Do you have 1200 characters in your life? Maybe you do. I don't, unless I could remember all the blokes that I've met in pubs over the years. Why are they always known as 'characters' by the way? Why not, (more accurately but less generously), as drunks, raconteurs, pimps, revolutionaries, scroungers or ne'er-do-wells? Or politicians for that matter, or scriptwriters...?
James Doran was a scriptwriter and boon companion who helped to fund the Green Man pub in Putney until his demise a couple of years back. Jim was an ascerbic, no nonsense Scotsman who had written scripts for Z Cars and the screenplay for The Ipcress File amongst other profitable literary works. These achievements alone marked him out as a character, as did his schadenfreude taste in bar-room storytelling. When Jim was a lad his Grandfather had read out a piece from the Monday morning Scotsman newspaper. Some tourists had been killed in a coach crash the previous day. "That'll teach them to go gallivantin aboot on the Sabbath" said Grandad. Jim recounted it with glee. Many times.
Francis was another Green Man character, media man and whisky lover with an equally low tolerance for fools and sycophants. "Good Morning Francis," said one who was both. "Morning Tom," replied Francis without looking up from the obituary columns. "How are you?" said Tom... "Morning will do," said Francis, successfully terminating the exchange.
Filling in my profile on my Google Blog account got me thinking about this today. "Introduce yourself with as many characters as you want - up to 1200" it said. Probably job done!
But, to sign off with a favourite gag...
‘I needed a password eight characters long, so I picked Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.’
Nick Helm
Visit me at: www.eswriter.com
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