Who Is Andrew Beattie?

Earth Calling, Earth Calling………Come in Space, come in space…………….

Hello, Nanu Nanu, and warm earthly greetings,

Thank you for patiently watching, and waiting.

Homo sapiens: the specific name of modern man; the only extant species of the genus Homo. This species also includes extinct types of primitive man such as Cro-Magnon man

[New Latin, from Latin homo man + sapiens wise]

There are two distinct categories of Homo sapiens, the species to which I belong, worth noting in your earth logs from this point forward. There are those that at every opportunity look up to the sky, more often than not the night sky, past the clouds, past the large metal objects that transport other homo sapiens from one region of the planet to the other, through the atmosphere that surrounds and indeed makes possible life on our planet, gazing at a sky full of stars, and looking, watching, always imagining life other than our own in the farthest reaches of infinity, and there are those that don’t. My name is Andrew Beattie and I look up.

I’m not sure why I’ve decided to write to you, or even what I’m going to say for the most part, but here I am, a self elected representative for those that look up, gazing and longing, and for the most part, looking for you. You see I know that you’re intelligent and I know that you are watching, probably from the dark side of the moon, and as I’m certain that you’ve been watching for a while. I’m also pretty certain that you are aware of the modern phenomenon we call the internet. As such you’ll know all about us, or will you?

You see, us Homo sapiens are indescribably complicated as a species. We have throughout history developed society, class, invented religions, continually killed ourselves in wars often to do with the religions we invented, polluted our planet and created beautiful art to name but a few of our ‘achievements’ and yet as a species we are never satisfied, we continue to move on and invent, create and destroy and we are the only species, on this planet at least, that continues to ask; why?

It’s not just why though; How? When? Who? What? are all amongst the questions that you will have observed Homo sapiens asking over and over and in some cases seemingly asking you directly on the dark side of the moon. You did right not to answer in 99.99% of cases. I’ll explain why another time.  

Another time as I plan to write you a series of letters, say 10, to start and then we’ll see how we are getting on. I don’t require a response from you as yet but the time will come when I know you’ll respond anyhow, even if it is just to say you’ve had enough, are packing up all the cheese and crackers, taking the Penguins back and leaving the Milky Way for good. I hope you’ll stay long enough for me to tell you about Politics, it’s a hoot, but you really mustn’t leave without me at least having told you about, Religion. You simply won’t believe it, or will you?

In case you do ever decide to write back I have a number of questions that I’d like to ask. I’ll ask them now, at this starting point of such, to give you ample time to consider the answers, or find them if you don’t know them already. In return for answering these questions I’ll let you take me with you when you go as an example of Homo sapiens in your collection. I’ll also tell you about war and sport at some point and you won’t want to miss that one. So, some questions:

Is there an answer to the ultimate question? Is there an ultimate question? Is it all worth knowing anyway even if there is an answer to the ultimate question or even an ultimate question to begin with? Can we possibly save our planet for complete destruction by our own hands? Will we destroy it before time and supernova? And finally, why did the chicken cross the road?

So, there are my questions for you. In return I shall regale you with tales of earthly wonderment and possibly even help to answer some of the questions that you have about our little planet Earth. That is assuming that you have questions at all, which I’m quietly confident you do.

I’ll leave it there for this week, hopefully leaving you hanging onto the very edge of your space table, how I long to see what your space table looks like, and when I return I’ll do so with a story about Homo sapiens and our relationship with our planet. Until then,

Keep watching.

Yours and still gazing upwards,

Andrew Beattie

Footnote for Earth:

Well it’s a start isn’t it? Yes, that was clearly a start of sorts. Did I miss anything out star gazers? Is there anything you’d particularly like me to ask our Intergalactic Travelling Space Alien Friends? You know there is, so tell me already….

Dearest wonderful you,

Have some good tidings and I absolutely insist that you take them all.

So here I is on a bright and breezy Wednesday afternoon, back at my laptop, and void of any ideas whatsoever on how I should start today’s little update so I’ll just take off all my clothes and jump straight into the naked jelly wrestling.

I’ve found myself in a bit of a quandary recently which isn’t that huge a surprise as I spend most of my waking life in one quandary or another but this one is most odd and snuck up on me in the dead of night like a giant praying mantis. It suddenly dawned on me last week that I need to buy some new clothes. A lot of new clothes.

I’m aware that for any normal person this wouldn’t be a huge issue or even an issue at all but then I am not that normal a person, I came to terms with this a long time ago and I suggest that you do to, it’s much easier this way. Before I go on with the very moment that this moment of fashion conscience struck me I’ll tell you exactly how I feel about clothes.

