Jason Cook: grit, determination, a cracker of a story and a new movie…

Jason Cook on his phone in Borehamwood

Jason Cook has turned up occasionally in this blog.

The last time was in December 2021 when my opening sentence was “You need grit and determination – and nowadays, ideally, the potential for sequels – to get movies made…”

Jason Cook has grit and determination, is indefatigable, has a staggeringly fertile creative mind and he has sequels and now a prequel. 

He also has dyslexia but has so far published four linked semi-autobiographical gangster novels, a children’s book called Rats in Space (the title explains it all) and a novel about the Rave scene, set in the 1980s and 1990s – Euphoria – Pirates of the South.

He has long had plans to film the first of his four semi-autobiographical gangster books There’s No Room For Jugglers in My Circus.

But now his first film is being released and it is a prequel to that, a set-up, for the planned four main semi-autobiographical gangster movies based on his novels.

Cookster: The Darkest Days is being screened this Saturday at the adventurous Genesis Cinema in Mile End Road as part of the London Independent Film Festival.

The plotline? 

“A dyslexic teen misunderstood by his family, abandoned by the system and desperate for respect, becomes a drug dealer struggling to balance his addiction and debt to a local gangster while a rival threatens to destroy his world, driving him apart from the woman he loves and a daughter he’s never known.”

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JASON: So, after 20 years, we managed to get the budget together from various investors and a film production company called Silent D Pictures.

Indefatigable Djonny Chen of Silent D Pictures

JOHN: That’s Djonny Chen’s company.

He is almost as indefatigable as you…

JASON: Yes. Djonny has made 27 films since Covid – directed and/or produced/executive produced.

And he’s lined up to do another two films with me – Pirates of the South and Rats in Space. as well as Cookster: There’s No Room For Jugglers in My Circus, the follow-up to Cookster: The Darkest Days.

JOHN: And now you’ve written a fifth Cookster book to go with the film.

JASON: Yes. That’ll come out this year.

JOHN: So Cookster: The Darkest Days is about you growing up in Borehamwood, where we both live.

JASON: Yes. We shot it over 18 days in Borehamwood and Radlett – all on location.

Craige Middleburg plays the slightly older, dodgy Jason

In this film, I’m played from ages 12 to 18. Two actors play me: one younger, one older. Samuel Staite plays young Jason. Craige Middleburg is the older me.

Then there’s Nick Moran from Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels who plays my dad and Tracy Shaw from Coronation Street plays my mum.

JOHN: You shot part of the film at the school you actually attended as a kid.

JASON: Yes. Parkside School in Borehamwood. It doesn’t have the same head as when I was there.

JOHN: Had they heard of you by repute at the school?

JASON: Yes. They’d heard I had been a naughty young lad and that I suffered from ADHD and dyslexia. Back then, they thought I was no use: I lacked confidence and lacked focus and they reckoned I would never amount to anything and I would end up in prison.

JOHN: Well, you did end up in prison, but now you’ve written all these books and co-produced this film.

JASON: I couldn’t read or write at the time when they reckoned I would never amount to anything. I spent most of my younger years standing outside the headmaster’s office: well, it was a headmistress back then.

JOHN: Did she ever amount to anything?

JASON: No. Not that I know of.

JOHN: Did the school welcome you back with open arms?

JASON: They were very helpful. We got the design team to come in and put the classrooms back to the early 1980s. We had the school uniforms, the chalkboards instead of the digital whiteboards they’ve got on the wall now. 

Cookster – The Darkest Days is coming

All the locations had to be re-dressed for the era. We’re talking about me from 12 to 18. So 1975 to early 1980s. We re-dressed my mum’s house.

JOHN: Do you appear in the film?

JASON: You’ll miss me if you blink.

JOHN: Djonny has links to Indonesia.

JASON: Yes, he has links to distribution over there.

JOHN: Any changes to appeal to the Indonesian market?

JASON: We changed one character in the script from British to Indonesian and it worked really well. The actress playing her is Elvira Devinamira. She’s Indonesian.

We leave the film on a cliffhanger, ready to go into the next film Cookster: There’s No Room for Jugglers in My Circus. The government has now given us more tax credits, so we can now claim up to about 70% on the production. 

JOHN: And other film projects?

JASON: I’m working on Rats in Space. We’ve got American producers involved now. It’s an animation, based on a true-life story that I wrote.

Jason has plans for Rats In Space – based on a true story ??

JOHN: Yer what? A true life story??

JASON: A French rat was put in a rocket and shot to the Moon. He never made it to the Moon, but he managed to get back alive. So I wrote a story about how he became an astronaut.

JOHN: Will the rat do any promotional interviews to publicise the movie when it comes out?

JASON: That’s difficult to say.

Hirsute Jason is a man of many hats and movie ideas but he has no dandruff…

Fear and loathing in the the US today

(Image by tammyatWTI via Pixabay)

Mick Deacon, the Brit who is temporarily in the US to see his girlfriend and who has featured in a few of my recent blogs, is trying to get back to the UK – with little success so far. He writes:

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I currently have no flight back. My March flight was cancelled and I am just sat here, waiting for British Airways to answer the phone. 

Last week, on the anniversary of the 6th January attack on the Capitol, I was watching some political lady talking about the insurrection. It sounded absolutely terrifying. 

You just can’t believe what people will do for Trump. It’s like a cult. Intelligent people indoctrinated by his hate and sense of superiority. The man has the figure of a beach ball and a face that looks like a flame blower who didn’t realise which way the wind was blowing. 

Mick’s girlfriend prepares breakfast for him…

I just find it so concerning what’s happening here. There are some very nice friendly people here. I’ve seen some stunning countryside, listened to fabulous music and eaten fabulous food and enjoyed watching football matches (which has never happened in England). 

