Lullaby

Oh, this is sweet. I'm really getting the hang of this blogging malarky. The above picture shows the Micklegate Singers in concert. I'm the ginger one singing bass at the back right.

Now click on the picture, and you will hear one of the pieces I composed for a concert that was performed in York Minster. Clever, eh?

Have a drink

"I'm making drinks. Do you want one?"

"Yeah, go on."

"What do you want, then?"

"Honestly, do you need to ask every time? I drink coffee, white coffee... unless I'm hungover when I drink it strong and black. Or if there's any filter, which I also like black, unless it's too strong, although that's okay if I'm hungover. But I always have tea first thing, which I always drink white, unless we've run out of coffee at home, when I'll drink coffee first, then tea for the second drink (unless I'm hungover. I can't abide tea when I'm hungover).

"And, of course, I always drink tea when I have my lunch, because I can't drink coffee with food, unless it's cake - I can't drink tea with cake (rich tea biscuits don't count). If we've run out of milk I'll happily drink my coffee black because I'm too lazy to go to the shop to get milk, but if I've got a hot lunch, then I'll sneak into the kitchen when no-one's looking and pour myself half a cup of milk."

"I've got some Green tea if you want some."

"Oh yeah, that would be great."

"Gunpowder or Jasmine?"

"Do you really need to ask?"

Sweeney Todd - Opening Scene

Aaah, the opening of Sweeney Todd in all its full glory. Name me one musical that comes close to its majesty and horror. The discordant organ, driving horns and driving rhythms. This is why I love music. It is difficult to see how a film version is going to convey the menace that this production conveys...

Disney's Guns - Screenplay - Part III

Previously:

Disney's Guns - Part I
Disney's Guns - Part II

Nikov (echo): Turn you into tin cans... Turn you into tin cans... Turn you into tin cans.

We see a terrified Magnum in close up carried by plastic gloves. Zoom out to reveal a series of scientist types with white masks and plastic over clothes each carrying a single gun along a walkway. We hear mechanical doors and a bubbling pool, growing louder and louder. Zoom out further to reveal a large vat of grey, molten liquid in the foreground. Guns are squealing briefly as they are hurled into into the mass and disolve.

Magnum: No, please no! I've got so much to live for! Don't do this to me!

Sinister laughter comes from behind us. We pan round to a higher up walkway, upon which we see the lower body of the Iranian carrying Fedorov Cei-Rigotti, the machine gun which killed Bud. Fedorov cackles.

Fedorov: Nobody escapes the pit, Magnum, not even you.

Magnum: No!

He is flung towards the vat, and we plunge in with him.

We hear Magnum sobbing, as we pull out of the green cloth bag, left unzipped on the dark stained carpet in Mara's bedroom.

Nikov: Woah, woah! What's gotten into ya, little fella?

Magnum: Bad dream.

Nikov: Ah, Magnum. I know all yah can about nightmares. Sometimes I see 'em comin' for me and it gives me the sweats. Yah never can get over it, but yah do learn to live with it.

Magnum: Have you ever seen it?

Nikov: Seen what? The factory? Heeell no, and I ain't never gonna. Ah'm too old an' rusty fah tin cans. They'll pro'lly just stick me in a museum or somethin'.

Magnum: But how can you bear it? The thought of never being able to kill again?

Nikov: Killin'? Is that what you think we're for? You think Mara uses us for murderin' innocent people?

We see Mara sat at the desk beside them, circumaural headphones over his head, playing GTA on his PC. He grunts. On the wall in front of him is a poster for Oldboy

Magnum: Nobody's innocent, Nikov, you know that.

Nikov: Oh, mah young gun, yah have so much to learn about life. (Illustrated by flashbacks of Nikov in his youth) We shooters didn't always used to be about killin' and blurd. I remember the days when it was all about self-defence. People used to leave us out on the mantlepieces and point us out to the neighbours and say, "That there, Nikov, he's gonna save our lives one day!". Ladies would keep young pistols like you in their handbags along with their makeup and mirrors as if we was just a little security blanket. We were rarely loaded, and if we were it was with sweets and marshmallows, or pretty firecrackers for hallowe'en. Usin' guns for killin'? What a world!

Magnum: I don't... believe you. I don't... get it. Killing is what we're made for. Why did the great Cannon give us bullets if it was not to kill?

Nikov: Ah think its time to show you somethin'. Hey! Smith! Wesson! You get yerselves out here, will ya?

Two giggly little pistols come out of the bag, Smith and Wesson. They scamper around the edges of the bag, leaping across the carpet.

