The Sequel

So.... it’s been a while, ain’t it?

Not dead yet.

It’ll take more than life to kill me.

Hope you missed me. To be honest I didn’t hear too much wailing or gnashing of teeth and where on earth was the rending of garments? Guess there’s a recession on....

Basically, I’ve been busy and, annoyingly, an old illness snuck up on me, jumped me in the car park and, let’s just say, a fracas ensued... all a bit like Philo Beddoe against Wilson in the end of that film.

Hope you enjoyed my shamelessly bumping my post count up but I noticed I was perilously close to the ton and, lo, this is “Post 101”: the worst post in the world? It’s Post Zero.... a new start. Hopefully, I’ll be posting a little more often but I’m not going to make promises I can’t keep. But I’ll try and get something up when I’ve got the spare energy; though it would be nice to have some energy to start with, spare or otherwise.

I haven’t been keeping up with what people have been splurging out their brainpans of late so if I cover anything already dealt with or tread on someone’s toes I can only apologize in advance.

“Sorry”

See.

You can cut and paste that into your eyes each time I screw up...

I still haven’t worked out what on earth this site’s for but it’s not stopped the other three billion internet-active people in the world from blathering away endlessly about nothing whatsoever (especially those who comment on YouTube). The only question that remains is shall I tell the truth or lie prolifically and tell you extraordinary and exciting tales from my amazingly exceptional and event-packed life.

I shall consult my monkey-butler once I get out this champagne-filled gilt-lined zero-gravity Jacuzzi-pool...

Cartrouble

Recent developments....

Been a bit busy of late, gathering my thoughts for the Screenwriters’ Festival which is now looming large in something I like to call next week...

Have also managed to have another car written off- the fourth- none have been adjudged my fault. So, another write off... or is it? An air of mystery hangs over this- it initially looked as if I’d just broken a front headlight in what was a very low speed impact. I took it to my regular garage for a replacement and, having got it up on the ramps, they rang to say they spotted a chassis leg had been cracked and that this was not viably repairable. So, I had to take the thing to the insurance approved engineer and their initial assessment was it just needs a new headlight... all very odd. Now, they’ve looked at it more and concluded... it just needs a new headlight. Not sure what the outcome of this will be; would rather like it to be a straight headlight repair but fear, with my luck, it will not. But keeping my fingers crossed. I really dislike dealing with insurance claims.

Now another random conundrum. The other night I did me a pizza and settled down in front of TV (and I can’t recall whether this was during Emma [good- far lighter adaptation than most period things], the South Bank Show [interesting- about the writer of Billy Elliot] or Saw II [reasonably alright but still seems like a reductivist version of Se7en], but it was definitely Sunday night). The cat came in with a dead mouse in his mouth... he promptly proceeded to eat it in front of me.

Now, the pizza was hot, the mouse was dead... I let the cat get on with it... does that automatically make me a bad person? Or just pragmatic? The strange part was that the crunching noises from the munched mouse were rather similar to the cracking noises of the crunched crust of the pizza... makes you wonder what they put in the topping!

Anyway, I’ve had it confirmed that at SWF I have these speed-dating sessions with both agents and producers. This means I have to meet people- this is perturbing: I’m nervous enough meeting people I know; a gibbering wreck round people I don’t.

I feel comfortable enough with my anxiety to admit I’m moderately terrified.

No Fun

A small, possibly erroneous, observation about comedy writing...

Quick story. A couple of months ago I submitted some bits and pieces for the ‘open submission’ satirical comedy Newsjack (on Radio 7). Each week, I did more than necessary and had them scrutinized by a writer friend who told me what worked, what didn’t and how to snazz up those that nearly worked... I then submitted the best. In total, over the 6 weeks, I submitted 15 sketches and 25 one-liners... and not a single solitary one made the grade! This was disappointing. I’d rather like to get on the score-board and radio is a ‘good thing’*. Personally, I prefer Radio 3 but they do very little sketch-based comedy... doesn’t work well between Stockhausen’s greatest hits and Mongolian nose-flute orchestras.

Anyway, this dismal failure got me thinking the simple question- why? Why?!?!?As in ‘why have I failed in such a pusillanimous way?’. I listened to the show each week; I have, contrary to popular rumour, a sense of humour, how could I fail? I think I have an answer- may be wrong, may be right- I think it has a ring of truth.

