Lager Time

Look then at what is happening now. Only the intelligent creatures have forgotten the urge to be unified with each other: only here will you have no confluence BOOK 9 - 9.3 Based on what I witnessed and experienced, growing up around Horley and Crawley, there was a lot of low-level isms - racism, sexism, classism, homophobia - ism and probably more isms - maybe even Marxism, but I didn’t know what that was until after I’d left the place, and too many people had done alright off of Maggie Thatcher and bought their council houses for that ever to take hold. There was one guy I remember, who was the father of a kid I went to cubs with and a nice man. He had a long beard and wore sandals with his socks; maybe he was a communist lone-wolf, quietly and unsuccessfully trying to lead local workers away from Benidorm, towards a glorious workers revolution. Alas, I digress. Most of the racism, seemed to me, to take two forms: the first being jokes: which mainly saw Pakistanis, reduced to the P-word and serving as the main ingredient for crass punchlines, sometimes just puns on typical names, sometimes about skin-colour and culture. The P-word would get thrown around a lot, and was often just a lazy, very ignorant, catch-all term for brown and also darker-skinned people in general, not just limited to Asians: this could include people from Greek, Turkish, middle eastern or Portuguese backgrounds, or sometimes it was just aimed solely at Muslims. Perhaps this was relative to the area I grew up in, as Crawley had large Indian and Pakistani communities. It also had a big Irish community, and there were plenty of jokes about them too. Some of these jokes were fairly innocuous, some were plain nasty, and sometimes they weren’t even jokes, it would just be the P-word hurled casually out of a car window, speeding passed some ordinary person just going about their day. The second form would take the lazy parroting of thought-lacking negative tropes, to diagnose broader social-ills, like immigrants our taking our jobs etc. I heard these sorts of ones quite a lot. My guess was, looking back, that a lot of these statements, or accusations, were sometimes made out of fear - fear of losing something, like employment, or identity, but more often than not, like the above jokes, were made innocuously and in ignorance, with very little thought given to the consequences of saying those things. When I was in cadets, I once got caught telling a P-word joke to another kid, and was made to stand-up by the commanding officer, in front of the group and given a severe bollocking. He was a white guy, but he was really angry about it, and fair enough, though I meant nothing by it, I learned my lesson. I remember feeling ashamed, and wished I hadn’t said it. I certainly wasn’t thinking about what the kid sat in ear-shot of me, who was from a Sri-Lanken background, might be thinking or feeling. There was a third and much nastier form too, which from what I saw, was a lot rarer, but I encountered a few people who would probably fit into this category – and that is those who actually believed in the supremacy of white people, but more relevantly, had a severe hatred of those that weren’t them. That also included gay people, Jews and the Irish. There was a pub in Crawley which I forget the name of, which me and my mates would often drive passed, which had a reputation for housing BNP meetings; we never went in to validate those claims, we just knew to stay well away. The couple of people who I came across, who would fit into this category, were as you might imagine, pretty scary. There was occasionally one or two of them in the pubs I’d drink in; and there were always stories that accompanied them - doing jail-time in this prison or that, or running with the Chelsea hooligan firms in the 80’s. One of them had a spiders-Webb tatoo on his forehead. Again, just steered well clear of them. Though Horley was predominately white, Crawley was a lot more ethnically...

Greetings, bonjour, what's happening This week, I look at a quote form Book 8 of Marcus Aurelius's Mediitations, talking about computer games and not ever completing them On Eating That Marshmallow In the constitution of the rational being I can see no virtue that counters justice: but I do see the counter to pleasure – self-control. BOOK 8 – 39 If you’re able to, these are ways you can support my work Romeo & Julliet@ Polka Theatre https://polkatheatre.com/event/romeo-and-juliet/ THE SUBURBAN BOOK My 1st book collection of stories and poems www.paulcree.co.uk/shop Beats & Elements: A Hip Hop Theatre Trilogy 2 plays I co-wrote plus Denmarked by Conrad Murray https://paulcree.co.uk/shop/beats-and-elements-a-hip-hop-theatre-trilogy BUY-ME-A-LAGER https://ko-fi.com/paulcree Get full access to Lager Time at cree.substack.com/subscribe

