better than Angel Clare  in the later stages of the book. Angel is far, far from being a hero, yet one has to read his actions in historical context. And this time, I think it more likely that Tess was seduced than raped than I had thought when I was a teenager. Though it is still pretty ambiguous.

My big problem this time was Tess herself. She is not the strong protagonist I had thought two decades ago. Tess does virtually nothing in the book. No, that is not quite true. She does precisely two things, both of them disasterous (and in case you haven’t read the book I won’t say what they are). Otherwise, she flits from one event to another, always as the passive party. She is done to, or she follows someone else’s suggestion. Apart from the two Events, Tess is at no part in control of her own destiny, and this, I think, makes her a weaker character. I just wanted to give her a shake for much of the book and shout “For God’s sake woman, stop being such a drip.”

This may, of course, all be Hardy’s point. At the end of the book we are told that the President of the Immortals has finished his sport with Tess. So, maybe she is just a chess piece being moved around the board and this is what Hardy intended all the time – by making her take control, the Tragedy would somehow be diminished.

I think my next book will be something considerably lighter.

As the close of 2011 is upon us, I thought I would use this blog to reflect the highs and lows of this year. If you have read my book, you may have come across an entry where I make my New Year’s Resolution for 2011. It was “To Have a Fabulous Year”, and in parts it has, indeed, been fabulous. But it also had some extremely difficult times. So that I can end on a high, I shall start with the lows:

The Lows (in no particular order)

Being made redundant in February

Being made redundant in November

A cousin dying

Having a job I was offered almost disappear to the extent that I thought it no longer existed

Having to make a choice in May between two jobs that I wanted

Reading ‘Frenchman’s Creek’ by Daphne du Maurier

Getting wetter than I imagined was possible whilst wearing a woollen suit

A very disappointing batch of redcurrant wine

Not being able to make a decent noise from a recently aquired early twentieth-century French bassoon

The Highs

Seeing my book in print

Playing Handel’s ‘Water Music’ on a platform floating in a swimming pool

My book signing event

Writing for ‘Home Farmer Magazine’

Being conducted by Paul Daniel (no, not the magician) for a CD recording

Going back to Brooke North, and being so welcomed

Getting a new, exciting job right at the end of the year

Reading ‘The Lacuna’ by Barbara Kingsolver

Seeing ‘Carmen’ with my wife, my older brother and my sister

Having my feet nibbled by fish

Appearing on Radio Leeds, and in the Yorkshire Post, and in the Leeds Guide in a fortnight of media tartery

Spending three months working for West Yorkshire Police

Rydal Hall – as ever

Experimenting with more flavours of wine than I have ever done before (rose petal, peapod, gooseberry & elderflower, crab apple & strawberry, crab apple & blackcurrant, quince)

Playing in ‘The Armed Man’ in Manchester (particularly the 20 second silence at the end followed by a standing ovation).

So, there you have it. 2011 – a rather extreme curate’s egg of a year. I would quite like a quieter and less dramatic 2012, please.

I’m not often ill. I put that down to my surname – it implies a strong constitution. But when I am, like today, I don’t half feel sorry for myself. I felt a sore throat starting last night, and food started tasting odd – not unpleasant, just different. At one in the morning, I woke up with a massively painful (for which, read ’somewhat uncomfortable’) throat. I pretended that it wasn’t there and I would be able to get back to sleep. This lasted about half an hour, at which point I got up, put on my dressing gown, went downstairs and took a couple of paracetemol. The cats, unusually, did not think this was a sign that they would be having a midnight feed and left me unmolested. Once back in bed I began shivering, waking Claire in the process, and then gradually drifted back into unconciousness. So, I am ill and have been mainlining hot ribena and a drink made from honey, lemons and hot water. However ill I am, though, I cannot take the rest of the week off work – so I shall go into the office tomorrow (though will probably not walk the three-and-a-half miles) and spread my germs around the office just in time for Christmas. I shall also tell anyone who will listen about how ill I am feeling. Spreading the festive joy.

Speaking of which, this will be my last posting on this blog before Christmas. The other blog will have a bit going on it – including the making of Christmas Tutti Fruti wine, which I started yesterday and is currently sitting in its bucket in the kitchen cooling down so I can add the yeast.

Merry Christmas one and all. I will be back before the new year – probably with some sort of summary of 2011 (which has been a massively strange year).

In case you have not been reading my other blog, and wondering what has been going on over the past couple of weeks, let me tell you a story. Like all good stories, it starts once upon a time. I haven’t quite got to the ending, but certainly there is a good chance the last words will be “and they lived happily ever after”.

So, once upon a time, on 1st October 1997 to be precise, I started work at Brooke North – a firm of solicitors in Leeds. I moved from Newcastle because my then girl-friend (and now wife) got a job as a trainee clinical scientist at St James Hospital, and in the late 1990s commercial property lawyers could find jobs relatively easily.