I listened to the show each week and, while I smirked, I didn’t find it laugh-out loud funny; certainly not as much as the studio audience. However, this is NOT the sour grapes thing of ‘they didn’t pick me therefore they and/or the programme are wrong’. I believe this is a case of I did not find it especially funny therefore I couldn’t write adequately in the idiom required. I love satire- Bremner, Bird & Fortune, Yes Minister, Brass-eye, The Day Today, etc. but Newsjack’s satire was not the type of satire to which I’m acclimatized.

There are two genres (technically three**) which are far more subjective than others presumably because they operate on a very deep primal level: comedy and horror. I find the Marx Brothers funny but can’t stand Laurel & Hardy or Chaplin (mawkish sentimental bilge); I find Mitchell & Webb, Blackadder, Black Books, The IT Crowd and Spaced hilarious while I find Little Britain, Russell Brand and The Catherine Tate Show about as funny as the average knee-capping. I love Blazing Saddles but the farting cowboy scene is the only bit I skip to the end; I know others with the complete opposite view. Could Eddie Braben write successfully for Lucas & Walliams? Could Chris Morris write successfully for Morecambe & Wise? And the same surely follows for horror: some find the supernatural terrifying and are bored by slashers; others think knife-wielding psychos scary while ghost stories leave them cold.

And so to the quite simple conclusion: if you don’t find the show funny, you probably won’t be able to do funny for the show; if you don’t find the monster scary, you probably won’t be able to do the monster scarily. It’s not the fault of the show or the poor beleaguered monster... it’s just that you’re not hard-wired that way. Find your ‘funny’ or ‘scary’ and do that instead.

Well, that’s my excuse and I’m sticking to it... it’s either that or I really am just a miserable old git.

*As they put it in 1066 and All That.
**The third would be Porn... the person who loves the plastic-clad dom' may not find the idea of 'plushies' too enticing... or the flying helmet and the wet celery...

The Days Of Swine And Roses

Brief update thing...

Well, still not a perfect 100% but mainly better: throat still sore but on the other hand plummeting weight has finally stabilized. To put in context how worrying this was getting- I lost 15% of my body weight in 4 weeks and I’m currently the lightest I’ve been in about 15-20 years.

Anyway, many things need to get back on track, sorted out and generally organized but thought I’d update things so all the wailing, gnashing of teeth and rending of garments can be brought to an end... and if you’ve not been doing any of these, why not? I’m affronted... seriously... not one wail? Not one rent clothe? Not even a minor grinding of a back molar? Pah! I’ll forgive you... eventually...

***Here be possible spoilers for Waking The Dead: Magdalene 26***

Bit annoyed at missing the opening pair of episodes of Harper’s Island due to it’s scheduling: the Sunday episodes clashed with the new series of Waking The Dead (sadly, the first ever genuinely bad episodes of Waking The Dead: killed a regular I’d really warmed to; overly relied on coincidence and people behaving bizarrely; had a twist that was proposed for banning over 80 years ago- as seen in Sherlock Holmes and the Case of the Silk Stocking- and had a flashback system that ultimately seemed disconnected and meaningless); the Friday repeats were scheduled against Beethoven at the BBC Proms- though not in person... that would just have been messy.

***Possible spoilers end***

This flue-y episode has had a couple of glimmers though- I snagged a couple of bits and pieces on eBay that I’ve been after for a long time- a couple of Hellraiser films, the Subversive Cinema release of Dust Devil and a rare film from Amando de Ossorio on VHS. Now, I just have to find some time to watch them.

Anyway, for the meantime, here’s a rather nifty music video (the best promos are surely an unsung art-form). I would love to think this was shot in one play-through though, I suspect with the high number of edits involved, it probably wasn’t. However, the imagination and choreography is still superb and it’s good silly fun.

The Avalanches: Frontier Psychiatrist

March Of The Pigs

Yet another damnable long absence...

Just a quick apology for going A.W.O.L. (Afflicted With ‘Orrible Lurgee). Basically, I got the wretched Swine Flu... or Bird Flu... or Flying Pig Flu. Whatever. Wasn’t precisely top of the list of things I was intending to do but there you go.

Still, more amusing than Horne and Corden’s recent comedy outing.

So, not all bad then.

Three things I’d say about the wretched thing (swine flue that is) are- it is...
• annoying,
• time-consuming,
• boring.

I’ve had it around 3-4 weeks and I’m having trouble shaking off the final symptoms (sore throat, aching joints, etc.). I’ve lost my voice (which anyone who’s ever met me would probably maintain is a good thing) and a lot of weight. I would have loved to use the time watching endless films but I’ve been mainly unable to stay awake for long enough. Bizarrely, I’ve also lost the ability to taste tea and toast- not bread, just toast. This has happened before- I was forced to, ugh, drink coffee instead. I won’t be doing that again! And it took six long months to revert.