Greetings, bonjour, what's happening? Welcome to Lager Time. This week's episode is called On Good Help vs Bad help, and is inspired by a quote from book 7 of Meditations by Marcus Aurelius Enjoy BUY-ME-A-LAGER - https://ko-fi.com/paulcree The Suburban Book: - https://paulcree.co.uk/shop/thesuburban Romeo & Julliet @ Polka Theatre https://polkatheatre.com/event/romeo-and-juliet/ Get full access to Lager Time at cree.substack.com/subscribe

Greetings, bonjour, whatt’s happening? This week's episode I get stuck into a quote from book 6 of Medittaions of Marcus Aurelius, it's called On the Good Catholics Enjoy Romeo & Julliet@ Polka Theatre https://polkatheatre.com/event/romeo-and-juliet/ BUY-ME-A-LAGER https://ko-fi.com/paulcree THE SUBURBAN BOOK My 1st book collection of stories and poems www.paulcree.co.uk/shop Beats & Elements: A Hip Hop Theatre Trilogy 2 plays I co-wrote plus Denmarked by Conrad Murray https://paulcree.co.uk/shop/beats-and-elements-a-hip-hop-theatre-trilogy Get full access to Lager Time at cree.substack.com/subscribe

Greetings, bonjour, what’s happening Welcome to Lager Time, legions of lager-lites, grab your tins, your bottles and your pints. My name is Paul Cree and this is my little podcast and blog where I share bits of my writing: stories, poems, thoughts, sometimes music etc. So what’s been happening? A fair bit. Last week I was in rehearsals for a theatre show, Romeo & Julliet at the Polka Theatre in Wimbledon. It’s a modern retelling, set in Merton, and is all done through live music - Rap, beatbox, singing, guitar and a loop-station. The show opens this Saturday and is aimed at young people, between 9-12 but there should be something for all the family in it. There’s over 26 songs in the show that I have to learn, as well as almost a hundred ques that I need to remember. I’m one of the understudies but will be performing between the 10th – 14Th April, much later in the run. Alongside that, it’s my usual work with Dream Arts and Fourth Monkey Drama School. Before I get round to introducing the next piece in this little Meditations series, I wanted to hark back to the intro post for this latest season (and also the reason why I started this latest series) where I took about reading books, to chat a little bit about what I’ve been reading, as I suppose it’s relevant. I tend to have a couple of books on the go at one time, one fiction and one non-fiction or light-ish book. I recently finished ploughing my way through Mister Good Times, which is the autobiography of soul DJ Norman Jay, the man behind the Good Times sound system. It was a decent read as it charts the development of lots of the music that came out of London from the 70’s onwards. The book was given to me as a birthday gift, from a good pal of mine, Richard Purnell, who himself is a writer (and wrote one of my favourite blogs about old books with the old dick and balls scibbled in them) Richard has recently started his own Substack blog, which you can find a link to HERE or in the notes of the podcast. So in that Norman Jay book, when he talks about his younger years, getting into football and the like, he mentions reading these Skinhead books by a writer called Richard Allen. The way he talked about them, was that at the time they were some kind of street phenomenon, lots of working-class teens were reading these books; which took my interest. Last month, whilst having a few beers with my two oldest brothers and a few of their old mates, one of them, Dom, by chance was telling me he was re-reading all those Skinhead books. He consequently sent me a link to a BBC documentary from back in the 90’s, about the books and the writer, Richard Allen, who seemingly no one knew much about, and was pretty far removed from that culture, yet, he wrote a boat-load of these cult classics, which have become collectors items. So I’m currently reading the first, Skinhead, and it’s alright. There’s a lot of violence, racism, and sexism - the main character and his mates are horrible, it pulls no punches in that regard, but if it’s a snapshot of those times, even if it’s somewhat exaggerated, then I think it plays a part. I certainly don’t find myself rooting for this main character, he’s an anti-hero in that respect – but I’m enjoy it. It reminds me of a lot of Irvine Welsh books, many of which I’ve read, or that BBC film Made in Britain that Skinnyman sampled on his first album Council Estate of Mind. I wonder if all those people were influenced by these books. Aside from Skinhead, I’m ploughing my way through a book I first read a couple of years ago, called New Class War by Michael Lind, which came out in 2020 I think, if you want to get a good understanding of the political climate of the last few years in the UK and the US it’s well worth a read. And I’ve also been reading a book by the comedian Rob Becket, off the back of other comedians’ books - Romesh Ranganathan and Geoff Norcott. All of which make me a laugh a lot more when reading what they’ve written, than they do when...