I was full time at Brooke North until 2005, and felt great loyalty to the firm (and still do, very much). The people were more than colleagues, and some of the clients, at least, friends. But for various reasons I stopped being a lawyer and began a history degree at Leeds University. This is not the place to describe that – except to say it was a fabulous experience, and I would not do things differently. I stayed in contact with Brooke North and went back for the summers of 2006 and 2007 during my long summer holidays.

In 2008, when I had finished the degree and was about to start an MA in Medieval Studies part time, Brooke North didn’t have any vacancies. That was fine – I didn’t expect them to hold a job, particularly a part time job, for me. I again stayed in close contact though, whilst I worked for a firm called Emsleys. And I fell on my feet there too. Emsleys was a lovely firm, and I have the same feelings of loyalty to them  as I do to Brooke North. However, there was not quite enough work to keep my employed so at the beginning of 2011 I was made redundant. Whilst this hurt at the time, I absolutely could recognise the reasoning and in fact, if I had been Emsleys, I would have made me redundant a few months before.

I quickly found myself in a position where I had two jobs from which to choose; a situation in which I both recognised I was extremely lucky and hated. Brooke North had a space for me, but another firm had a job which sounded less familiar, more stressful but possibly a better career option. It was a difficult decision, but because of the loyalty I felt to Brooke North, and because it was what I knew, I went for that one. And from the start I really enjoyed it. The work, whilst being familiar, was engaging and I could tell that I was appreciated – always a motivating factor for me. So, I had made the right decision and nothing could go wrong.

Except it did. Three Fridays ago I was out with some former Emsleys’ colleagues, and one asked whether it was correct that one of the partners from Brooke North (whom I shall call ‘Nigel’, for that is his name) was going to a new firm. This was the first that I had heard of it and I obviously looked shocked. The person who told me asked me not to tackle Nigel about it, and I told him I would not. On the Tuesday I tackled Nigel about it. I was worried about the implications it would have for me, and I couldn’t just not find out and let events take their course. Nigel said it was true, but we would need to talk about it later.

Two Friday’s ago, Nigel called me into a meeting room and told me that Brooke North was to close. Permanently. At Christmas. My jaw hit the ground. I had not seen it coming, and it was like being hit over the head, just the once, but by an anvil. This was a disaster. No-one is hiring commercial property lawyers at the moment. I had definite wounds to lick (hence the most recent entry on this blog). It wouldn’t have been so bad had I only had the one job offer when I was made redundant from Emsleys, but that I had had two and, apparently, made the wrong choice, left me hurt and embarrassed.

The following week I rang several other firms, and had one interview – which only went moderately (for which, read ‘badly’). However, on the Thursday Nigel mentioned that he had spoken to my favourite client who has his own house building firm, who I shall call ‘Darren’ (for, again, that is his name), and there was a distinct possibility that Darren might want to employ me as an in-house lawyer. Darren, though, was away in exotic climes and any discussion would have to wait a week. It sounded ideal, but I forced myself not to get too excited about it. This was only a possibility, and it may have been an off-the-cuff, instant reaction remark. But it was a stong light that lifted my mood a little.

This blog entry has gone on too long, so to cut out minor details, Darren has returned from his holiday, has confirmed that he would like me to work for him, and that I will be doing much, much more than just being a lawyer. It all sounds tremendously exciting, and new, and different, and it could be that this whole experience proves to have been For The Best. I will let you know how I get on.

There is no real posting this week. I am currently licking my wounds and that is taking all my energy. Hopefully I’ll be back next week.

For the first time since I started this blog, I made no post last week.  This was mostly because I now blog on Monday, my day off work, and the Good Life Press website was inaccessible until Tuesday. It had broken because the people who run their servers (I don’t understand what I just typed, but I will pretend that I do) had a break in. This gave me an idea for this week’s blog: burglary.

I have only ever been burgled once. It was probably about ten years ago. We had been out playing wind octets at a friend’s house, and when we turned up our road, I noticed a police car sitting outside our house. Of course, my first thought was that someone in our families had died, so I was massively relieved to find out that we had been broken into.

The police man had been waiting for us for about an hour, and was just about to leave when we showed up. He was an extremely nice man – the sort of competent, large person one wants around in an emergency (not that this was an emergency). He had had a look round our house – by climbing through our broken kitchen window – and had apparently terrified Stan, our cat (who is sitting on my lap as I type – he is knocking on a bit), in the process.

The burglars had been scared off by a combination of our burglar alarm and a brave neighbour who had come to investigate. They ran off and were never caught, but they got very little. I am embarrassed to say that the only thing we noticed that had gone was a half drunk bottle of Tia Maria. We did not bother to file a contents claim form for that: it would have revealed us as a couple with poor taste. However, we did get a new kitchen window out of it. The one that the thieves broke had been single glazed and held in by wood that was rapidly rotting. Our new one is double glazed, and held in by plastic. So, the burglars actually did us a favour.