Nothing, nothing at all.

For me, clothes are not a good investment and in fact I’m almost certain that they are a terrible, terrible investment. Clothes wear out, it’s absolutely unavoidable and so given a choice between some new books which I can potentially read forever or that must have pair of skinny jeans and tie-dye T-Shirt I will absolutely pick the books – Sorry Paul Smith, but you’re no Jules Verne.

I do however have lots of ‘casual’ clothes, jeans, t-shirts, trainers, jumpers et cetera but then that’s purely because they are comfortable and when you have the kind of lifestyle that I have, which is to say not much of a lifestyle at all, comfort is king. As such I pick clothes that look comfortable, and for that reason alone. If I do cobble together something that matches, or heaven forbid looks in any way ‘stylish’, it is purely by some hugely freak event that happened as I was stood in towel deciding which mode of comfort suited best my impending day.  

So why then should I be at all bothered by clothes and why the need to rush out and buy some new ones? Well it happened exactly like this:

I was asked by a friend recently if I wouldn’t mind attending an event that he was going somewhere or other one evening after work. I immediately said yes before my brain registered what I had in fact committed to do and so there I was suddenly going to an event with a friend somewhere or other one evening after work. No huge problem so far. The day before this particular event I thought that I should ask out of politeness what the dress code for the evening was to be so that I could pick out the most appropriate ‘style’ of extreme comfort clothing to pass me through the evening with the right amount of ‘god damn it I’m comfortable’ and general good feeling, to which my friend replied, “The dress code is ‘Smart Casual’ Andy”.

What the fuck is Smart Casual? I thought. Is it even possible to be both smart and casual at the same time? Mused I. Have I entirely missed a whole genre of fashion that has somehow managed to combine Jeans, T-Shirts and Trainers with the suit? Considered Andrew? These were just a small selection of the questions that I posed myself afterwards before I realised that I was entirely the wrong person to be asking in the first place for reasons that I’ve already discussed.

I then decided to stop worrying immediately about this and decided that I would be absolutely fine at this event if I just wore what I wear to work, everyone is a little smart for work, and then followed at least  5 minutes of blissful peace; wonderful, blissful, peace. I needed only to look down to wreck this most tranquil moment and that is because I was in fact sat in work wearing what I wear every day for work which not at all smart, not in the slightest and is in fact, 2 year old chinos, hugely comfortable, an old school type jumper with one of two un-ironed shirts underneath, relatively comfortable, and a pair slip on trainers, once very comfortable now falling apart. Cue mass hysteria.

And so there it was, my moment of fashion reckoning, and I was suddenly in need of some new clothes, a great deal of new clothes at that, a great deal of new smart casual clothes. I’m really banking on this smart casual clothing being clearly identifiable in the first men’s clothes shop I happen to pass when I can finally muster the energy to go and buy them. If all else fails I’ll go for comfort, leave my job and never go to another ‘Smart Casual’ event ever again.

I will add that the evening passed without incident or massive embarrassment due to my lack of suitable clothing and despite the fact that upon entering the event with my friend, who was wearing a suit, I noticed that the invitation advised that the appropriate dress was ‘Lounge suits’. I don’t even know where to begin with that one.

Right, I’ll be off now to carefully consider the future wardrobe of my life and Google ‘Smart Casual’ before bed. The next time I write I may well be the Smartest Casual person you’ve never laid your eyes on but I very much doubt it. Until then,

Stay casual, 

With love,

Andrew Beattie

Are we alone in this universe? You know, us, earthlings, we, are we alone? In what is effectively an infinite universe containing millions upon millions of solar systems that science, and therefore we, still have not got the foggiest about, is it just us alone on this little rock we call home?

You know what? I hope not, and I’ve a sneaking suspicion I may not be the only earthling that feels this way.

I’d really like to believe that there is life out there in the infinite universe. I’d also like to believe that this life has the ability to fly large space ships across, well space, and visit whenever they finally feel the urge to say hello, in whatever form another being that we are not aware of says hello. I’d also like to believe that, like many popular sci-fi books, films, shows and myths, that these aliens have big green heads, fly red rocket ships and shoot ray guns that can instantly disintegrate an earthling at 50 paces, but then that’s just me. Some people I know would prefer Klingons, maybe the odd Dalek thrown in for good measure and Christ even I’d like a Time Lord but when it comes to the infinite possibilities of life other than our own in the universe it is quite literally each to their own, we’d probably all be wrong.