Greetings, bonjour, what’s happening? Welcome to Lager Time, legions of lager-lites, grab your tins, your bottles and your pints. My name is Paul Cree and this is my little podcast and blog where I share bits of my writing, stories, poems, thoughts, sometimes music; I don’t get out that much these days, outside of my work, so this is my little outlet for the creative things I like to do. And so onto this week’s piece itself, continuing with the Meditations theme, this week’s piece is based on a quote from Book 4 where I talk about why I didn’t like Grime. Keep it Larger Than Life Peas and taters Paul LINKS Dream Arts - https://www.dreamarts.org.uk Pictures from Devon show - https://doorsteparts.co.uk/scratch-share-night/ Romeo & Julliet @ Polka Theatre Tickets - https://polkatheatre.com/event/romeo-and-juliet/ BUY-ME-A-LAGER - https://ko-fi.com/paulcree The Suburban Book: - https://paulcree.co.uk/shop/thesuburban 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

Greetings, bonjour, what’s happening? Welcome to Lager Time, legions of lager-lites, grab your tins, your bottles and your pints. My name is Paul Cree and this is my little podcast and blog where I share bits of my writing, stories, poems, thoughts, sometimes music; I don’t get out that much these days, outside of my work, so this is my little outlet for the creative things I like to do. And so onto this week’s piece itself, continuing with the Meditations theme, this week’s piece is based on a quote from Book 4 where I talk about why I didn’t like Grime. Keep it Larger Than Life Peas and taters Paul LINKS Dream Arts - https://www.dreamarts.org.uk Pictures from Devon show - https://doorsteparts.co.uk/scratch-share-night/ Romeo & Julliet @ Polka Theatre Tickets - https://polkatheatre.com/event/romeo-and-juliet/ BUY-ME-A-LAGER - https://ko-fi.com/paulcree The Suburban Book: - https://paulcree.co.uk/shop/thesuburban Get full access to Lager Time at cree.substack.com/subscribe

Greetings, bonjour, what’s happening? Welcome to Lager Time, legions of lager-lites, grab your tins, your bottles and your pints. So this weeks episode is called On Bull-Shit Detection and is written in response to a quote from Book 3 of Marcus Aurelius’ Meditations’ in case you’ve not got the memo about what I’m doing over here. Hope you enjoy it LINKS Romeo & Julliet @ the Polka - https://polkatheatre.com/event/romeo-and-juliet/ Lakeisha Lynch-Stevens - https://www.instagram.com/lakeishals/?hl=en Conrad Murray - https://www.instagram.com/rodium/?hl=en Beats & Elements - https://twitter.com/BeatsElements If you’d like to support my work the best thing you can probably do is introduce it to someone who you think might like it, as weird and niche as this little thing is. Alternatively, you can make a donation on KO-FI, or BUY-MY-BOOK – The Suburban – plays I co-wrote with Beats & Elements – Hip Hop Theatre Anthology or just stream my music or watch the videos or whatever; you know the coo. www.paulcree.co.uk Have a banging weekend Keep it Larger than life Peas and taters Paul Get full access to Lager Time at cree.substack.com/subscribe

