Lager Time

Hello, good afternoon.

Paul Cree here, Lager Time, blog, podcast. Second upload here on Substack. Thankyou to everyone that had a look, or listen or read of the first thing, it’s a bit of an experiment, but I’m kind of enjoying it.

So this peice here, that I’m about to do, is something that I started writing probably early last year, maybe, Sepetember, I can’t quite remember, it was during lockdown, that’s all just one big blur to me now… but anyway, it’s called Slow and Steady

Slow and Steady

My wife is helping me to slow down when I eat food and by proxy, control my impulses, which is exactly what I used to tell the year fours, every day, when I worked in Primary. They were nine, I’m thirty seven.

She tells me to chew twenty-times before I swallow this bite of a burger I’ve got in my mouth. I know also, that I should say a full sentence in my head, before I take the next bite. This burger is absolutely banging and at present, the concept of delayed gratification is a utopian pipe-dream. I want to murder this burger and leave no trace. When it comes to food, I’m Wolverine in full berserker-mode and this unhealthy habit of mine ‘aint going quietly, I’ve had a lifetime of practise, I’m hard wired for destruction.

Mealtimes as a nipper were difficult, I often couldn’t wait to finish. I hated the sound of people eating, knives and forks scarping on plates, food being chewed, grace and small talk. Mum and dad insisted we sat at a table most nights and eat the food mum made, hearty and simple. When mates came round for tea, they’d think I was posh, regardless of what was, or wasn’t, on the plate in front of them. Some of them had Sky TV and the Simpsons and they’d eat and watch at leisure.

I often acted-up at mealtimes, testing my dads stern authority, or I’d withdraw inside and say nothing. Most times I wanted to eat as quick as a I could, so I could resume playing football down the side of the house, on my own, enacting out games I’d conjured up in my head, continuing the long running football-saga I’d been developing over weeks and months.

Most days I’d polish my plate, double-lively, wash-up, then burn upstairs to continue playing whatever computer game I was into at the time. As I got older, football and games were replaced by music and lyrics. It weren’t long before I had a full-time job, time was of the essence and food got in the way of creating. I learnt to make basic meals, which required minimal amounts of cleaning-up and I stuck to that, though it was never quite that efficient.

Put a plate of food in front of me and I’d transform to that pack of wolves in a feeding frenzy and demolish the lot within minutes, often taking way more than I need and bloating myself out for the rest of the evening.

I like eating. Put a plate of food in front of me and a switch gets flipped. There’s this thrill in seeing it, smelling it, getting it all in my mouth. It’s like a fruit machine with every light flashing in double time, treble-cherries lasered onto my eyelids and every mouthful is a potential pay out. It’s why I try to avoid buying those bigger bags of sweeties or crisps that are meant for sharing. As soon as that seal it’s broken, I’m one-man-de-facto state primed for self-perseveration.

When I first met my wife, she was surprised that I rarely had food in the fridge or the cupboard and I’d be annoyed at the inquisition. Where’s the staples? Rice, bread, eggs. I bought food as and when I needed it, if I knew it was there food I’d be eating it. I had things to do that were more important to me than eating decent dinners. That slim window of post-work time was not to be wasted attempting recipes from glossy telly chefs.

When we eventually got married, it hit me like a custard-pie in the face, how important to me my family was and by extension, my new family too. All those dinner times as kids, were daily practise matches preparing me for the bigger moments. I shunned them and it shows.  Which is why, I’m sat here now, at the kitchen table, summers evening, my wife, her parents and sister, and she’s having to help me learn how to eat.

Progress is slow, bumpy but mostly steady, it’s speed what did me before. Regardless of how fast I consume, this burger is still banging.  I’m slowly starting to reap the benefits, at the very least, I’m cutting down the belly aches and the gas leaks, that’s a start.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit cree.substack.com

Hello.

Perhaps it would be good if I introduced this new venture into Substack.

I’m Paul, I’ve been writing and performing for a fair-few years now, mainly in London, occasionally outside of it. I enjoy what I do.

Before I did any of this, I was a rapper who wrote lyrics (and still does). Long story short, I never intended to do any of this, this being poems, stories, theatre, blogs etc (not consciously anyway) I fell in to live-poetry and also fringe-theatre, both of them due to chance-meetings with people. I never formally studied anything and everything I’ve learned; I’ve picked up along the way. Consequently, I’ve developed an ad-hoc way of writing and performing and just generally living life.

