My phone rang on my desk. My phone never rings on my desk. This is the genuine [aside from the anonymity I am granting] conversation I had when I picked it up.
GT: Hello, Greville Tombs, Open Plan Office?
PH: Hello? This is TexisMexis Publishing House. Can I speak to Greville Tombs?
GT: Yes, I am Greville Tombs. Can I help?
PH: You are Greville Tombs?
GT: Yes.
PH: I have your letter here regarding your request to cancel your subscription to the Series Title.
GT: No you don’t.
PH: Yes, Mr. Tombs, you wrote us a letter dated 13th December.
GT: No I didn’t.
PH: You have a subscription with us for the Series Title, Mr. Tombs.
GT: No I don’t.
PH: I have your letter dated 13th December. But you say you didn’t send it to us?
GT: I didn’t send any letter to you. I don’t believe I am the person you want. Can I just check your contact details for me and how you came to be phoning me?
PH: You are Greville Tombs?
GT: Yes.
PH: Your address is Open Plan Office, Building, Town?
GT: Yes.
PH: Your subscription reference is DX-34-45-67-RTY?
GT: No.
PH: But you are Greville Tombs?
GT: Yes. And I am talking to you from the Open Plan Office.
PH: This is TexisMexis Publishing House.
GT: I know.
PH: This is strange. I have your letter here. It is dated 13th December. I have your details on my screen of your subscription with us at TexisMexis Publishing House. I just need to confirm I am talking to you in order to proceed with your cancellation request.
GT: But you can’t confirm it, because it isn’t me. You are talking to someone else.
PH: This is strange.
GT: I didn’t send you a letter, but I am Greville Tombs.
PH: Will I continue your subscription?
Me: I don’t have a subscription. Never have. What I am more concerned about is how you got my number. Was it on the letter?
GT: Let me check. You have signed the letter “Greville Tombs”.
Me: I can’t have.
PH: Let me look again at the subscription details on my screen.
GT: Good idea. Is there anything in them which might suggest a different contact name, as I am the only Greville Tombs at this address?
PH: OK. Can you now confirm your name is Greville Turns?
GT: No.
PH: You are not Greville Turns?
GT: No. I am Greville Tombs.
PH: But why have I got your address and phone number?
GT: What is the phone number? The phone number you dialled to get me today?
PH: 1111 222 3333
GT: That’s not my phone number.
PH: This is very strange.
GT: You have dialled the Open Plan Office switchboard number and you asked for Greville Tombs and have been put through to me.
PH: Yes.
GT: Only you wanted Greville Turns not Greville Tombs.
PH: OK. I have your email address on the subscription screen.
GT: What is it?
PH: Greville dot Turns at Faceless dot org dot uk
GT: That’s not my email address. I am Greville Tombs. But I think I know what has happened. I am checking to see if we have a staff member named Greville Turns.
PH: Hmmm, it is very important I talk with you about your subscription – there are big changes to come in the New Year and I need to confirm them with you.
GT: I don’t have a subscription with you and I am Greville Tombs, not Greville Turns.
PH: This is funny.
GT: It is a little confusing.
PH: I will email instead, I think that this is the better idea, bye!
GT: I think so too. Bye, now!
It was the girl’s steadfast refusal to accept it wasn’t me, when her sole reason for calling was to securely confirm she was talking to the right person, which left me laughing!
She was her own paradox.
Which, incidentally, is the name of Greville and the Tombstone's touring support band next year, I am led to believe.
2 weeks later, I only go and get another phone call. I know!:
“Hello I am calling from Different Publishing House my name is Echo, Victor, Alpha, November, November, India, Alpha. Am I speaking to your company’s payment account department?”
Whoa, Love! I need a pencil. OK Bravo Two Zero!
"No, I am not in this department. I don't think we even have this department." "Oh! Do you know about payment accounts in your company?" "No. Can I take your details and get someone to call you back?" "Can I call this number again and leave a voice mail instead?" "SIGH!"
I mean, what is going on these days with publication house telephonists? Clearly these people are sat at a computer screen with one of those headsets which Rachel Stevens used to wear on stage and, like Rachel Stevens, totally unable to think sideways or deviate from the prescribed question/response they are trained for our gentle entertainment for.
All this made me think quite hard as I sat tugging the cable out the back of my phone.
What happened to Rachel Stevens? Is she still recording? Tell me she is still putting out calenders, at least.
Why, oh why does February have the fewest days in?
So here is my brief word stream review of 2012 and feel free to fit them into any categories you might have written down:
Olympics, John Terry, Savile, Mr Wig - Wiggo - Wiggins, Greville and the Tombstones, Mayans, films, gangnam style.
There! Are you happy now? Are you not entertained?
I have had literally no tweets asking why I haven't blogged a year review like I did in 2011 and 2010.