Greetings, bonjour, what’s happening? Welcome to Lager Time, legions of lager-lites, grab your tins, your bottles and your pints. . So onto this week’s episode; where I’ve written a little thing based on a quote from Book 2 of Marcus Aurelius’ Meditations - it’s called On Moaning, Self-Loathing and Pointing the Finger. Hope you enjoy In the meantime, if you’d like to support my work the best thing you can probably do is introduce it to someone who you think might like it. Alternatively you can make a donation on KO-FI, or BUY-MY-BOOK – The Suburban – there’s only a few copies left of this, or the book of plays I co-wrote – Hip Hop Theatre Anthology or just stream my music or watch the videos or whatever; you know the coo. That’s it for the update, hope you enjoy the piece. Have a banging weekend. Peas and taters Paul BUY-ME-A-LAGER https://ko-fi.com/paulcree THE SUBURBAN BOOK My 1st book collection of stories and poems www.paulcree.co.uk/shop Beats & Elements: A Hip Hop Theatre Trilogy 2 plays I co-wrote plus Denmarked by Conrad Murray https://paulcree.co.uk/shop/beats-and-elements-a-hip-hop-theatre-trilogy Get full access to Lager Time at cree.substack.com/subscribe

Meditations Book 1 – On the Sport of Football Support Greetings, bonjour, what’s happening? Welcome to Lager Time, this here, the first episode of 2024. I hope your festive period shenanigans were all good? Lager consumed and laughs had. Today's main course, Marcus Aurelius and his tasty little book of mediations. I tried to explain what I’m doing with this in the previous episode before Christmas. So I looked at a particular quote from Book 1 for this, went away and wrote a thing entitled On The Sport of Football Support. Now, upon listening back I released there was an error in it. The infamous play-off riot against Birmingham was in 2002, how could I forget it?! I hope you enjoy this episode and the following ones; I’m enjoying writing them. Keep it Larger than life in 2024. Peas and taters Paul Cene Magazine interview BUY-ME-A-LAGER https://ko-fi.com/paulcree If you’re able to, these are some ways you can support my work BUY-ME-A-LAGER https://ko-fi.com/paulcree THE SUBURBAN BOOK My 1st book collection of stories and poems www.paulcree.co.uk/shop Beats & Elements: A Hip Hop Theatre Trilogy 2 plays I co-wrote plus Denmarked by Conrad Murray https://paulcree.co.uk/shop/beats-and-elements-a-hip-hop-theatre-trilogy STREAM TOAST IN THE MACHINE EP https://paulcree.hearnow.com/toast-in-the-machine Get full access to Lager Time at cree.substack.com/subscribe

