Birthday Message

Another year older but none the wiser, luckily I'm wise enough already.

What happened on this day throughout history (apart from my magnificent arrival) well in 1859 Charles Darwin published On The Origin Of Species. It had to be I was born on this day!


I share my birthday with William Webb Ellis, Grace Darling, Lucky Luciano, Billy Connolly, Ian Botham, Denise Crosby (the Star Trek link will not be lost on those who are devotees) and Stephen Merchant. Merchant is a comedy writer - so this is obviously a day when talent in that area was bountiful.

It's been a funny year, it has flown by in many ways and I'm still trying to make the most of the bonus time I have been granted.

For my birthday treat I shall be roasting a lamb, sacrificed in my honour.  Tomorrow I shall be attending the Royal Concert Hall in Nottingham to hear the John Wilson Orchestra play songs from the golden age of the Hollywood musical. Before that I shall be eating Italian food, a meal shared with my lovely wife and my parents. Mr & Mrs B Senior are visiting us for the week so we shall have to turn the heating up as you know how cold old folks can get!

Later in the week it will be French food before another trip to the theatre, this time to see Dreamboats and Petticoats, a jukebox musical with songs from the 1950's (and before you ask that is well before my time - cheeky).

It's a busy week what with rehearsals and final arrangements for Drag Queens on the 5th December...more on that another day.

Anyway, I don't want to take up a lot of your time today, merely to thank you all for being a part of my world.

My Mitty-esque belief that my guru status is actually of use to you keeps me going you know.

Enjoy life, enjoy each other and I leave you with some birthday wisdom:

Don't stand too near the cake after your 21st birthday - those candles throw out some heat!

Charity begins at home...

but should not stop there.

These are the words of Thomas Fuller a 17th century cleric and you know if I am quoting a vicar then it's about to get serious!

As I type this message to the faithful few, the Children In Need telethon is at full speed ahead on the telly. It's been a week to think about charity, what with the awful situation in the Philippines, and this morning on a BBC Nottingham web page, debate about charity was heated.

Someone had suggested that part of the money raised tonight should be given to children in the Philippines rather than just kept for children in the UK.

This suggestion seemed to bring to the surface all the xenophobia and little Englander rantings that I detest.  Comments like:

We shouldn't support the Philippines, what have they ever done for us?
Why not let Asia deal with an Asian problem?
There are children in this country who need the money more!

I could go on but it makes me sick to the stomach to even write them down.

My answer, which I posted on the web page was, why not donate to Children in Need for the UK based children and if you want to support the disaster fund just donate to them. Too sensible?

I have donated to the DEC fund, how could I not after hearing the stories about children standing under trees crying because the dead and rotting body of their mother was wedged among the branches or how all the children in one street were killed by the storm surge.

(There are children in this country who need the money more)

I may donate to Children In Need too as I am fortunate enough to have the resources at my disposal - I know some people are really struggling here thanks to the austere times we live in...there were several of them on the web complaining about that this morning too. Obviously not that austere a time if they have not had to forego their mobile phones and computers.

As the day has gone on I got more and more wound up by the sheer cold heartedness of some people who seem to think that children in need of clean water and basic food are less worthy than a child in the UK who may well have a genuine need but for something less basic.

But it's the xenophobia and sometimes outright racist attitude that some contributors displayed that is hardest to swallow.

But then it struck me - Children in Need raise money for children in the UK and I get the feeling that some of those racists who were talking about 'charity beginning at home' forgot something.

Not all children in need in the UK are white, nor are they necessarily British because some of them will be immigrant children or refugee children.

That made me laugh out loud - a real LOL moment.

IF (big if), IF the people who were talking about wanting their money to stay in this country, IF they actually donated some of there xenophobic pounds to the pot, how would they feel if all of their donations went too support a project like...the Romani Cultural and Arts Company...or Bristol Refugee Rights...or (there are others of course.)

Oh dear, have I let the cat out of the bag?

Charity begins at home but should not stop there.

This country is still a wealthy nation, we don't get battered by cyclones and hurricanes (and having your wheelie bin blown down the street is not as bad as having your city laid waste).

I don't grudge the children in the UK or anywhere, a chance for a better life but donating to the DEC appeal is a chance to grant the continuation of a life - full stop.

I hope Children in Need does well, I hope all the mouthy idiots put their hands in their pockets.

£30 million in 3 days for the DEC - we are a kind and wonderful people and obviously generous.

The act of giving is what counts, and really it's not even charity because we can afford it. It's only real charity if you give more than you can afford.

It's just common human decency to offer a helping hand.

Friday night rant ends - it's your money, you can put it where your mouth is or leave it in your pocket as far as I'm concerned.

It's your life.

Glass of clean water anyone?                Now where did I put that tap?

Autumn Leaves

The last time we spoke it was July, the sun blazed down and warmed the cockles of our hearts and maybe even the heart of your cockles. Now here we are in October, it's just past 11am and the sky is dark with rain and falling leaves.  The cycle of nature reminding us that we are part of a world that changes. But what will never change is my sense of duty and service to my dearly cherished flock...hello flock.