I have two thoughts about what might happen if I were to be burgled properly. Firstly, the burglars would be really very disappointed indeed. We don’t have a telly, or really anything electronic that they could flog quickly – except possibly this lap top. But that is six years old now and hardly cutting edge technology. Secondly, I would be genuinely distraught if burglars nicked my wine. I have about 100 bottles dotted around the house, some of which are delicious and some of which are not. But all have their own story to tell – or will do when they are drunk – and that would be 100 stories not told, a stolen set of anecdotes. Claire thinks that it would be massively unlikely that anyone would want to steal my wine, and she is almost certainly right. So I shall comfort myself with that thought.

Today I have been on BBC Radio Leeds. You can listen here if you want – though you need to fast forward to 1 hr, 45 mins and 30 seconds in before I appear. And this blog is all about how it happened.

I knew that when my book was published, I would need to try and get some publicity for it, and thought the best place to start would be local media. One of the natural places to try would be the local radio station, but I thought that just sending an e-mail or even ringing with an idea may meet a blank wall of non-response. Certainly, the places where I have just sent an e-mail have been entirely unresponsive, and it is only through ringing people that I have had any luck. So, I asked the woman I know who is the most ‘media connected’ of all my friends whether she had any radio contacts. Particularly those who liked wine. Happily she did and I sent a Facebook message to her contact saying “Can you get me on the radio? There is a free bottle of homebrew for you.” The response was rapid and in the affirmative, so I timed my appearance to coincide with the week before my book launch. I have yet to pay her the bottle of wine, but I will do once she tells me which flavour she wants.

Having got the time and the date, I then spent many thoughts having a little worry about doing live radio. Would I be embarrassing, or boring, or stumble over my words, or silent? All were possibilities, and I slept badly on Friday night worrying about all of this – though curiously I slept better last night (despite dreams about arriving at the radio station, having forgotten all my wine and being given the task of bathing sextuplet babies).

I dressed in my best suit for the radio – which I know sounds daft, but I view that as my ‘battle armour’. When wearing this 3-piece 1960s suit that used to belong to my great uncle, I feel more confident, more ready to tackle what is thrown at me. I set off early, and got into town about half an hour before I was due at the station. This gave me time for a coffee at West Yorkshire Playhouse.

At the appointed hour, I got to the radio station, announced my arrival, and sat and waited. And waited. To the extent that I was worried they had forgotten about me. But ten minutes before I was due to be on I was met by the producer, who took me into the recording studio where I met my interviewer, Wes Butters. He is impossibly young to have had such a fabulous career so far. But he was engaging, and funny, and interested (or at least gave a good impression of being so), and he put me at nearly my ease. There was enough adrenalin going that I was never going to be hugely relaxed, but I think this was a Good Thing – it meant I was on the ball, and had enough ‘edge’ to engage with his banter.

I enjoyed my 15 minutes of being on live radio – the nearest thing I can equate it to is a job interview. I was aware that there were probably tens of thousands of people listening, but only as a ‘back of the mind’ thing. Mostly it was me and the interviewer, and though it was not a totally natural conversation, it was near as dammit. I did not need to have worried.

I have just had a visit from the Yorkshire Post. The Features editor and a photographer came over to talk about home-made wine and Ben’s Adventures in Wine Making. It was a pleasant hour talking about my favourite topic (that topic being ‘Me’ rather than ‘Wine’, which is only my second favourite topic) whilst Catherine took notes. I can’t really remember what I said: it wasn’t an interview in any sort of formal style. Basically, I just talked. The article will appear in the ‘Life and Style’ section a week on Wednesday (probably), and I know that I will have a troubled night’s sleep before it. Last night too – I was both eager and anxious about today’s interview.

The strangest part of the hour was the photography session. I am so rubbish at having my photo taken. I immediately feel really self-concious, and put on a Face which says “I’m feeling self-concious”. Bruce, the photgrapher, took photos whilst I talked to Catherine, which was fine. But then he had me squatting so that my head was level with a row of demijohns on the table behind me, and stare wistfully at a glass of elderberry wine. I am dreading the results.

Talking of photos, there are quite a few of me in the December edition of Home Farmer, which has just landed on my doorstep. I sent some random ‘Ben in winter’ photos to Paul and Ruth, expecting them all to be rejected. But no – there they appear in glorious technicolour. At least two of them were taken on (separate) Christmas Days. You can also see my skill at making snowmen.

Next week I’m on Radio Leeds, which again is something that will stop me sleeping. And then on Saturday 12th November, I will be doing a book signing at Philip Howard Books on Street Lane, Roundhay, Leeds between 2 – 4 p.m. So if you are free, and relatively local (I have absolutely no idea how many people read this blog or where they come from) please pop by. There will be several open bottles of wine to try, and I would love to say hello.