ON READING BOOKS An introduction to the next season on Lager time Greetings, bonjour, what’s happening. Lager Lites of Lager Land Unite. The day I’m writing this is December 12th, 2023. It’s raining outside and there’s a load of soggy cardboard waiting to be recycled; sounds a little bit like the current Man United squad. I’m pretty sure in the run-up too, and the then run-down of Christmas, this collapsed-cardboard exhibition sitting by my bins, is only going to increase; unless the bin-truck livens-up and relieves me of said cardboard before the January transfer window. Such trivialities pre-occupy my mind on a regular basis, nagging away, nagging away, but why? More on my attempts to wrestle with that in a bit… So I’ve been pretty busy these last few weeks since I put the final episode out of Young Unprofessional. The drama and music project I co-run throughout the year, with Dream Arts, in London, is this Thursday doing our now annual end-of year Christmas sharing at Marylebone Theatre, where we show the first part of the next piece we’re developing; which is the third show now; so there’s been lots going on with that project. I did a really fun gig at the Alley Pally a few weeks back (second time I’ve been performed there this year.) with two beatboxers: ABH and Native the Creative, who I know from Beatbox Aacadmey. It was in support of the final show on The Streets’ latest tour. We were only based in the food court there, but it was pretty rammed-out, and we were told at one point, we had more people watching us than the official support act on the main stage. I was on rap duties, and a smattering of percussion, while the other two handled the beats. Had a banging time, mate. Aside from that, and a few other workshops, I’ve been in my little home studio getting my nut-down studying, in preparation for (hopefully) starting to take on some voice-over work. It’s been something I’ve been looking to do for the last couple of years and I’ve been slowly improving my recording-set up and learning a lot more about that side of things. It’s an investment, but I need something else to bring the reddies in, beyond what I’ve been doing, sometimes I still don’t know how I’ve managed to keep it all going this long. Doing Lager Time has been really helpful in that voice learning process, as I get to try things out here Meditations on Meditaions Something else I’ve been doing throughout this year is collecting quotes from the various books I’ve been reading. Which leads me nicely onto the next little season (if you like) of Lager Time, which will be me writing little response pieces, to various quotes from Marcus Aurelius’ Meditations; you can consider this an introduction of sorts. I’ve been reading books, regularly since my late teens, mainly non-fiction but not always. I didn’t used to enjoy reading, I didn’t have the patience for it (and sometimes still don’t) and perhaps saw it as an overstretched tentacle, emanating from my school into my bedroom, prodding me to read some dry book, for which I was supposed to write some muggy essay about, and probably never did; then felt ashamed about not doing it; so swerved books. Maybe. What I have always had, though, is a ferocious curiosity about all sorts of things. Fused with a frustration and often anger, that there’s all sorts of things that I don’t understand, it drove me to read books; but on my own terms. Something my dad pointed out to me when I was about 14 (and averse to reading books) – was that I was consuming as much information as I could: on Millwall, football in general and then later, music. Be it teletext, magazines and newspapers, radio, TV shows, asking people questions all the time, etc. All of which, in a sense is reading. When I did eventually get going with reading books; I thought this is alright, mate, in fact, I loved it (but it’s been a fractious relationship, I can tell you that) Over the years, I’ve built up a reading habit that’s almost become a...

Easy! If you enjoy this and would like to support my work, you can subscribe to this and or make a dontion on Ki Fi - BUY-ME-A-LAGER https://ko-fi.com/paulcree Greetings, bonjour, what’s happening Welcome to Lager Time, fellow patrons of the Lager Nation, as we unwind, we let the lager flow and free our collective minds, or some such bollox. Yes indeed. Apologies for the short absence, these last few weeks I didn’t quite anticipate it being this long but here we are, such is life. I am at times, a little disorganised but I’ve also been pretty busy. There’s been a lot of back and forth to London, days at a time, meaning I’m away for my little home studio, there’s been a couple of funerals, two weeks in a row, which have both been on Friday’s, which is normally my day for putting the podcast out; so I’m sure you’ll understand, So what have I been doing? Couple of weeks back, I had the pleasure of working at the Battersea Arts Centre, a place which I’ve done lots of stuff over the last 14 years, mate. It was the place I first got involved in theatre, had my first professional performing jobs, as well my first jobs, my first assistant roles doing workshop, met Conrad Murray etc etc. So I was back working with the almighty Beatbox Academy (who I’ve worked with, on and off, for many years.) It was the opening week for their latest show, Pied Piper, which is a re-telling of the classic-story, as hip hop musical, sounds it’s all beats, bars, and a lot of singing and some pretty sublime harmonies and melodies. All the sounds are made on stage, by the cast and it’s pretty damn good. Conrad Murray, who is the creator of the show and co-director with Ria Parry. Con is a good pal of mine, we set up Beats & Elements together (ten years ago now) – and I know all the cast too, some of which are good friends of mine. Yes I’m biased, but the show is a banger, mate! Fun for all the family. The whole run sold-out and it’s had some really good reviews so far, and it now goes on tour, next stop Canterbury if you’re down there. So there’s a part of the show, which involves some of the younger members of the academy, which I was co-leading on. It was fun, got to go on stage twice a day, to packed out audiences who were having a great time. It was a fun week. I also stepped-up and performed at the Anti-Slam, which is a tongue-in-cheek, satirical take on a poetry slam. It was at the very cool Pleasence Theatre in London. The night itself was really fun, my bit could’ve gone better to be honest. I really enjoyed writing it, learning it, but I don’t think it landed that well on the night. Oh well, sometimes you try these things. I think also, some of the other acts were simply very good. Large up Kareem Parkins Brown who won on the night, and was very entertaining. I also this week passed my driving test, so well done me. First time and all that. 40 years old, mate. Think I got a bit lucky. Means I’ve got get a little motor now, and generally become a bit more useful to my wife and my family. Which is good, I hope Alright, so, onto this week’s little Young Unprofessional piece. It’s the final piece in this first little foray into doing this stuff. Just Another Day(Te) – little wordplay there. I managed to sneakily record it on Tuesday but my little doggies were making a lot of noise which you may hear on the recording. I’ve enjoyed doing this, I don’t know if anyone else has, but you know, I’m only dong this because I like doing it. I want to take a bit of time and go back through them, look at the form of it, so what I can do more of etc etc. I’ve got a few older pieces in the Reece character which I might record and put out, for posterity purposes. But well see, mate. As ever, everything on here is a work-in-progress, like my Anti-Slam gig, some things work, some don’t, that’s the game mate. In the meantime, I’ve been slowly adding old poems and lyrics, complete with video or audio, onto my website if you fancy taking a look -...