No matter what form this life could potentially take the undoubted sheer awesomeness of the questions still burns brightly and so it’s no surprise that throughout history us earthlings have made repeated attempts to contact the life that we are not sure is out there using various methods, some crazy, in fact all of them crazy.

I have also been touched by this intergalactic communication bug and whilst reading Jules Verne’s’ From the Earth to the Moon recently I had a light bulb moment of sorts, a real moment of true earthling inspiration; I’m going to write a series of letters to my little green giant head aliens with the big red rocket ships and ray guns that can instantly disintegrate an earthling at 50 paces.

But how would I get these letters to them? I mean I certainly couldn’t afford the postage to the edge of the universe. I decided then, and pretty quickly, to make an assumption about my little green aliens with the big red rocket ships and so on and so forth and that is they have been quietly casing the joint, watching and studying us earthlings for many years waiting for someone, just one bloody person, from Liverpool, to take one giant leap for mankind and write them a letter, in English. Its actually several assumptions but all along the same lines.  

I also assumed that if these little green aliens with all the stuff I want them to have, have been watching quietly, most probably from the dark side of the moon, that they have cottoned on to this internet thing of ours and that due to the fact that almost everything is now accessible through the internet that they have enough knowledge of everything earthly to understand perfect English, and not so perfect English, and instead of patronising these potential intergalactic visitors by explaining everything about everything about everything, I won’t because I won’t have to. It’s a great plan but then they probably planned it that way already, these are some smart aliens you know.

Having kindly made the decision to represent the planet in this matter I now have to decide what to write, weekly, in these little messages into the infinity, or the dark side of the moon. As such I’ll be writing my first one next week at some point and then weekly from there until a) You or I get bored with it, b) The aliens arrive in time for afternoon tea, converse with my cat in perfect feline, and zap me into oblivion with a little ray gun at 50 paces or c) I am taken by the American government to Area 51 in Air Force 1 with a bag over my head and then shown some serious top level shit by Professor Brian Cox, before being killed, by an early example Alien ray gun found in Sweden and shot by a laughing Sir Patrick Moore. I’d also really like to know what you’d like to say, or like me to say, and so please feel free to send your comments and suggestions to me or even a whole letter that I can send off on your behalf.

Right, so it’s decided then, this time-ish next week I’ll be sending my first letter into space, kind of, via this very website, which for reasons I’ve already explained makes perfect sense. I leave you then this time round a mere man, mortal and earthling but know this fellow earthlings, mice and dolphins, when I return I shall still be a mere man, mortal and earthling, but I’ll also be an official Earth representative to life other than ours in the universe. Cool hey?

14^th April 2010

Andrew ‘Barbicane’ Beattie

Hello You,

I hope you are flying pretty fucking high.

So, I promised I’d be back and I suppose I owe you a bit of an update now, like a 3 week update, whoops. I’ll not make an excuse although I did prepare several on a small list that included one cracker, even by my very high excuse making standards, just in case you demanded one. I’ll not make it though, I am just rubbish and the weeks have flown by on me, but I will say that this particular excuse included Japan, Lady GaGa, a fast car, a dragon and the biggest firework in the world. It was also a lie.

But I am back and so here is a list, with notes, of the major events that have happened over the past 3 weeks. I must warn you. I must always warn you.

1. Liverpool Twestival

What do you get when you put a load of social media type people, twitter users, a group of Doctor Who fans, Liverpool Echo and Daily Post workers, one aspiring politician, a very loud band and me in a very expensive bar in Liverpool’s Albert Dock? Well I’ve already given you the answer; it’s in the fucking title, Christ, if you got that wrong? It was a great evening spent in the company of like minded people of all ages and whilst I usually hate any gatherings of people of any sort they stocked a great bar and after an hour or so I was pissed enough to hold conversations with people that I didn’t know with relative ease. That’s the beauty of alcohol. If the truth be known I’d not have needed it anyway as the attendees where a great bunch. I just wish someone would have told me that before I spent 12.32 weeks wages on a round of rums.

2. My Birthday, the big 26

I’m 26 and that is all I really have to say about that. In reality I have my little plan to stick to with my writing et cetera and the last few months of my 25^th year were all bloody marvellous. If I stick to it, and write a screenplay, in my 26^th as well as the other stuff that’ll happen along the way, I’ll be as happy as a pig in shit.