But there is a feeling of fear from the guns, the pressure people are under, the poverty and mental health problems.

Friends here don’t watch the news because they don’t want to know. I travelled blissfully unaware before; I would always read situations and was never stupid so I never hit a spot of trouble. 

I know the media is not to be trusted but I wonder would you love your country if you knew about a quieter, safer one? It’s where we grow up, our culture, familiarity. Would you be so patriotic if you were suddenly taken to a place that wasn’t so expensive, without so much gun crime? Would you turn round and think Wow! Why did I put up with that for so long? 

Yesterday there was a story on the news about a car valet worker who was shot when asking for payment from the guest. Apparently there was a heated conversation and the guest shot and killed the valet person and tried to imply it was self defence. 

It really made me realise something.

I had been told before if you see trouble – arguments, whatever – Do not try to help – Run… and call for help only when you are out of the area. 

This was from a man who spoke to me when I was walking the dog when I first came here.

Mick’s girlfriend drives to the local shops…

What I realise from the news is that many people here are in a constant fear/attack mode not knowing if they will get shot. 

So people shoot first and think later over what is often something trivial. 

Arguments quickly escalate. 

There are also people who have no patience who try to blame it on the melting pot of violence, when they have committed a crime.

So I am sat here, waiting for British Airways to answer the phone. 

A sixth book and multiple film(s) from the indefatigable Jason Cook’s mind…

You need grit and determination – and nowadays, ideally, the potential for sequels – to get movies made.

The indefatigable Jason Cook turns up occasionally in this blog.

His new novel Euphoria – Pirates of the South – was published yesterday.

Jason Cook and his four gangster books…

So, obviously, we had a chat.

Jason, who is dyslexic, has previously written four linked semi-autobiographical gangster novels:

– There’s No Room for Jugglers in my Circus
– The Gangster’s Runner
– A Nice Little Earner
– Cocaine: The Devil’s Dandruff

…plus a children’s book Rats in Space.

His latest book is not for children…

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The 1980s and 1990s – the Rave scene

JASON: Euphoria – Pirates of the South is a book I wrote during the Covid lockdown last year.

JOHN: There’s semi-autobiographical stuff in it?

JASON: Well, there’s bits of autobiographical things I experienced in Borehamwood and South London…

JOHN: South London?

JASON: …thus the title Pirates of the South.

It’s about a young Indonesian girl who gets involved in an abusive relationship within a family environment but finds solace in the male-dominated music industry of the time. It’s set in the 1980s and 1990s – the Rave scene, the pirate radio scene – people finding a platform in their bedroom to catapault them within the music industry. Urban music wasn’t played on mainstream radio at the time. So people took risks to put the pirate stations together to create a platform for the music.

JOHN: It was originally conceived as a film?

JASON: Yes. Pirates of the South. It was planned about ten years ago with Mark Straker who has since, sadly, passed away. I continued to work on it as a book. The script had already been written by Lisa Strobl.

JOHN: You still plan to make it as a film?

JASON: Yes. Next year. Made by Djonny Chen’s Silent D Pictures. The idea is to have a well-known Indonesian actress in the central role.

JOHN: So the Pirates of the South film would get a release in Indonesia?

“People took risks… to create a platform for the music…”

JASON: Yes, under the title Waiting For Sunrise.

JOHN: Why change the title over there?

JASON: If you call it Pirates of the South in Indonesia, people might expect some Johnny Depp type pirates to be in it.

JOHN: And you also have another film waiting on the blocks…

JASON: Yes. Silent D Pictures are interested in making Pirates of the South AND a film called Cookster, which is going to be the back story of my four gangster books.

“It is based on myself when I was young…”

JOHN: So the Cookster back story chronologically happens before the first of the four gangster books?

JASON: Yes. We got everyone together to talk about doing a film of the first book, directed by Peter Field. But he said there was something missing from the books – the story of how the Cookster became who he is in the first book. The Cookster film explains the back story.

JOHN: And The Cookster is…?

JASON: The Cookster is based on myself when I was young – a dyslexic teen misunderstood by his family, abandoned by the system and desperate for respect. Then he becomes a drug dealer and struggles to balance his addiction and his debt to local gangsters, driving him apart from the woman he loves and the boyhood he’s never known.

JOHN: And, of course, you’ve left that world now.

JASON: Yes. Yeah. I’ve left it all behind and moved on to better things now.

JOHN: So The Cookster movie would be a prequel to the four semi-autobiographical gangster novels…

JASON: Yes, with two unknown actors playing earlier versions of me. It starts with me aged about six, moves up to me at 17 and then There’s No Room For Jugglers in my Circus takes it from there.

JOHN: You’re going to do the film Cookster and simultaneously write the book of the movie?

JASON: Yes.

JOHN: Who is going to play you in your prime in the movie?

JASON: An actor who’s just come off The Batman – Craige Middleburg. He’s very good.

Craige Middleburg and Jason Cook

 

The four elderly women who robbed three banks… trying to get arrested…

(Photo by Maxim Hopman via Unsplash)

I received an email today from Malcolm Hardee Award designer John Ward. He said: “My friend Alan sent me this. He’s not sure if it’s fiction or fact…”

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There were these four women who, although retired after long successful careers, found themselves living in less than acceptable flats and having little or no money to enjoy life with. 

Then one day, after reading the daily paper, one of them suggested that they needn’t continue to live hand to mouth and why not rob a bank. Then they would get caught and spend the rest of their lives in comfort, where everything was there for them.  

At first they thought it was a joke but then, after a while, they thought: Why not?