Greetings, bonjour, what’s happening This week’s Young Unprofessional will be the penultimate one for a bit, so I can sit down, have a look back through it and see where I want to go next with it. There’s some more older stuff which I’ve found in the last week, which I’d like to put on here at somepoint. Anyway, this week Reece gets sent on a Time Management course at work, and is then inspired to document his working-day. Enjoy Don’t forget to subscribe and all that, and if you think a mate might like it, let ‘em know. Check the links at the bottom for other ways to support my work Have a banging weekend Peas and taters Paul LINKS Anti-Slam @ Pleasence, Islington 31.10.23 T https://www.pleasance.co.uk/event/anti-slam Paula Varjack – Writer and performance artist http://www.paulavarjack.com/ Dan Simpson – poet and writer https://www.dansimpsonpoet.co.uk/ Nial O’Sullivan – Rusty Niall Gary W Hartley aka Gary From Leeds (await the second coming) https://medium.com/insectsandthat If you’re able to, these are ways you can support my work THE SUBURBAN BOOK My 1st book collection of stories and poems www.paulcree.co.uk/shop Beats & Elements: A Hip Hop Theatre Trilogy 2 plays I co-wrote plus Denmarked by Conrad Murray https://paulcree.co.uk/shop/beats-and-elements-a-hip-hop-theatre-trilogy STREAM TOAST IN THE MACHINE EP https://paulcree.hearnow.com/toast-in-the-machine BUY-ME-A-LAGER https://ko-fi.com/paulcree Get full access to Lager Time at cree.substack.com/subscribe

Greetings, bonjour, what’s happening Welcome to Lager Time, my name is Paul Cree, this is my lager verse, where I share bits of writing, music and the occasional on thoughts on things. Young Unprofessional story, episode 4. Reece has taken the advice off his mate, Stuart and istrying his luck meeting some females on mid-2000’s all-in-one sight Gumtree. I’ve called it Melt-Tree Enjoy Don’t forget, if you, subscribe and if you want to support the work, there’s a link for my Kofi, where you can make a donation, if you so wish Paul If you’re able to, these are some ways you can support my work THE SUBURBAN BOOK My 1st book collection of stories and poems www.paulcree.co.uk/shop Beats & Elements: A Hip Hop Theatre Trilogy 2 plays I co-wrote plus Denmarked by Conrad Murray https://paulcree.co.uk/shop/beats-and-elements-a-hip-hop-theatre-trilogy STREAM TOAST IN THE MACHINE EP https://paulcree.hearnow.com/toast-in-the-machine BUY-ME-A-LAGER https://ko-fi.com/paulcree Get full access to Lager Time at cree.substack.com/subscribe