Anyway, enough about me... you now have a choice of viewing...

Eric and Ern with Peter Cushing failing to keep a straight face in some classic silliness (that still manages to be more realistic and mythologically accurate than a certain BBC series)...

...and for those of you with a more nervous disposition: Trent Reznor, loud noises and some swearing...

1994, Peter Christopherson.

Let Chaos reign but first... Tamiflu and cakes...

Meme On You Crazy Diamond

Another Meme...

Well, look here, another post. At this rate you’d almost be conned into thinking I was prolific...

First, a nice little piece of Six Degree-ism: my sister mentioned the other day that she went to College with Gwen from Torchwood (of which, possibly, more later); I knew she knew the ghost, just didn’t know they were one and the same; on top, of that she teaches at one of the schools where the kids froze, the one where they wear red blazers (I think she said).

Within the same week the last meme (what I done) arrived, so did another from over yer , and I can’t recall which came first. Anyway the rules of this one...

“put the image on the blog (however, it doesn’t really match the decor),
List 10 truths about yerself,
Give the award to 5 other people (let’s not worry about that neither),
Provide a meaningful quotation (see bottom),

Here goes...

1. I have taught myself most of what I know, since a long time back; I taught myself to type a few years ago by cataloguing all my records and videos; following this up by copying out some complete Shakespeare texts. Last year, I took an online typing test (actually 5 or 6 and averaged them) and found my speed came out a rather neat 60 w.p.m.; I’m sure it’d be faster if I used more than two fingers on my left hand!
2. I have no heroes. Certainly none that are alive- to me, it’s a very dangerous practice, at best it can lead to suspension of critical faculty, at worst it leads to fanaticism. Also, living heroes are not a good idea; firstly, with the long-dead most, if not all, of the bad stuff has already emerged (anybody with a Gary Glitter tattoo must feel pretty daft); secondly, you might meet them... and you may find they’re loathsome or alternatively find them unspeakably lovely then feel unable to criticize their work. I know someone who reveres Kubrick, Scorsese, Tarantino, all the usual suspects- there is no argument that will shake their belief that every celluloid inch is a frame of perfection; I think Dennis Potter was a fine writer, better than he’s now given credit for, but I’m not about to claim every drop of ink that fell from his nib was holy writ- every Singing Detective or Pennies From Heaven is matched with a Blackeyes. So, heroes, bad thing; Shakespeare’s quite a good hero, very little’s known about him; but give me Beethoven, genius, Romantic, part-time bastard.
3. I have no favourite film, TV series, album or anything else. Last time I tried to make a top ten it came out over 200... how can you judge films from entirely different genres and eras against one another? How can I come to a conclusion that Singin’ In The Rain is better than say Chinatown, My Fair Lady, 2001, Casablanca, Oldboy, Spider, Hellraiser, Alien, Once Upon A Time In The West, the best Capra or Powell & Pressburger, 28 Days Later, Andrei Rublev, Solaris, Deliverance, Performance, The Devils, Double Life Of Veronique or Kor-eda’s After-Life... ? How do you compare? By what criteria? To me, favouritism is a futile exercise and again leads to the suspension of critical faculties; even the greatest art is usually flawed, sometimes it’s those flaws that lend greatness; it’s by understanding these flaws that greater insight arrives. (This is not to say there are not things or creators I value over others just not to devotional levels.)
4. I am possessed of many ‘critical’ heresies. I believe the critics are worth listening to, particularly those who write ‘criticism’ rather than just opinion (or worse, those who are in cahoots with the film industry) but I repeatedly find there is a cultural orthodoxy which now seems so set in stone it’s left unchallenged and that no-one bothers to justify. For me, this in part stems from (sort of) learning much of what I know about film from watching all the 4 star films listed in the back of Halliwell (and most of the 3 star films as well) and deciding for myself what’s good and why. Many films I could say ‘yes, that’s good’ but there was, and still is, a significant number of masters and masterpieces which I believe require some justification including Bunuel, Godard, Truffaut, Mike Leigh, Hitchcock... Does that shock you? Does that make you uneasy? I don’t like Hitchcock films! Next thing you know, I’ll be wearing ‘I hate Pink Floyd badges’!
5. I believe in context and interconnectivity. In a world where everybody is becoming increasingly insular and specialized in their fields I suspect great thinking is being diminished as there is no-one left saying ‘this in this field is very similar to this in this field’- think the Fibonacci sequence- not only occurring in maths but also in biology; Da Vinci, artist, scientist, philosopher. Very little occurs in isolation, in the art/ media world this is surely more true than in many others- otherwise what would anybody write, paint or sculpt about.
6. I’m not a big fan of cities. They’re too loud, too bright, have too many people and smell funny.
7. π unsettles me. Can you think of a more deeply sinister number? 666 and 13 are just numbers; π is the number. Scary.
8. I have never wanted to be famous. Still don’t and quite possibly never will- who would?
9. I write incredibly long emails. I have a sneaking suspicion in a previous era I would have been ‘a man of letters’; misspelled and frequently ungrammatical, rambling and often nonsensical, but letters none the less. It has also occurred to me- just then- that there’s no reason I can’t edit a few of these emails and use them as easy posts here.
10. Music affects me far more than film. Being a far more concentrated and immediate medium music can produce a far deeper response; there are moments that are deeply unsettling, like the final movement of Mahler’s 10th, Shostakovich’s 4th and 15th (particularly the latter bars of the final movement over the unresolved chord while the massive percussion section enacts a mocking fading mechanical heartbeat), much of Penderecki’s 1960’s output (the doyen of the horror movie soundtrack such as Threnody for the Victims of Hiroshima, the De Natura Sonoris pair), the aleatory passages of Gorecki’s Second Symphony, etc. However, over all these are three (possibly a couple more that I can’t recall) that I find genuinely unnerving...