3.  The Cheltenham-London Weekend Express trip and festival of aceness

Ah ha! Travelling! It was on the list of stuff I needed to do and I’ve done it so fuck you world, take that. It all started on a Friday morning on the 8:30am train to Cheltenham and finished at 11:30pm the following Monday, 4 days, 2 towns, and one fat guy, me, with a bag, a pen and a pad, and a sense of adventure, the likes of which the world may never see again. The pen and pad remained largely unused and the book unread and as a result, this is all mainly from memory. Good job it was only a week ago hey.

Cheltenham is most lovely and I arrived to be greeted by my cousin, Julia, just as the heavens opened. Despite the rain and heavy grey skies Cheltenham looked beautiful, a little too beautiful for me I seem to remember thinking, as we drove through on a mini tour of the town before heading to my cousin’s lovely new house. Another thing worth mentioning is the French architecture, it’s all over the fucking place on account of some bloke called Montpellier who built a load of buildings there shortly after they realised they had a shit load of fresh water. The next thing to note is that I got really pissed on my first evening there and effectively cut a 3 day stay down by half. I’d have much more to tell but I don’t. An evening of Rum drinking took this away from me. It was days before I forgave it. So to sum up, Cheltenham is beautiful, very leafy and if I hadn’t have been so fucking catastrophically drunk, as in going for a walk at 5:30 in the morning drunk, I’d have much more to tell you, like a day out in the Cotswolds, which I missed.

London has always had kind of a pull on me in that I’ve only been there a handful of times but every time I go it seems strangely familiar, homely and wonderful, like a good pair of boxer shorts or Fern Britton’s face. 24 hours is also not enough time to see London, even if like me, you decide to get the best view in town from the London Eye.

For those who are massively ignorant, the London Eye is a big fuck-off wheel, right next to the Thames in London. I’d say that it was a Ferris wheel but that really wouldn’t be doing this thing justice, it is fucking colossal. I am terrified of heights, suffering permanently from extreme vertigo, and so to say that my arse was twitching slightly on the slow walk up to the mega spinning death wheel right next to a huge body of water, is a bit of an understatement. That being said, once I was up there, and glued to the seat in the middle of the shared stranger pod the views across London just blew me away. Whilst in London I also did an immense amount of walking and visited the Southbank book market, visit old Liz in her palace, chilled in Trafalgar square with my Cousin, walked by the corridors of power and refused to pay £25 to go around on a bus, I hate the bus, and just about got the hang of the tube system and all in time to be on the last train home to Liverpool wishing.

Wishing that I’d have taken a camera to snap some pictures for you. Wishing that I’d have made some notes about the sights and smells of Cheltenham and London, the little things that I noticed along the way, the conversations that I overheard on the tube, the people, and the moments my family made me laugh. Wishing that I could do it for a living but mostly wishing that you could have been there man, it was bloody super.

But now I’m back in business, the post holiday blues have subsided, and I am finally refreshed and ready to resume life, my life to be precise, and crack on with that bloody list of mine, a screenplay and all the other shit I have to do in between. Thanks for coming back once again and until next time peeps,

Be happy,

With peace and love,

Andrew Beattie

p.s. You will have noticed that I mentioned that I am drinking again. That is all I have to say about that for now.

“Hello Again” Andrew said sheepishly, attempting to avert his eyes from the many staring faces,

I hope you are all super cool and ace.

So, I’m back and in an attempt to hide my complete guilt for taking almost 3 weeks to write to you I will move straight on to today’s feature presentation: The films that sex my senses. It’s a spurious title to say the least but I’m going to stick with it as it’s a) relevant to what I’m about to write about and b) much better than my only other title option: Films that I do like. So go and grab some popcorn, hold on to your hotdogs, slurp from that vat of pop, salsa up them there nachos and please, for the love of god, turn your fucking mobiles off, Jesus.

I love films, there, said it. I love good films, I love poor films, God damn it I just love all them bloody films from vomit inducing rom coms to gritty tear jerking war epics, Harry Potter to man eating sharks, Swaggering aliens to big scary Cowboys, Tarantino to Holly Golightly, I love them them all, but not equally. If I loved them all equally I’d not be able to do what I’m about to do which is pick a list of my favourite films and then I’d really be in the shit wouldn’t I?

Well I still may be in the shit guys; I’ll leave you in suspense. I will reveal one massive spoiler (Spoiler Alert) and that is, at present, I still haven’t picked my list, whoops. I do have a list, but it has around 30 films on it, and I’m picking five, my five favourite. I’m like the directors of Lost, and just like the viewers, I have no fucking clue what comes next. I’ll just get on with it then shall I? Roll film:

The following feature presentation has been rated ‘B’ for ‘Bollocks’ and may contain words, phrases, sentences and paragraphs that most readers will find grammatically offensive.