Greetings, bonjour, what’s happening? Welcome to Lager Time, the Lager March continues, indeed. So this week is episode three of Young Unprofessional, where Reece goes for a few beers with his old schoolmate, Stuart Simmons Enjoy LINKS David and Lizzie Turner https://www.youdontknow.uk/ THE SUBURBAN BOOK www.paulcree.co.uk/shop STREAM TOAST IN THE MACHINE EP https://paulcree.hearnow.com/toast-in-the-machine BUY-ME-A-LAGER https://ko-fi.com/paulcree Get full access to Lager Time at cree.substack.com/subscribe

Greetings, bonjour, what’s happening? Welcome to Lager Time. LagerLites of lagerland, lift your lagers in the sky, and rejoice, it’s lager time This is a Lager Time first this week , as I’m debuting a story called Spin, written by my good friend and sometime collaborator, Christana Lei. SPIN Written by Christana Lei Voiced by Paul Cree Intro by Christana Lei This story is a chapter that never made it into a novel I’m working on.Inspired by my love for the young people I was lucky enough to spend serious time with, when working in a PRU back in 2010. Inspired too by the lyrics of a song called Sad But True by the legendary Metallica (1991), whose lyrics are used throughout. When I write, I tend to imagine my writing like a film playing out in front of me, and if I had the production budget, Metallica would be the soundtrack to this one. Maybe you’ll hear themes in the story but that’s not intentional: It was just an exercise in witnessing and acknowledging the violence that happens with no rhyme or reason, no matter how much we want to find reasons for it, in an attempt to impose order on chaos. It seems that the attempts to do this by those of us who are on the edges but not in the violence; an attempt we make to preserve our own sanity and faith in human nature, more often than not just leads to victim-blaming.I hope Spin pays homage to some of the experiences some of us (hopefully) survive in this messy, sometimes brutal business of being human. And that now Paul has performed it, I can forget about it completely, because it is out of my system. (Which means Paul is now kind of an Exorcist). Enjoy.Christana Lei Get full access to Lager Time at cree.substack.com/subscribe

Greetings, bonjour, what’s happening I’ve got a few live-gogs coming up this week, so in order to help me prepare, I ran through, and recorded a set of poems, stories and a few *attempts* at tracks on the loop-station. As ever with this episodes, it’s rough and ready but I that’s the point, helps me get match fit! Remember, you catch me this Friday at Poetry & Poppadums, Karmel, Wood Green, London. FULL SET LIST 1 - Trap It 2- Times of Respect 3- Whoever Said It Was Easy 4- Fair & Square 5- Chair Wars 6- Not quite A Cheetah 7- Premium Speed Ghost Train 8- Slow and Steady 9 - No Milk For The Foxes 10 - Now, What Do You Want To Say? 11 - Watts & Pommerlers Get full access to Lager Time at cree.substack.com/subscribe