The reason is almost certainly the same as why I didn't write one - because people are tired of 2012 reviews. There seemed to be a never ending myriad of reviews of 2012. It was exhausting living through it all again before it was even over.
But I hear what you are saying. It is 2013 now.
Ok, you have twisted my arm.
Here are just a couple of things which I thought were stand outs of the 2012 and deserve a mention in an end of year summary, which many reviews may have missed.
Best TV of 2012
Sport this year dominated the TV. But sport is not really proper television. Sport on TV is a seat in the stadium or visual radio show. Although sport did produce some wonderful jaw dropping and unimaginable moments in 2012's 12 months it did not produce the most jaw dropping or the most unimaginable.
That went to a programme called 15 Stone Babies (C4).
15 Stone Babies was astonishing. It basically showed what will happen if you keep your Cabbage Patch doll for 40 years. Grown men and women wanting to be fully cared for as infants and the wives, girlfriends, boyfriends and businesses facilitating this want.
The only show which equalled my state of mesmerised horror was a programme from a few years back which I think was called, Guys and Dolls.
Guys and Dolls told the stories of 4 men who purchased, used and cared for "realdolls". For those who don't know, Realdolls are a mad scientist's experiment gone wrong of splicing Barbie DNA with that of 5 blow up sex dolls. Life sized anatomically correct latex dolls, glass eyes, tongues like stress balls and featuring spring loaded hips.
3 scenes from Guys and Dolls remain with me.
1. The chap who needed to return his doll to the factory to be chemically cleaned BY HAND [if I cleaned men's sex dolls for a job I would lie if someone asked why my hands are so soft and say I smother piglets for a living] and have its VAGINAL WALLS replaced [shudder]. He was brushing it's hair and stuff as he packaged it up back in it's tea crate to be sent away.
2. The man who wanted to have his realdoll lifestyle combined with a normal relationship so went on a dating site. Openly he explained to the girl he had a thing for realdolls. Fine, she said, everyone has something a little odd. Bet she wasn't expecting it to be a big but odd though and to walk into his house to see 8 realdolls sitting around his living room as best they could in their, what can only be described as, whoring postures. To his credit, the man had dressed them in demure conservative dresses, put make-up on them as if they were ginny-women of 1860's London. There was also the paper cone party hats on their heads and party blowers in their dirty mouths because it was Lucy realdoll's birthday.
If that lady didn't think: "Just eat a bit cake, drink a little tea, talk about the weather, pretend this is all normal and I might get out of here alive" then I don't know when she would ever think it, quite honestly.
[Anyway, forget the menagerie of life-sized, latex, love ladies, it's the teddy ruxpin on the shelf you need to worry about. There is a home recorded cassette up his ass of the guy talking dirty in a "lady voice". Probably]
3. The lad who tried to kick his realdoll addiction and shoved his collection into cardboard boxes in the garage, producing a scene resembling one of those suburban serial killers the cops occasionally stumble upon in Russia.
Anyway, I digress.
These adult babies enjoyed being tended to, changed and nursed. Both sides of the agreement suggested there was nothing sexual in the role-play but that "accidents happen" and are generally ignored.
The "babies" really wanted to remove all responsibility from their lives - to not have to worry about dressing, toileting or even, for some, understanding words. Those mothering (or fathering) them seemed to enjoy the caring, power and the nurturing aspects - saying the process fulfilled a need for them too.
Despite perceptions these people were in unhealthy relationships, and there was more to this fetish/lifestyle than simple enjoyment of role-playing it was something to realise these people were openly discussing this at all. Identities were not hidden.
Hi, this is me, this is the company I work for, this is my home and this is my man sized cot.
Perhaps 2012 was the point where people were becoming more aware and tolerant of what people like to innocently do without questioning any undercurrent of perversion?
One couple on the show at the end, explained it wasn't quite doing it for the husband anymore so he was busy building a sex-dungeon in the shed at the far side of their garden.
Ah.
So, to my winner!
New Girl.
Good Lord but I love New Girl - it is the perfect accompaniment to a hot chocolate served in a thick mug with Christmas designs printed on. Starring the leggy mermaid Zooey Deschanel and a cast of characters of which Schmidt is the stand out comedy conducting rod, it is simply a lovely piece of TV. How I truly feel about it, disappointingly for a blog, is something I struggle to put into words. Perhaps the best way to put it is I am following the entire cast of the show on Twitter on the off-chance they do a Twitter only episode and I don't want to miss it!
Weirdest moment of 2012
2012 did have it's fair share of weird moments. In 2010 the award went to Raoul Moat and 2011 the Krankies. So look away now if you don't want a little gentle controversy.
Up to the last moment of 2011 I was going to award this to the end of the world as predicted by old Religious fruit, Harold Camping, before the Krankies stole a march. Unfortunately for Earth, it has happened again.