I know that some of your will have been following the progress of The Guru as a theatrical megastar on the other blog but today we have other fish to fry. It is Friday after all.

Mrs B and I have recently retuned from a pilgrimage to the Mediterranean, first class of course.

Our vessel of choice, a cruise ship - the Celebrity Eclipse. There were actually no celebrities to be seen anywhere on the ship but there were lots of stars and they are the reason the cruise was so enjoyable.

Speaking to the HR manager onboard, I discovered that there were 73 nationalities represented in the crew. From the UK to South Africa, the USA to Indonesia and Macedonia to Mauritius. 

I didn't spend a lot of time with officers and mangers though, I enjoyed talking to and interacting with waiters and stewards and I was reminded of the sacrifices these men and women make as they went out of their way to make our holiday enjoyable and memorable.

The working conditions for cruise ship crews have been well documented, but hearing first hand about how a man will leave his village in Bali to spend 9 months at sea, was eye opening. Yes, they can send home their wages to support the family they have left behind, but that family includes two young daughters who he is missing growing up.

One of the waiters spoke about how he promised his family to return home to Bali when the fruit ripened on the trees and started to fall - he was due to fly back the day after we docked. Indeed he should have flown earlier, but an OPEC conference meant the airport was closed. 

This warm funny man, Made, with a huge smile and a talent to entertain, even invited us all to visit with him. 

Our steward, Marijan, from Macedonia - with an excellent  grasp of English and obviously an intelligent well read man who enjoyed talking to me about 'Of Mice and Men', which he saw I was reading.

Aleksandr, also from Macedonia, our wine waiter (he earned his tip). Clever and articulate, honest and decent and with the potential to go so much further in life than being abused by snobby, Daily Mail reading idiots who occupied tables near ours. 

I have to say there was a lot of moaning and whinging about poor food and service but in fact the food and the service was excellent - some people are just never satisfied. But Made and his madcap helper Deepuksing (from Mauritius) just kept smiling and serving.

I have to mention a young man called Ryan too, a waiter whose smile lit up the room. He was from China where I suspect he wasn't born with the name Ryan, but here he was, making a place and a name for himself in the world. 

There was Ketut, another warm friendly soul from Bali, who really did all he could to make sure we were spoiled rotten. 

It was Aleksandr who asked us one evening how it felt to be waited on, to be the centre of so much attention and I replied that for two weeks I would manage! A little flippant, as you might expect, but again, this made me think. 

After two weeks I could return to normal life, making my own cup of tea, managing with yoghurt and fruit not bacon and egg every day for breakfast. No more bow ties for dinner, just a lap tray and The Great British Bake Off on tv. 

Normal life - for Aleksandr, for Made, for Ryan - for all of them: more smiles, more service, more abuse from ignorant, xenophobic middle class snobs.

They have my respect and admiration and the next time I hear someone talking about immigrants from eastern Europe coming to take jobs in Mansfield, I will think about Marijan...who took a job no one from Mansfield would ever dream of taking on. Cleaning toilets and making beds so that Mrs B and I could be spoiled for two weeks.

In 'Of Mice and Men', John Steinbeck wrote -

"Guys like us got nothing to look ahead to”. 

That quote is not aimed at the stewards and waiters on the Celebrity Eclipse but at those passengers who looked right through them as if they were not there, or who thought it OK to abuse them as they were there to serve.

The men I met do have something to look ahead to - even if it's only ripened fruit on a tree in Bali.

Thank you to all of those men and women who made my two weeks in the sun so happy. 

Drag Queens On Trial

Not just Drag Queens...

The Kitchen Table Trio have decided to produce Drag Queens on Trial by Sky Gilbert. There may be some who think we are doing it just to have fun, and that’s partly true. It will be a real challenge for the actors to make themselves into real drag queens that the audience can accept as more than parodies. We need the audience to connect with the trials these three characters undergo. You see, although this is a comedy, full of adult humour, there is a real hard truth at its centre - the world likes to judge others...and we are the world!

The production will be staged just after World Aids Day  (December 2013) which also happens to be the anniversary of the birth of Matthew Shepard who would have been 37 this year if he had not been tortured and left to die on a hillside overlooking Laramie, Wyoming in 1998. 

It is my fervent hope that we can not only have a great time staging the play and give audiences a great night in the theatre, but also raise some awareness around bullying, bigotry and hatred. 

I didn’t know Matthew Shepard so why is this project important to me? It’s important to me because I knew Tony and Chris.

It was the early 1980’s, in Berardi’s restaurant on the High Street in Lincoln that Mrs B and I first met Tony.

Tony was a waiter, he was good at his job and he had a way of making you smile and his personality added immeasurably to the gaiety of life.

Tony was a lovely man and when he was diagnosed with HIV, Mrs B and I were able to offer him just a little support.  Some human contact when so much of the world shunned him.