Because they all had specialist knowledge – in planning, research and stage make-up – they planned to rob a large bank in a month’s time.  

The day came and they were all disguised and had managed to get some guns (not real ones) and did the deed.  

However, they got away with a huge amount of money and did not get caught.  

They were not sure what to do next, then decided to go for it again and robbed another bank, again collecting a huge amount of money. 

The police could not find this gang who ‘dressed as and pretended to be old ladies’ (!) and put more resources into finding this ‘smart’ gang of clever thieves.  

The ladies robbed one last bank and had enough to live comfortably for the rest of their lives. 

They were never caught and the story only came out when the last lady alive was able to write it all down and have the book published after her death.

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Presumably this story is untrue because – apart from anything else – there would have been some publicity about a non-fiction book with that story.

But there is (I think) an urge to WANT to believe it’s true.

And I am not quite sure why.

We are talking three bank robberies, presumably terrifying bank employees.

Why the need to WANT to believe it? The psychology of the reader is far more interesting than the psychology of the supposed robbers. 

Or is it just me?

“If you are a woman who has been assaulted by a serving police officer…”

Sarah Everard (Photograph via Wikipedia)

Last week, the UK news was full of the shocking case of Sarah Everard’s killing. A serving Metropolitan Police officer has been arrested and charged with her abduction and murder. The abduction is thought to have happened on Clapham Common in London.

Below is a piece written by Sally Homer about a separate case and posted on her Facebook page.

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This week, a police officer will be sentenced for an ‘assault by beating’. 

The assault happened in July 2020 as my niece (let’s call her Gemma) walked home in the dark at 1am. The officer (let’s call him PC Danfell) pleaded guilty at Leamington Magistrates Court in January 2021 and his sentencing hearing will take place in Leicester Magistrates’ Court this week.

So that is the news.  

Except it probably won’t be the news because – for PC Danfell’s convenience – the hearing will take place in the East Midlands, outside local media scrutiny of where he lives and was charged (Warwickshire) and where he works (West Midlands).

Since the assault – an unprovoked, verbal, and brutal physical attack by a stranger (who turned out to be an off duty-policeman) – Gemma has experienced many instances where the criminal justice system is stacked in favour of the police rather than the victim.

The details of the assault and the subsequent effect on her life are not mine to share. That is Gemma’s story. But I can share the circumstances that have taught me this: if you are a woman who has been assaulted by a serving police officer, then be prepared to battle extremely hard to get justice.

I am a theatre/comedy publicist, so I have had plenty of time due to the pandemic to navigate complicated complaint procedures, to liaise with two police forces and the Crown Prosecution Service. I spent hours researching divergent police procedures when a suspect is a serving police officer. I have been a passionate advocate for Gemma. By focusing on the admin, I was able to better handle the sense of shock at the injustice of it all.   

I used a brilliant service provided by the Rights of Women organisation whereby I was able to talk to a criminal barrister for free for an hour.  

Such an odd situation: the victim requiring sophisticated legal advice.  

But, without their guidance, I don’t believe we would have secured a conviction.

The attack happened at 1am and Gemma reported it 7 hours later, at 8am. 

Without ever explicitly referring to this as her ‘mistake’ the investigating police force have implied that their poor response was in part because Gemma did not report the attack immediately.

Under covid restrictions, minimal face-to-face contact was the narrative from the police… Still, it took over 30 hours for an officer to take Gemma’s statement over the phone; it took a week until she was given a name of an officer who would be in charge of the investigation; and it took nine days for an officer to come and see her to sign her statement – despite several attempts by Gemma, myself, and her brother to get a proportionate response to the report of a serious crime.

Gemma supplied the police with two witnesses and, within a week of the assault, with the name, address and photograph of her assailant. 

The police had been independently sent 90 seconds of CCTV from a witness who reported the assault without any knowledge that the victim and the assailant were her near neighbours.

Police reassured Gemma that, because the suspect was a serving police officer employed by another force, the investigation would be carried out with extra care and vigilance. 

In practice, the opposite was true. 

They failed to secure crucial evidence and, even though the assault happened 10 metres from her front door and her assailant lives less than 30 metres away, it took a further 8 weeks for officers to conduct thorough house-to-house enquiries and interview PC Danfell.

When interviewed and allowed to watch the CCTV evidence, PC Danfell (6ft 2in) did not dispute the incident took place but created a back-story about how he was defending himself, as Gemma (5ft 2in and 8 stone) had, he said, assaulted him just before the CCTV caught the incident.   

A sergeant came to see us and explained that, since it was Gemma’s word against his, then PC Danfell would be ‘served with a caution’.   

We were incredulous. There was no scrutiny of his story and anyway, the CCTV clearly showed excessive force.

Emboldened by reading the Centre for Women’s Justice ‘super complaint’ about how police officers are allowed to abuse women with impunity, we insisted that they take the case to the Crown Prosecution Service and offered-up Gemma’s medical records as evidence. Gemma had sustained no cuts or broken bones but the effect on her mental well-being was severe.

The CPS’s response was not to charge due to lack of evidence. We got savvier. And appealed.

The CPS were finally committed to do some investigative work. 

Danfell’s narrative fell apart and he was finally charged at the end of last year, JUST within the 6-month statue for this offence.

We have faced barriers that are common to thousands of cases throughout the UK, most commonly associated with domestic abuse by police officers against their partners. 

Namely: difficulties in initial reporting, failures in investigation, improper responses to complaints/concerns, manipulation of police processes, accused using their police knowledge, status and powers and improper decisions on criminal charges.

If you are a victim, you are fighting on two fronts – the actual IN YA FACE violent misogyny of the assault itself and the systemic, drudging, hidden misogyny of the police and the criminal justice system.