1. Rio Bravo – 1959 – John Wayne, Dean Martin and Ricky Nelson

I’m certainly not the biggest fan of Westerns as a genre. I mean I like them and when they are on, I’ll watch them, and gladly, but only after searching through the channels for alternative flicks. Rio Bravo is the exception to this rule, and a big exception at that; there is not another film that I’d turn it off for, not one. It may be the swaggering sheriff played by John Wayne or the drunk deputy played by Dean Martin. It’s not however; it’s all of it, every character and every scene. As for that little song routine Ricky and Dean, a guitar and a harmonica, that Sweet County sound, yes siree. Don’t just take my word for it however, watch this:

Just beautiful.

2. Jaws – 1975 – Roy Scheider, Robert Shaw, Richard Dreyfuss

I love sharks. Sharks scare me to within 4.5mm of my life. I also like the 1970’s American small town beach type scene. I love the film poster for Jaws; it sits proudly on my wall. I Love Chief Martin Brody, his booze and his shitty old pickup truck. I Love Matt Hooper, he knows sharks. I Love Sam Quint, he hunts sharks. I could have told them all that they would need a bigger boat but they’d have not listened and anyway if they had I’d have never heard my most favourite of all film lines: “Smile you son of a…”

Show me the way to go home indeed.

3. Forrest Gump – 1994 – Tom Hanks, Robin Wright Penn, Gary Sinise

The fact that this film covers so many different periods of history, famous companies, famous people, includes a war, Elvis, Cool Nike Trainers, a love story, American football and Tom Hanks, makes it quite astonishing. I mean it is isn’t it? It just keeps romping from one major event and key period in history to the next and all with a central character that is just about as loveable as a character can get. Life is like a box of chocolates and if this film was a chocolate it’d be the one’s I eat first and quickly before my mother eat them and ruins the whole fucking box for me every time by leaving me the Strawberry Creams and Turkish Delight which represent ‘Are we there yet’ and ‘Driving Miss Daisy’ et al.

See also the Forrest Gump Soundtrack as it’s equally astonishing.

4. Back to the Future – 1985 – Michael J. Fox, Christopher Lloyd, Lea Thompson

As a concept there is no better than a teenager befriending a mad scientist who owns a time travelling Delorian and a dog named Einstein. The unlikely pair then travel back to the past, the teenager gets stuck, shit, and we all know what happens from here. You do know what happens from here right? Christ, this film is fucking awesome and the box set is quite simply a must have in any DVD collection and if you haven’t got a collection already then start it with this.

Time Travelling is awesome; time travelling to the ‘Power of Love’ by Huey Lewis and the News is fucking spectacular.

5. Notting Hill – 1999 – Julia Roberts, Hugh Grant, Richard McCabe

I have a soft spot for the characters that Hugh Grant plays; that lovable twat, a bumbling British idiot, with floppy hair who always gets the good looking leading lady, and Renee Zellweger. But Julia Fucking Roberts? Christ. For me this film is wonderful and more so for having the idiot Welsh housemate of Grant, Spike, played by Rhys Ifans who delivers one of my favourite film lines in a way that never fails to make my ‘balls shrink to the size of raisins’ (another great spike quote): “I knew a girl at school called Pandora. Never got to see her box, though.” 

Notting Hill: Great British comedy, instantly watchable and endlessly endearing.

Those that never made it but came damn close: Dr. No, Life of Brian, The Godfather, Indiana Jones, Love Happy, Duck Soup, Space Jam, Toy Story, Once Upon a Time in America, Nightmare before Christmas, Full Metal Jacket and The Hudsucker Proxy.

THE END

So there it is film fans. I’m actually quite happy with how my list turned out there considering I chose as I wrote but it seems to make sense to me now, they are my go to films of choice when nothing else will do. A strong conclusion there then without a cliffhanger in sight, sequels are almost always a disappointment anyhow.

On that Zombie bloodbath guys I’ll be off now so you can take off the 3D specs and file out over half chewed popcorn into the cold light of day. I’ll be back before the weekends out to tell you a tale of Birthdays, Twitter gatherings, London, Cheltenham and 3 back to booze weeks in my life. Until then,

This is Andrew Beattie’s life: Take 26.

Cheerio,

Andrew Beattie