Smith: Hey old timer! Whassup?

Wesson: Yeah! Wassup, blunderbuss?

Nikov: Old timer, eh (he chuckles)? Blunderbuss? That's a good 'un, Wesson, and make no mistake. I think it's time we took the new boy down to see the gallery. Will you go get the young master for me?

Smith and Wesson scamper towards the desk, and jump up.

Smith: The gallery!

Wesson: Yeah! The gallery.

Magnum: Nikov? What's the gallery?

Nikov: You'll see. I think your gonna like it.

Disney's Guns - Screenplay - Part II

Previously:
Disney's Guns - Part 1

Into the darkness falls the Title - "Disney's Guns". It is riddled with bullets, breaks into shards, and leaves the screen in darkness again.

Magnum Colt (VO): And then... I was born again.

The chorus of Nancy Sinatra's "Bang, bang (My baby shot me down)" starts to play, and into the music comes faint noises of earth being shovelled. Credits appear throughout the next section. Gradually earth flies away from the frame, and we see flashes of dark clad limbs, and the shovel clearing the ground. A face, lit bright from the front appears to fill the frame. It is Mara Salvatrucha, a thirteen year old South American boy with big wide eyes and floppy hair, a darker Daniel Radcliffe, whose voice has not yet broken.

The frame cuts to Mara's POV, and we see Magnum lying on top of the coffin, bleary eyed and covered in soil, some of which he spits out of his mouth. He smiles.

Mara: Mano! (Magnum's POV) Hey, Mano, we got ourselves another one!

Mano Dura is Mara's best friend, a big fat boy whose voice is even higher than Mara's.

Mano: Didn't I tell you, eh? These soldiers' graves are a sweet gold mine. (Mano moves into frame) Hey, what's your name, little fella?

Magnum Colt: Magnum. Magnum Colt, at your service! (Spits out soil)

Mara: How rare to find a gun with such fine manners. My name is Mara Salvatrucha, and my fat friend here is Mano Dura.

Mano: Who you calling fat?

Mara: The one carrying the guns, Mano. You want to make something of it?

Mano: Aaah. Just stick him in the bag with the others.

Mara crouches down, and pulls Magnum out of the grave. We see the surroundings now. A sparse but large graveyard, dark but for the moonlight. Mara blows gently on Magnum, as if kissing him, and lays him into a green cloth bag, which he zips up, not quite all the way, and throws over his shoulder.

Guns: Ow!

Mara: Sorry guys. We'd better get you home and tucked up. I got school tomorrow.

As Mara and Mano head across the graveyard, we zoom in on the gap in the bag. Magnum sticks his nose out and looks around.

Magnum: Oh brave new world!

We hear snuffling, and a moment later Nikov, an AK-47 in his late fifties, sticks his nose out next to Magnum. Nikov is a real country yokel, dumb, but with a heart of gold.

Nikov: Hell yeah, boy! We got it reeeal good.

Magnum: I'm sorry?

Nikov: Hey, where's my manners? The name's Nikov. I've seen action in countries you ain't never heard of, watched guns knee high to a pea shooter fall to the earth and I'm tellin' you there ain't no better place to be than with a city boy like Mara.

Mara (hissing): Keep the noise down in there, will ya? There's a guard out. I can see his light.

Magnum considers this a moment.

Magnum: I could do him in for you.

Nikov: Woah! Hold your horses, young gun. It's not like out on the fields down here. You get caught killin' and you'll go down to the pound. We are talkin' fifteen, twenty year stretches, and if you're real bad, they melt you down and turn you into tin cans.

Mara: I warned you, Nikov. I hate to do this to you but...

We see the bag zipped up from the inside.

Darkness.

Next:
Disney's Guns - Part III

Disney's Guns - Screenplay - Part I

Darkness

Magnum Colt (VO): I feel the need...

Flashes of gunfire. Quickfire images of hands in camouflage sleeves squeezing triggers.

Magnum Colt (VO): ... the need for...

More flashes

Magnum Colt: blood.

Cut to four dead civilians lying contorted in a pile in a dust strewn landscape. Positioned such that we cannot see their faces. Blood is gushing from multiple wounds filling the frame to the edges.

A newspaper drops down over the image, with heading, "Troops advance into Iran". The main picture shows four grinning soldiers arm in arm, each holding a semi-automatic. Similar newspapers, broadsheet and tabloid, and magazines, drop down onto the frame, as Magnum Colt VOs.