I began writing this blog before Sarah Everard’s murder. I was going to wind it up with a neat quip about looking forward to the new series of the BBC TV series Line of Duty. 

But last night I watched the news hoping it wasn’t real, that Kate Fleming from Line of Duty would walk into shot on Clapham Common and we’d know justice would be done.  

Sadly, it isn’t like it is on television …

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THERE IS A FOLLOW-UP BLOG HERE.

AND A CHANNEL 4 TELEVISION REPORT HERE.

Sally Homer adds: I am not connected with the Rights of Women organisation professionally or privately at all – But they provided a great service, so give them money if you have any to spare!

John Fleming’s Weekly Diary No 34 (b) has weirdness, confusion and a witch…

… CONTINUED FROM DIARY No 34 (a) …

WEDNESDAY 9th SEPTEMBER

A bit of glamour, showbiz and crime… always popular in blogs

This blog is usually described as a “comedy blog” but perhaps oddly – perhaps not, given the eclectic bunches of readers and followers I have – the blogs which consistently get big hits are ones about crime and subjects other than comedy.

In fact, the two which have consistently, steadily got hits are:

Where the Kray Twins gangster film “Legend” got it all so very badly wrong (September 2015)

and

The practicalities of putting your head in a gas oven: my 2nd suicide attempt (January 2015)

Clearly, I must have been doing something right in 2015. Which is possibly confirmed by the fact that, in the last two or three months, the above two have been joined as consistently hit blogs by another May 2015 one:

The paedophile sculptor and the image on the front of BBC Broadcasting House

Someone suggested to me that renewed interest in this one might have been stoked by the spate of pulling down statues linked to the Black Lives Matter movement. But it seems to have lasted beyond that.

Weird.

THURSDAY 10th SEPTEMBER

My sleeping pattern seems to have returned to weirdness…

My sleeping pattern seems to have returned to my New Normal.

Waking up 10 or 12 times a night with my mouth and tongue parched totally dry.

Today, I managed to get on two wrong trains because my mind was not paying attention.

Intending to get on a train to Greenwich at Blackfriars, I managed to get on what I feared might be an express train to Brighton. Fortunately, it stopped at East Croydon and I was able to get back to Blackfriars.

All these names mean nothing if you don’t live in the UK so, suffice to say, later in the day, I got on another wrong train. Very confusing.

In the evening, I saw the movie TENET, which continued the confusion. I wrote about it HERE.

The UK law (or is it only the English law? Everything is confusing) now requires cinemagoers to wear COVID masks throughout all movie screenings even when social distancing is adhered to.

The reality was that, once inside the cinema and seeing that everyone was socially distanced, Most people lowered their masks.

This made no scheduling, audience or any sense (Photo by Levi Stute via UnSplash)

FRIDAY 11th SEPTEMBER

I had a dream in which I was attending the rehearsals for a live 2-hour peaktime TV variety show.

The rehearsals for the show were being screened live at 8.00pm on broadcast television and later, the actual show itself would be transmitted live.

This made no scheduling, audience or any sense of any kind. And the live broadcast rehearsals were going badly.

I have no idea what this was about but, then, for the last few weeks, every day feels like it is a Thursday.

And I don’t even know what specific feelings define a Thursday.

SATURDAY 12th SEPTEMBER

I was walking along a street in North West London with the 9-year-old daughter of a friend of mine when an old lady who looked a bit the worse for wear approached us.

“I don’t want anything from you,” she said. And then started telling us what she had been doing that day.

She got as far as a couple of sentences and “My daughter was supposed to transfer money into my bank account today, but…” when I felt it was better to move on. The whole incident took maybe 45 seconds.

The 9-year-old seemed slightly unsettled and I thought she was going to say I should have given the old lady some money (though she hadn’t actually got to the point of asking)…

But, in fact, the 9-year-old had been very unsettled by the incident.

“That is the third time I have seen that lady,” she explained. “The first time was near here (in North West London) about three weeks ago… Then I saw her a couple of days later in East London… and now I have seen her again here… She looks like a witch.”

I tried to reassure her but a new weirdness has become the New Norm.

Anything is possible.

“I tried to reassure her but a new weirdness has become the New Norm. Anything is possible.”

… CONTINUED HERE …

Dreaming the start of a novel – not

Two or three days ago, I woke up at about 5 o’clock in the morning with the idea of a novel which was basically four or five real-life stories cobbled together into a narrative.

I thought about getting up and writing down the ideas but, instead, turned over on the floor and went back to sleep.

I was sleeping on the floor because I buggered my back about four weeks ago.

This morning, again at around 5 o’clock, I woke up with the same opening idea in my mind, minus the other stories.

I thought I had better write it down this time, so I did. 

I doubt if I will add to it because I’m useless without a deadline.

I don’t need a person from Porlock and I ain’t no Coleridge.

I don’t fancy the opium.

Especially as I had a blood test yesterday and that nurse sure needs more practice in how to stick a needle in someone’s arm.

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CHAPTER 1

So there was this Irishman, a Dalek and four Scotsmen.

The Irishman was called Michael Julian Andrew Hardwick Bantam Smith. He was married with a younger wife, five children and a parakeet called Charlie.

He – Michael, not the parakeet – had been pushing the Dalek round the Scene Dock, a circular covered roadway that ran round the outside of the studios at BBC Television Centre in West London. He was clutching his stomach and standing half bent over, about to fall, because he had just been shot in the stomach.

The Dalek was a prop. Writer Terry Nation had described it, roughly, as a pepper pot with a sink plunger sticking out the front. BBC designer Raymond Cusick had refined the look and the Daleks became iconic villains in the Doctor Who TV series which, at that time, was fading in popularity. It would later be revived. Unlike Michael the Irishman.