Greetings, bonjour, what’s happening? Lager Legions it’s lager season…. Well, it’s always Lager season over here in Lager HQ. I don’t actually drink that much these days but it’s a frame of mind more than anything, letting your hair down, getting things off your chest, that’s what I’m talking about! And speaking of seasons, it’s all got a bit autumnal out there; I’m enjoying it! Been mainly at home this week, it’s been great, my wife is away for work, I miss her, but it’s just me and the doggies. Done a fair bit of looking out the window, this week watching the rain drops and listening to the magic; one of my favourite things to do. Large up James Harris, who writes Stiff Upper Quip on Substack, he wrote this nice little piece this week about enjoying the rain Large up those of you that caught the first episode of Young Unprofessional last week. Despite the character being old, this series is all quite new at the moment, and I’m slowly finding my feet with it. These are all draft pieces, I’m writing it as I go along. I’m just playing the with character, and the form and seeing it where it goes. Much like I did with the Satellite Stories. If I can get to six, I’ll see where I’m at with it all. There’s a few stories that I wrote a few years back, from when Reece was in New Town. I’ll probably put a few of those up at some point, lots of them include many of the characters in mentioned in these London pieces. So this time next week, I’ll be getting ready for my gig at Poetry & Poppadums up in Wood Green, London. I’m on the bill with comedy and poetry heavyweight Simon Munnery, Carine Harb and all hosted and curated by the legend that is Paul Lyalls. It’s always a fun gig. Good food, booze, tunes and well run. Also on the Thursday before that, I’m also at the launch event for the inaugural Maidstone Literature festival, at the museum there. Maidstone is where I live these days, and I rarely to get to do anything in the town related to what I do so I’m very excited at the prospect of walking to the gig, from my house. I don’t know what the crack with tickets is, there’s gonna be council people,the mayor but they have a website and are on Instagram so have a bucthers. They got loads of events happening around the town. In light of upcoming gigs, I’m gonna do a Not Quite Live episode, where I basically just press record and run through a set of poems and sometimes music, then upload them, it’ll probably be just poems; I need to get a bit more practise in for the music before I start doing that again, it’s been a while. Being that I’ve been at home a bit more, I’ve spruced up my website a bit; have a butchers at www.paulcree.co.uk and I’ve try to organise the Substack a bit as well, so you can see all the Satellite Stories in one place, for instance. You can find my music on Spotify, Apple, Bandcamp and all of them; few videos on You Tube too. If you like what I’m doing, hit subscribe on whatever platform you’re following on, it all helps, but I guess you already know that, you must hear it from people like me, all the time Large up for listening, though Keep it lager than life Enjoy the story, it’s called The Urban Explorer But In Sick trainers Peas and taters Paul LINKS James Harris (Stiff Upper Quip – Notes On Pluviophilia) Poetry & Poppadums @ Karamel, Wood Green https://www.musicglue.com/karamel/events/2023-09-29-poetry-and-poppadums-with-simon-munnery-karamel Maidstone Literature Festival https://www.maidstonelitfest.org/ Not Quite Live Edition https://cree.substack.com/p/not-quite-live-edition-2#details My Website www.paulcree.co.uk Buy my books: The Suburban and The Hip Hop Theatre Anthology https://paulcree.co.uk/shop Stream my EP: Toast in the Machine https://paulcree.hearnow.com/ Get full access to Lager Time at cree.substack.com/subscribe

Greetings, bonjour, what’s happening? Welcome to Lager Time; So this week, I’m dropping in the first in a new series of stories, called Young Unprofessional. It’s about a character called Reece, who’s moved to London in the mid 2000’s, he’s in his mid 20’s and he hails from a fictional satellite town, called New Town. A little reminder you can come and see me live at Poetry & Poppadum’s at Karamel in Wood Green, Friday 29th September. Simon Munnery is headlining, he’s a bit of a legend in the comedy and poetry worlds. Last time I did this gig it was packed out. Come on down, they serve banging Indian food and Paul Lyall’s is a great host. If you like what I’m doing, do me a favour and hit subscribe on whatever platform you’re listening to this on, or even better, subscribe on Substack and you’ll get all the extra bits I’m gonna be sticking up on there. I also jazzed up website this week, if you care to have a look? You’ll links to lots of my past projects as well as a shop where you can purchase books, music etc www.paulcree.co.uk Have a banging weekend Keep it lager Peas and taters Paul Get full access to Lager Time at cree.substack.com/subscribe

Greetings, bonjour, what’s happening? Yes indeed, it’s Lager Time! At last! Lager-Lites of Lager Land unite! We are back in the game, mate! This week it's the last in the series of the Satellite Stories and it's called McGeezer thr Machine t Poetry & Poppadums, @karamel in Wood Green.n. The Suburban a my most recent music project is called Toast In The Machine; a small 5 track EP which you can stream here. Get full access to Lager Time at cree.substack.com/subscribe