My path into this probably isn’t all that unique, I’ve met plenty of people who’ve found themselves doing this, without having ever set out to do it.

If I’m being honest, I’ve probably used the whole ‘not being educated’ thing as a bit of crutch and also as something to almost brag about. The crutch bit being, when I have to write funding-forms and haven’t yet mastered that funding-type-language that evades so many of us and can be a pain in the arse trying to write. The brag bit being, probably a cover-up for my own insecurities about not knowing enough about the artforms I operate in and the way I go about doing what I do. Am I doing it ‘right’? is someone gonna dig me out for it? Prime example, I’m worried that I should’ve put a semi-colon in that last sentence somewhere.

So why am I doing this?

Presently, I’m just talking / writing to myself, because no-one is subscribed, obviously but I think I’m still figuring out why I’m doing this. As self-absorbed as that sounds and probably is, it’s kinda fun trying to work-it-out. As it stands, my thinking, as muddled as ever and awash with various negative traits, is something along the lines of : This blog can be

1: A place to put up some of my poems / stories and thoughts etc

2: This is perhaps a way I can connect with more people?

3: It can also help improve my writing

4: It can help me grow some confidence in voicing my opinions

Perhaps.

1: I’ve rarely ever submitted any poems or stories to the seemingly endless list of magazines and blogs that publish that sort of thing. Just thinking about it, gives me a classic-case of brain-overload and then shut-down. I wouldn’t know where to start. I also don’t tend to engage with that world either, so why should anyone bother publishing my stuff? Though I did, to be fair,  recently attend the launch for a Zine called It Was All A Zine but only because my mate Gary Hartley aka Gary From Leeds, was doing a rare performance. I bought the zine, I read the Zine, I quite liked it.

2:. I have a website, occasionally I do little things like this but I wonder to what avail? Substack got me excited, well, curious at least because it seems to be a centralised platform for writers, so maybe you can reach more people? Tags and keywords. Maybe I’m just a capitalist, desperate to sell his wares to as many people as possible, if seems like a market-place of sorts. A market place of thoughts? You can have that, mate. Who knows, maybe I’m just pissing in the wind, I’m late to the party as ever, but I’ll post anyway and see where it goes.

3. I recently did a short course, a Level 2 in Counselling Skills. I don’t have any qualifications above Level 2, Level 2, here in the UK, is the equivalent of wearing armbands when you’re learning to swim. Regardless, I enjoyed it but I found it challenging. I had to do a lot of writing which I found quite difficult. I realised I have a lot short-comings, which when writing my poems and stories, I can get away with, as I’ve made those short-comings part of what I do but formally, it’s no good, mate. So I dug-out a Key Stage 2 (primary level) spelling and grammar book that my mum gave me, years ago and have to decided to try and learn all the stuff I didn’t learn at school

4. I’m conflicted on this one. Social-media can be a toxic place for opinions. From politics to football it can be pretty nasty, so I tend to swerve getting involved in debates online, the road of least resistance, most likely. I also, as a policy, don’t really post anything that isn’t related to what I do but I’m often tempted... I read a fair amount, about politics and football and all sorts stuff really, I often don’t agree with the way the wind prevails but I’m scared if I voice an opinion, the wrong opinion, I’ll get shot down, quick, I’ve seen it happen. I also worry I won’t be able to defend my position, as I lack the knowledge skills do so, I’ll panic and flap and then give in. I’ve been made to look an idiot many times, when talking with people in person, it petrifies me. So perhaps this blog can be a way of me putting out some of those opinions, most of which are just floating around my head, causing a nuisance and are probably unformed and not thought though, writing them down, may help with this and it’s (so far) not quite as scary as Twitter.

So that’s it, mate. Substack, Me. Probably should’ve mentioned I’ve got a life-long of habit of being half-arsed about things, this could easily slip into that well-polished routine of mine. However, I think with a bit of planning, maybe I can be a bit more disciplined with it.

If you have read this (or listened) and you’ve got this far, thanks. Now, let’s see where this goes.

Paul Cree, October 2021

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit cree.substack.com