One of the four Scotsman was called Jimmy the Joker. That was not his real name. The four Scotsmen had just robbed the cash office at BBC Television Centre. This was back in the day when people got paid weekly in cash. Jimmy the Joker had just shot Michael the Irishman by mistake. 

Out of the corner of his left eye, he had seen a Dalek suddenly appear into the Scene Dock through one of the open studio doors and some inexplicable reflex action had made his brain fire the Walther PPK hand gun at the human being beside it. It’s a Dalek! was all his brain had thought. Jimmy carried a Walther PPK because that was the gun James Bond used in the books and movies.

Michael the Irishman would die in an ambulance on the way to hospital twelve minutes later. His last words would be whispered urgently but inaudibly. When he was dead, the elder ambulance man would look at the younger ambulance man, shrug and start filling in a form.

Three of the Scotsmen running in Television Centre – including Jimmy the Joker – were dressed as policemen. Two were carrying large canvas mail bags filled with banknotes. Jimmy was carrying a gun. The fourth was dressed in ‘civvies’, carrying a lightweight video camera, apparently filming the other two. All four men wore clown masks.

They ran out of the scene dock and through the car park at the front of the building. People just looked at them with mild interest, thinking it was part of some new TV show. 

The uniformed security men at the front gate looked a little bemused, thought the same thing and stood aside to let the three policemen wearing clown masks – one carrying a gun – and the clown-masked man with the camera out into Wood Lane, the main road which ran past the studios. That was when the trouble really started.

Comedian Lewis Schaffer got attacked, ‘cold cocked’, and had his nose broken

On Sunday night, London-based American comic Lewis Schaffer was attacked, scarred and got his nose broken.

Last night (Tuesday) I asked him via Skype what happened.

Lewis Schaffer talked from home on Skype last night, two days after he was attacked in London

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JOHN: God! You look terrible.

LEWIS: Do I look muscly?

JOHN: Strangely, yes. So what happened? You were cycling along the road on Sunday night…

LEWIS: I was cycling along. I was going down Gipsy Hill (in South London). It’s very steep; it’s really steep. It’s fast and I’m being very conscious of what I’m doing. And this woman driving a car got very close to me and my bicycle wobbled and I thought I was going to die.

It was a white Fiat 500; a small but newish car. It happened halfway down the hill. They sped off ahead. I didn’t pursue them, but I caught up with them at the bottom of the hill, cos this is London: it’s gonna be congested. You can’t make an escape in London. You can’t have a chase scene filmed in London, because someone’s gonna get caught in traffic.

JOHN: And you had an argument with her.

LEWIS: I didn’t have an argument. I was telling her off. I said: “Hey! What are you doing? You almost killed me!”

She gets out of the car and says: “Oh! You were swerving!”

Another woman gets out of the car and this dude gets out of the car and they have to hold him back and he gets very very angry. He gets super angry. He’s a young kid, whatever. 

They’re screaming at me saying: “You were weaving! You were doing this! You were doing that!”

I said: “I wasn’t weaving! You almost killed me! You don’t want to kill somebody!”

And they were holding this guy back. He was a young kid.

JOHN: How old? 18? 19?

LEWIS: I dunno. He could have been like maybe 15 years old. But, at my age, everybody looks young.

Then he gets back in the car. I thought everything was alright. Then he gets out of the car again – he must’ve gotten something in the car possibly – I dunno what he did – he might have picked up something – it’s all a blur – I got hit in the head – He hit me in the head. I thought he had picked up a stone but I had turned away from him and he hits me right in the face. Breaks my nose. I didn’t even have a chance to protect myself. 

It wasn’t like a fight or anything. He just kinda like cold-cocked me.

JOHN: Cold cocked you?

LEWIS: Sucker punched.

JOHN: Cold cocked?

LEWIS: You never heard that phrase?

JOHN: No. I was brought up a Presbyterian.

LEWIS: Wait… Here… online… here it is… It means to knock someone out, typically with a blow to the head. To cold cock.

JOHN: There was only one punch?

LEWIS: Only one punch. Possibly they did other things. People said I was kicked in the stomach.

JOHN: You were knocked out?

LEWIS: I must have been knocked out for a second. I might have been unconscious for a bit. By the time I get up, he’s back in the car and I’m covered in blood. Like literally. Blood is pouring out of me. I’m looking at him and saying: “What the fuck have you done?”

I’m bleeding and I’m taking the blood and I just start throwing the blood at the car. They got back in the car. They’re about to drive off and I’m throwing blood at them. It was weird, really.

I’m saying: “Look what you’ve done! Look what you’ve done!” And I’m just throwing blood all over the car. This beautiful white Fiat 500 car.

“God! You look terrible” … “Do I look muscly?”

JOHN: And then what happens?

LEWIS: They drive off.

JOHN: And you don’t follow them?

LEWIS: No. I’m bleeding. I’m bleeding.

I was thinking to myself: You know what? At least they’re going to have to spend some time to clean up the car! They’ve punched me in the face, but I’m punishing them!

People around me are saying: “We got it on film! We got it on the CCTV!” 

There’s like 5 or 10 or 15 people there who’ve seen it.

They say: “We’ve got it on TV. Sit down.” They come out. They’re bringing…

It’s just an amazing act of generosity from the people in the neighbourhood saying: “That was outrageous! I can’t believe that happened!”

Three of them brought packets of ice for me to put on my nose. They were just so helpful all these people. They called the ambulance. They called the police.

JOHN: And the car’s already gone off…

LEWIS: Yes, but they got the licence plate number and the next day the guy was arrested.