Sad to say it was during this time that I saw how bigoted and hateful some of the people I worked with could be. Refusing to treat Tony as a human being just because of the hysteria surrounding HIV/Aids and the rampant homophobia that could be expressed without fear of any consequences - this was, as I said, the early 1980’s.

Mrs B and I will always remember Tony with great fondness - ‘celery hearts’ always bring a smile. 

Being asked to help carry his coffin on the day of his funeral was something else I shall always remember.

I was volunteering with the HIV/Aids Support Group by then and met and came to know several other men who were facing the end of their life surrounded by the love of friends but also homophobia and bigotry and just plain hatred.

I like to think I did what I could to show them that there was some decency to be offered and accepted from relative strangers. Accepting people for who they are has always been important for me.

It was also the early 1980’s when I met Chris. Chris was a drag queen and like Tony he would die far too young.

I clearly recall sitting in his flat, drinking coffee, whilst he told myself and a colleague about the men that had beaten him up, simply for being himself. 

Jump forward to 1998, Laramie, Wyoming and the death of  Matthew Shepard.
Killed just for being himself.

How many others have been beaten, killed, committed suicide through bullying just because someone else thought they were less worthy of life?  Because their path through life is different - not better or worse, just different.


Drag Queens on Trial is a comedy but behind the laughs it puts us all on trial - it makes the world look at itself and asks us what gives us the right to judge others: gay, straight, drag queen, transexual...whatever you call yourself that is what you are and the rest of the world should just accept it.


So, in December come and see the play but between now and then, and hopefully after, don’t judge others who simply want the same right as you - to be themselves.

HRH Prince George Alexander Louis of Cambridge

I know what you are thinking, what awful things are you going to say about the little baby?

Wrong.

You wound me with your cynicism. Naughty naughty Guru-ites.

My message for today is about childhood and growing up, though it does seem that some us manage to grow up and yet retain a certain childlike quality and innocence.

Just a few weeks ago we were lucky enough to find a baby arrive in our lives, a wonderful little creature called Polly.

Polly is the daughter of Miss Twillets, or should that be Ms. Twillets now? I get confused by social gender politics. Anyway, Polly is being groomed by her mother to become perfect marriage material for the new Prince George and I think he'd be lucky to get her...even though she does suck her thumb.

In reality we don't know what Polly will achieve in her life, she's too young yet to express any hopes and dreams for the future but those around her can dream and do I'm sure hope for a long and happy life for this little girl, Princess Polly of Mansfield.

Polly might not have a real title, and she will not have access to all the things George will have - but she does have one thing he will never have - the freedom to grow up and become what she wants to be.

Longevity seems to be a family trait in the Windsor household, it may well be that the Queen will carry on for another 10 years or more, then King Charles and Queen Camilla will have their shot and that may take us on another 20 or so years, making George 30 when his dad becomes King William.

If his dad manages 30 or so years on the throne then by the time Prince George becomes King George, he might be as old as his grandfather is now.

60 plus years waiting for the job you never asked for.

By the time she is 60, Polly could be retired to her villa in Tuscany. She will sit by her pool reflecting on a long and happy career as an actress, a dancer, a business woman, a hired killer, a flower arranger, a champion Beagle breeder, the scientist who discovered a cure for the common cold,  a teacher, a journalist, a fashion designer etc etc. She might have been a wife, mother, grandmother, she might even have been spotted by a dashing young Prince George at Pushy Fit classes.

Polly is a Thursday's Child - she has far to go and where she goes will be pretty much up to her.

George is a Monday's Child - fair of face he may be, and he may get to travel far and wide but he will never have the freedom to be what he wants to be. By the time he is old enough to realise he is trapped, it will be too late to escape - unless he makes the sacrifice of giving up on the throne to pursue happiness in whatever form happiness takes for plain George Cambridge.

I think Polly is the lucky one, and the fact that the world is not clamouring for her picture now doesn't mean a thing.

Her story will be written on blank pages, she will be the author of her story.

You know as I write this I find myself hoping that George manages to escape the shackles of the court, and the expectations of a Royalist driven agenda, the supporters of  St Diana who think of this baby as some sort of second coming. If by some chance he wants to be a potter or a bee keeper or a ballet dancer or just live with his 'friend' Gerald in a quiet village in Cambridgeshire and write books on needlecraft, then we should all let him be who he wants to be...it's not going to happen though. The brainwashing will already have begun.

It's all a matter of luck - where we are born. For every child complaining to his parents that the X-Box is broken, there is another child somewhere in the world living in a box, being nibbled by rats as they try and sleep.

For every child throwing a tantrum because they didn't want sauce on their chicken, there is another child who is on the verge of starvation.

For every child who is complaining that they NEED the latest fashionable trainers there is a child whose feet are blistered from the miles they walk to find water.

Mansfield isn't glamorous at the side of Kensington but Polly's home is a palace compared to a cardboard box.


Yes, Polly is lucky. She will be surrounded by love and by people who want her to be happy in her life and to become all she wants to be.

So, George Alexander Louis; I wish you a long and happy life but in my heart I wish you had the freedom to be just George.