According to some, that the Mayan calender ended on our modern 21st December 2012 was a sure sign of the end of the world. For me, I wondered if the Mayans wouldn't just have planned to hang up another one, like what I do every January 3rd. Of course, we will never know who was correct. Oh, no, that's right, we did, on 22nd December, it was me.
But let's cut to the chase!
For me, the weirdest thing came out of the hoax call made to the Private Hospital by a couple of OZ radio DJs gaining insight into the condition of the host to our future royal ruler parasite. [this isn't a treasonous sentence, but of high satire about modern monarchy and the female role within it. Honest]
Why these DJs wanted and were allowed to do this in the first place, given it was not a very funny "prank" - let's pretend we are the Royal Family and try and get confidential medical records is not funny, just a poor plot-line from a low budget ITV spy drama - will remain a mystery when studied in the cold light of day.
They said they never thought they would the information they were eventually privy to, that someone would have been sharp to their rouse. But this simply makes their motive even more blurred.
Then the UK media got involved. They blamed the DJs and they lambasted the Hospital Staff for a week. Then things took a tragic turn. One of the nurses hoodwinked took her own life.
The DJs now at the centre of this awful situation were distraught. Filmed broken, in tears, careers almost certainly over apologising into infinity. Their lives shattered after what they considered to be a bit of a laugh at someone's expense who they did not know or care about.
Once it became apparent a fortnight later that this was not a case of "pranking the pranksters" and the nurse was not just waiting to jump out of the wardrobe in the girl DJs bedroom in what surely be the ultimate prank of all time, it was time to reflect on what this all meant.
Suddenly the dangers of prank calls, hidden camera jokes and constructed situations to cause elevated reactions were laid bare. The risks and post-trauma potential risks are astronomical when considering the permutations of how people will react.
Those Mayans stopping their calendar short as a jape - someone died falling off a mountain in France which some (I believe the term is) loon dictated to be the only safe place on Earth on 21st December.
You've Been Framed - you are watching potential injury and death and serious mental health issues happening as you sit with your tea tray on your knees eating your fish fingers and sweet corn on a Saturday early evening, before your eyes.
If you thought the investigation to Savile was in depth, wait until someone sends the police the box set of Beadle's About.
Hopefully this terriable incident will mean the end to all these contrived and recorded set-ups which simply feasts on people's genuine humiliation and are always cruel.
There are better things to laugh at - and one of the best of them is New Girl.
So here is to a slightly less filled year in 2013, and one with fewer slo-mo montages of sporting emotion.
Now time to party 2013 music style!!
Sheesh, Roll on 2014 or to when the chronological rolls over to 0000 and we get to 1985 again.
And that's why I didn't do an annual review this time.
After I wrote the pretend song, The Unicorn Song, and posted it onto my band blog I wasn't prepared for the response. People telling about unicorns, sending me pictures of unicorns, asking me why I like unicorns...
The following exchange of conversation has become part of my life now.
There is a street in Glenrothes, Scotland called Unicorn Way, maybe Greville needs to move to live there:
You write one song about a vampire being into kinky unicorn sex...!
I now know how Wet Wet Wet felt.
I might need to delete all copies of my song and hope that heroin does the rest
in making me forget I ever mentioned the words “Unicorn” and “Song”.
I am haunted by unicorns. Their phosphorus, twisted horns glow out of the fog
of my middle conscience state. Their ribs hang with the strips of rotten white
skin and they brae out from the darkness welled in pools in my mind and I smell
their cured breath vapours from between their pointed cracked teeth as I drift
to sleep.
In saying that – travelling to Glenrothes to get a photo of me at the sign would make a cool roadtrip movie. Does anyone have a Video recorder these days?
That would be a short movie.
I wouldn’t look for a cinematic release.
Straight to the Poundland DVD section?
Yes.
“Greville Tombs goes the full distance to face his demons: Unicorns. “The Way to
Unicorn Way” is a cool road trip movie full of hip tunes and shows us the youth
of today as close-up, and as real… and as funky… as never before. You’ll laugh at
their jokes, be touched by their feelings and be shocked by the standards they
live by. “The Way to Unicorn Way” is not a movie the government wants you to
see, but then, if you go to Unicorn Way, you don’t play by legislation. “The
Way to Unicorn Way” where one man and his group of young, fresh ladies take on
unicorns their own way. Rated R: Contains scenes of nudity while driving and
prolonged Unicorns.”
How does a unicorn become prolonged?
You’ll see. Oh, you’ll see.
I am disturbed!
I thought the film sounded fun. Kind of thing I’d watch. But the point is, I created the band blog to get away from the madness of being in an imaginary band recording a make-believe album out of pretend songs - and now? Well now I am pitching straight-to-DVD movies about the single off it.