JOHN: And you got taken to A&E at King’s College Hospital in Denmark Hill…

LEWIS: I’ve got a huge gash in my nose and I’m dripping blood all over everything. They ask me all these questions and I say: “I’m alright; I’m alright,” so, instead of treating me instantly, they put me in ‘Urgent Care’, which is not so urgent I found out.

JOHN: How long did it take to see you?

LEWIS: Six hours. 

JOHN: And eventually you had seven stitches. What happens with a broken nose? Do they leave it to mend itself?

LEWIS: Well, the doctor said: “Wait a week to see if we need to re-set the nose.”

JOHN: You must be on major pain-killers.

LEWIS: The only pain-killers they give you are paracetamol.

JOHN: And you’re OK?

LEWIS: I’m not OK. What am I supposed to do about it? And I feel really, really psychologically bad.

JOHN: Psychologically bad is good for your schtick. Are you in agony?

LEWIS: I’m in agony, yes. My face is killing me. And I’ve got a broken tooth.

JOHN: And tomorrow, you’re getting up at 4.00am because you’re appearing in a major movie. Are you allowed to say the name of the production?

LEWIS: No.

JOHN: But it’s a major Hollywood feature film.

LEWIS: Major, major, major, major, major. Big studio thing with hundreds of extras.

JOHN: And it doesn’t matter you’ve got your nose broken?

LEWIS: It might matter. I’m really concerned. I’m gonna have to put on make-up.

JOHN: What time did you get punched on Sunday?

LEWIS: About six at night, after the Crystal Palace game. I’ll tell you something, John… To go see Crystal Palace and then to get into a fight and then to spend six hours in A&E at a hospital – Now I feel I really belong. How much more British could I be?

Lewis Schaffer shortly after the attack…

Comedian Matt Price is having weekly Conversations with Criminals

In 2013, I posted a blog in which comedian Matt Price talked about the violent physical attack in 2007 on his partner, comedian Martha McBrier, by four or five men in Glasgow. The attack permanently damaged her hearing. 

He told me: “about a year later, she was diagnosed with a brain tumour and, between those times, a member of her family went to buy a gun to shoot the man who attacked her.”

Matt also looked into the possibility of taking violent revenge, but a career criminal persuaded him not to.

Last week, Matt told me: “If I’d have taken revenge, I wouldn’t be here eating a muffin with you; I’d have been in jail.”

He is still together with Martha and, now based in London, he has started a weekly podcast – released every Sunday – called Conversations with Criminals.

The fourth episode of the podcast was posted online yesterday.

Matt’s Edinburgh Fringe comedy show in August will be titled: Broken Hooters and Geezers with Shooters.

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JOHN: Conversations with Criminals… Why?

MATT: Because I knew nothing about crime until I was on the receiving end of one, when Martha got attacked all those years ago. Had I taken revenge, my life would have been very different.

I would much rather hear about what it’s like to be in prison and how hard it is to hustle while I am here eating a muffin, drinking a coffee with you and not in prison.

JOHN: …and…?

MATT: Because I’ve spent about ten years in the company of various dodgy people.

I like podcasting as a medium and also I like the fact that people who are on the wrong side of the law have great stories to tell and a very bleak sense of humour. They have to in order to cope with what they do and what they’ve done.

I am casting my net wide. I’m going to Nottingham to speak to a guy who will talk me through what it was like to be an addict going in and out of jail. I’ve talked to a guy whose parents were heroin dealers and, in the 1980s, he moved down to London and started robbing banks. All interesting stuff.

JOHN: Why will they talk to you? You’re not paying them.

MATT: People like to talk about themselves. Or maybe I’ve just fallen in with the right crowd.

JOHN: The first podcast was with Dave Courtney who, let’s be honest, will talk to anyone. The second one was with…

MATT: Brendan, Dave Courtney’s best mate and he’s a very funny guy. Just a funny man. What makes him so interesting to me is that he is a self-confessed coward. He made it very clear when he met Dave all those years ago: “Look, you’re great company, but I’m a coward. I don’t want to get involved in any violence. So I will run away.”

JOHN: So he’s not really a ‘hard man’.

MATT: Not at all.

JOHN: Or a criminal?

MATT: I think it’s well-documented he did go to jail. But I know he doesn’t want to be known as a ‘hard man’ in any capacity and that’s very important to him. Because if you make it clear, in that world, that you’re not a hard man, then people will leave you alone.

JOHN: And, if you say you are a hard man…?

MATT: …I imagine there will be more… ermm…  challenges.

JOHN: Difficult to keep it up weekly, missus: the podcast.

MATT: Well, it’s not easy interviewing people who are on the wrong side of the law, because they tend not to make plans for the future. You can’t phone someone up and say: “Oh, can you have a look in your diary… We could do lunch next week?” 

That’s not how it works. And sometimes there are misunderstandings, of which I’ve had a few. The most recent one was with a guy called Andy Costello, who was in Episode 3.

He really intrigued me because, in a way, he’s a vigilante. He was a policeman and lost his job because – this is 20 years ago – somebody punched his teenage daughter and he took violent revenge on the guy – He beat up him and his mates – and went to jail for it. But he has turned his life around completely now; he’s an amazing guy.

JOHN: What does he do now?

MATT: He teaches martial arts. He trains some of the best fighters in the country if not in the world.

I met him through a friend and I went out to meet him on a farm where his gym is and I thought he knew I was doing my weekly podcast.

But he thought – because he has just started doing stand-up comedy – that I, as a comedian, was going to interview him about his new career.