Magnum Colt: Semi-automatic, multiple firing chambers, single action, double action, air cooled, open bolt, gas actuated, look down the barrel, cock the trigger, hold still, and...fire.

A bullet burst through the newspaper towards us, filling the display like the James Bond intro in reverse. Four soldiers (the same four that were on the first newspaper) are driving towards us in a camouflaged jeep. They are Jake, Bud, Frank and Cool J.

Jake: Hey, boys, I sure as hell didn't think it was goin' to be this great!

Bud: Hell, yeah!

The camera pulls over them, and then reverses angle to show where they are headed. It is an unnamed village, more like a shanty town, in chaos. Civilians with hands on their heads stand by the edge of the road, whilst soldiers march up and down past them. Explosions of dust can be seen in the distance, and the sounds of women screaming.

Distant soldier: You like that, do you. You want some more?

Further voice: Tell me where they are! Tell me!

The truck spins to a stop, and the four soldiers jump down into the same positions they appeared in the photograph. The camera starts to close in on Bud's face.

Magnum Colt (VO): That's me that is.

The camera zooms in more confidently.

Magnum Colt (VO): No, no, not up there! Down here.

The camera double takes, then moves down Bud's chest to focus in on the semi-automatic pistol he holds in his hand. It is Magnum Colt, with two sweet bunny eyes and a cheeky wide open smile. The action freezes, apart from the occasional blink from Magnum.

Magnum Colt (VO): Magnum Colt, at your service, a Beretta 92FS, 217 millimetres of solid metal carrying fifteen nine millimetre cartridges in my staggered magazine, and one for luck in my barrel. I can kill, maim and wound up to fifty metres away. You're gonna love me!

Action continues.

Magnum Colt (no longer VO): Bud, Bud! I'm hungry. Are we nearly there yet?

Bud pats Magnum affectionately.

Bud: Soon! Soon, little buddy. But first I fancy a little action of my own. (To the others) What say we find us selves some ho's?

Cool J: Hell yeah! That's what we came here for!

The gang start through the village. Cut to the face of a man at a window. Cut to Bud noticing him.

Bud: Looks like we got a likely customer at six o'clock.

They go over to the door, which Frank kicks open. The Iranian appears in front of them speaking fluently and incoherently.

Bud: Hey! Hey, calm down. We're not going to hurt you. We're here to protect you.

Magnum Colt: Kill him, Bud, kill him!

Bud: No boy, that's not our way. We are not the bad guys here. We just want to know if there's anybody else in the house.

Iranian: Don't hurt me don't hurt me.

Cool J: How many?

Iranian: My wife, my girl. Please, please don't hurt us.

Bud: Don't you worry about them. Go wait with the others, and we will send them out soon.

Iranian: Don't hurt them, please!

Bud: We ain't gonna hurt them. How many times have I got to tell ya? Frank, will ya show the man to the door.

Frank picks the Iranian up, and throws him out the door. He shoots the ground in front of the Iranian. Frank's gun whoops for joy. Bud and the guys go through the back, where two Iranian women dressed in black, one thirteen and one in late thirties, are cowering in the corner and whimpering.

Bud: Frank, Cool J...

Frank and Cool J take a woman each, and rough them to their feet. Bud rips the veil off the young girls face. She spits in his face.

Bud: Not that's just plain uncalled for, ma'am. I'm just here to give you some sweet lovin', and then...

Magnum Colt: Oh yeah! Then you get to meet me!

Bud strokes Magnum along the barrel, and he purrs.

A male scream interrupts them, and the Iranian bursts in through the door bearing an automatic machine gun. As he screams, he lets lose a hale of bullets. The camera zooms in on the gun, which has evil squintly eyes, and teeth that run down the barrel. Fade out.

Fade in. A bright summers day over a funeral. Mourners gathering round, hundreds. In the background the press are milling.

Minister: ...we commend his body, to the earth.

The camera pans down pausing at the gravestone "Bud Weston - died a hero's death - 1988-2007" then continues downward to the wooden coffin.

Cut to Cool J, arm in sling, and bandage round his head, holding Magnum Colt in his hand.

Magnum Colt (VO): It just seemed so unfair.

Cool J crouches down and lays him on top of the coffin.

Cool J: Goodbye old buddy.

The earth starts to pile onto the coffin.

Fade to black.

Next:
Disney's Guns - Part ii

The Zimmers

Confessions of a Dangerous Writer - Code of Conduct

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Actually, I am now here

You may have noticed some changes. Some of them are fairly cool.