We met and I said: “Look, I’m not here to judge you in any way…” and he thinks Great! Because he’s just started performing comedy and I’ve been doing it a while. And then we start talking about crime and revenge and what it’s like to be in jail. And he was too polite to say anything. He thought it was odd but maybe I was trying to ‘big him up’ with an interesting angle. 

It was only afterwards that our mutual friend told him the title of the weekly podcast was Conversations with Criminals.

But the interview was great and he and his daughter like it. So it was all fine and mellow.

JOHN: Have you had less mellow misunderstandings?

MATT: Yes. I met somebody else through a mutual contact and the three of us got into a car with Mister X who, to be honest, I knew very little about.

Our mutual friend says to Mister X: “You remember that time you chopped somebody’s arm off?”

And Mister X says: “No. I have absolutely no recollection of that whatsoever.”

“Ah, no,” says my friend. “You remember – that geezer with his arm hanging off and the claret everywhere?”

“No… I have absolutely no idea what you’re talking about. And, by the way, who are you?” says Mister X to me.

I said: “My name’s Matt and I’m a comedian.”

“Well, you don’t look very funny,” he says.

So we get to this strange pub and at that time I had flu – my eyes were watering and Martha had told me I needed to be drinking lots of water – so, of course, I downed four pints in one go and arm-chop man was already quite nervous and he says to our mutual friend: “Your mate looks a bit dodgy. What’s the matter with him? Is he a policeman? Is he wired-up? Is he a journalist?”

“No,” my mate says. “He’s just an idiot who is too scared to ask where the toilets are.”

So we had this very awkward, very tense interview with power ballads playing in the background and I said: “Can you give me some advice?”

And he said: “Yeah. You should chill out, mate. Relax. You look really twitchy and you’re making ME feel nervous now.”

Then two guys walked in – two total strangers – and my friend just walked out of the venue. So I followed him. 

A couple of days later, I got a phone call from Mister X who says: “You really ARE what you say you are. Shall we start again?”

So we did and we had a delightful chat. He is going to remain anonymous not for any particular sinister reason. It’s just he has moved on with his life. He said: “You can have a selfie with my dog, but don’t put the picture of the dog online, because that will give away my identity.”

JOHN: Quite a few comedians have dodgy pasts.

MATT: One day I was in a car on the way to a gig with Mister A, talking about the podcast and he said: “Well, as comedians, we are on the periphery of society anyway, so we have a lot in common with these people. We’re just alternative people who are not going to work 9 to 5 staff jobs and neither are they. We are just people with a different lifestyle.”

Unfortunately, crime pays an awful lot more than comedy does. 

Lets be honest, everybody says: “Ooh, I’d love to get on Netflix as a comedian but, failing that…”

JOHN: Do they?

MATT: True crime is very popular at the moment.

JOHN: I guess everybody thinks they would like the excitement of being a criminal.

MATT: Well, not me. I’ve met them. At various levels. And I don’t really know any one of them – yet – who says Oh yes! Crime is great!

Crime is great when you’re driving around in a BMW. But then you get caught and suddenly all the people who said they thought you were amazing don’t want to know you any more. I don’t see what’s glamorous about that.

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CONVERSATIONS WITH CRIMINALS IS ON

iTunes,  Spotify, Podbean and all usual platforms.

What really happened Once Upon a Time in London – one gangster’s view

In my last two blogs, actor/producer/writer Terry Stone was talking about his new movie Once Upon a Time in London (released in the UK two days ago), which told the story of Jack Spot and Billy Hill, the dominant figures in London crime before the Kray Twins managed to capture the headlines in the mid-1960s. 

I thought it would be interesting to watch Once Upon a Time in London with Micky Fawcett, who was an associate of both Billy Hill and the Krays and who wrote arguably the most factually accurate book on the Twins: Krayzy Days.

So we watched Once Upon a Time in London and had a chat.

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Micky Fawcett at Elstree and Borehamwood station

MICKY: There was a lot of money spent on it.

JOHN: All the main Jack Spot stuff is before your time.

MICKY: Yeah. All the pre-War stuff.

JOHN: What did you think of it?

MICKY: It’s like a violent fairy tale. Not my cup of tea. There was so much of it.

JOHN: The violence.

MICKY: Yeah. Too much. It cheapened it, in my opinion. It devalued it.

JOHN: Why?

Jack Spot and wife Rita go to court in 1956, after they were both attacked by five men

MICKY: All that violence was too much for me. I mean, the violence didn’t work, did it? It’s no good unless you’ve got thoughts and reasons; plotting and scheming. But they did the fight scenes pretty good.

JOHN: You seemed amused with one bit where someone was just hitting and hitting and hitting someone else.

MICKY: You’d have only had to do it once.

JOHN: You thought all the hitting people over and over was too violent?

MICKY: Yeah. And throwing darts in people’s faces… I thought it was over the top. But they put it in to appeal to the audience, which is fair enough. Most of the violence was over the top, though the fight with the Twins at the end was very realistic and the Twins were very realistic in the way they were talking. The Krays was a good bit of casting.

JOHN: The actors are real-life twins.

Terry Stone as Jack Spot in Once Upon a Time in London

MICKY: And Jack Spot was a good bit of casting. Terry Stone acts the role of Jack Spot very well. He’s very believable. Though Spot, what I saw of him, he wasn’t quite as outwardly aggressive. A bit shrewder. I only really knew him for about five minutes when I was 17. And I met Spot again when he was old. He came in the gym one day. He was all bent-over. Hillsy was quieter. He was very smart.

JOHN: Smartly-dressed?

MICKY: Yeah. His attitude. He would have shirts made. Very, very smart. He paid his bills and played the game. Jack Spot knocked everybody.

JOHN: Knocked?

MICKY: He didn’t pay any bills. Wouldn’t… you know what I mean? He was a totally different type of person to Billy Hill. That sounds like just an on-the-surface thing, but it shows you their natures. Billy Hill was very keen on his clothing. All that beating up and getting back up. He wasn’t into that. He was a bit of an actor too.

JOHN: Acting the part of being a gangster?

MICKY: Yeah.

JOHN: There must have been lots of actual violence, though.

MICKY: Well, in his book, Billy Hill says whenever you cut somebody (with a razor), always do it this way. (HE DEMONSTRATES)

JOHN: Vertically down the cheek?

MICKY: Yes. Because, if you do it this way (diagonally) and you happen to cut them here (round the bottom of the chin) you’ll probably kill them and only a mug kills people. That’s what he said: “Only a mug kills people for no reason”.

Not necessarily totally 100% true…

JOHN: Billy Hill’s book was called Boss of Britain’s Underworld.

MICKY: Yeah. That book. Hillsy said to me: “It’s the biggest load of bollocks ever written: don’t believe a fucking word in it.”

JOHN: When you have to choose between history and legend, print the legend.

MICKY: I knew Albert Dimes as well. He was very hot-tempered was Albert: typical Italian. In the fight in Frith Street in Soho, in the film, they didn’t show Spot getting hit on the head with the scales or some big metal scoop. There was a woman in the shop called Sophie Hyams. She hit him on the head.

JOHN: She’s mentioned but you don’t see her hitting him. Bad for his image in the film, I guess. I didn’t really fully follow the stuff on the racecourses.

MICKY: That’s where it kicked off. The racecourses. The sponges. They can’t just demand money off you. At the racecourses, the bookmakers had to write the odds up on the board and they had a man who went along and wiped it all off. The bookmakers had to pay and there was a squabble with Albert Dimes at a racecourse.

The Kray Twins: were not always up for a fight

The Twins backed out of that. They didn’t want to know. And they were afraid of Billy right until the end. Right till the very end. The Twins didn’t want to know when it kicked off in 1955. They were 22 at the time. All the big men were fighting. The Names.

I was told there was a phone call made to them and they said: “It’s nothing to do with us.”

I was with Reggie one day in their Double R club and Big Pat said: “Jack Spot and Johnny Carter have come in the club!” It was like God had come in. They looked up to him and Billy Hill.

JOHN: What did Billy Hill think of them?

MICKY: He told me he suggested they write the letter to the Home Secretary about Frank Mitchell. He told me: “You don’t think those two brainless cunts had the sense to do it, do you?” He didn’t have no time for them at all.

JOHN: You went out to Spain with Billy Hill. (MENTIONED IN A 2017 BLOG)

Teddy Machin (Photograph from Krayzy Days)

MICKY: Yeah. He told Teddy Machin to invite me out. He was 58 at the time and he seemed like an old man to me. One day we were lounging round the pool – me, Machin, Hillsy – and I said: “I was coming out here with a mate of mine anyway. He’s opening a shooting club up near Madrid.”

And Hillsy said: “Mick, you may have said something that’ll set you up for life.”

I said: “What?”

It was when General Franco was in power. 

Hillsy said: “In Spain, the only licensed gambling allowed is in a shooting club. There’s nowhere else you can gamble. I’m with a mob, the Unione Corse; we fucking run the West End (of London)”

JOHN: What’s the best film you’ve seen about this era?

MICKY: None. There are some good French gangster films I like. The Godfather is a good film but things like the wedding and that are not to my taste.

JOHN: It’s a very Catholic film. Lots of ceremonial-type stuff. Did you see The Long Good Friday?

MICKY: Yeah, but I can’t remember it.

JOHN: The Wee Man?

Martin Compston as Glasgow’s Paul Ferris in The Wee Man

MICKY: Yeah. I thought it was good.

JOHN: Good. But not necessarily spot-on with the facts: very much Paul Ferris writing his own version of events and creating his own legend.

MICKY: I thought it was… realistic. I think the best gangster film I’ve ever seen was Casino.

JOHN: Oh, yes. Lots of true stories. The bit about the eyes popping out was true, wasn’t it… Why did you like it?

MICKY: Well, it was all sort-of reasoned. And the woman playing-up. The wife. They weren’t like gangsters; they were like cafe owners. The best bit was when they were talking and someone said: “He won’t talk. He’s a good kid. A stand-up guy. He’s solid.” And one of the others says: “Look… why take chances?”

JOHN: So they get him killed.

MICKY: Yeah. Why take chances?

Johnny Depp (left) as Donnie Brasco, with Al Pacino

JOHN: Did you ever see Donnie Brasco?

MICKY: Oh yeah! Maybe that’s a better one. Maybe that’s the best one. Very, very good. Al Pacino was the best in it. A feller I knew – he’s dead now – he was exactly like that.

JOHN: Someone should film your book Krayzy Days.

MICKY: Yeah, but it’s all different things, ain’t it? It’s not one story. 

JOHN: The unwary would assume it’s all about the Kray Twins, but it isn’t. There’s the Unione Corse and…

Krayzy Days – remembered as they were

MICKY: Well, nothing much happened with the Unione Corse. Billy Hill wanted me to… I was going to do the Unione Corse thing here, but I got in trouble – I wish I hadn’t – and Hillsy kept away from me, because he knew the feller I was arguing with – Teddy Machin – and he knew something would go down not-too-good and Machin got shot. 

There’s all that stuff in the book and the Tibbses are at the end of it. Someone put a bomb in his car; dunno who. The best story, though is the Banksy one which doesn’t involve any violence. I sold one of his old pictures the other week – a print that he’d done – numbered.

JOHN: All legal and legit and above-board?

MICKY: Yes. Of course.