Pink Floyd: Jugband Blues

Pink Floyd: Bike, the first 3 minutes are a slightly silly song, however, then it moves into the musique concrète section. When I was at school this song was thought hilarious; when I first heard this bit I felt sick... and the ‘clan of gingerbread men’ aren’t quaint, in my imagination, they’re a small army of quite heavily armed, re-animated gingerbread men, with rows of razor-sharp fangs, who descend from mountains on the unwary with murderous intent.

Portishead: Deep Water.

Finally, there is a necessity to include a meaningful quote, though to whom it has meaning or if the meaning is supposed to be inherent is left unspecified. On the Manics’ album, The Holy Bible, at the start of the track Of Walking Abortion, there is a sample of Hubert Selby, Jr. speaking. It is quite bleak but when I found the complete quote it struck a chord.

"I was home alone, and I had what I realize now was a spiritual experience, although I didn't understand it as such at the time. But I knew that someday I was going to die. And just before I died, two things would happen: Number 1: I would regret my entire life. Number 2: I would want to live my life over again, and I would die. And I was terrified, absolutely terrified. So I knew I had to do something with my life. I was terrified of living my whole life, and at the end looking at it and having blown it. I was on disability at the time, and my wife was working part-time, I think at Macy's, it was the Christmas season, so I bought a typewriter, and decided I was going to be a writer. I didn't know anything about writing. But I knew I had to do something with my life, and that was the only thing I could think to do....

So I sat there for two weeks with that typewriter and I had no idea how to write a story, I just had to do something before I died. So I wrote a letter to somebody. And that's how it started. The long process of learning how to write."

...either that or the lyrics to an old Andy Williams song...

Now, tea and cake...

Dark Side Of The Meme

On an ‘unimportant’ meme from way back when...

Many, many years ago I was meme-ified* - something the ancient Egyptians did terribly well, but with more bandages- and it seems reasonable to get it done, albeit three million years later than everybody else. And it gives me something to write here. The basics of this are to “mention 6 things or habits of no real importance about you.” I haven’t any habits- well none that aren’t deeply silly, so it’ll have to be ‘things’ of no real importance.

1. My heart is in the wrong way round- last year I had to have a number of ultrasounds taken of it and they told me the pump side is far smaller than the receiving side- they assured me this was rare but in no way dangerous- though it does explain why I’m ageing backwards.

2. My maternal Gran used to tell me her memories of the day the Armistice was signed on the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month; of bells ringing out and the air of relief. She also told me of her father going A.W.O.L. from the Second Boer War to be there when her sister was born; his time stationed in India and Egypt with the ‘Glorious Glosters’ before they both came along; you may well think this all horribly colonial, and for those at the top it was, but I guess taking the ‘King’s Shilling’ (actually Queen’s at that moment) was one of the better ways of escaping grinding poverty at that time.

3. I have a half inch scar just below my lower lip where I bit clean through it performing the most monumentally stupid feat ever attempted- stupider even than those of David Blaine. You must remember I was young. And stupid. So it goes like this. I came to the conclusion that if I could pick up one leg under the crook of my arm and have one leg off the ground it therefore followed that if I could pick up the other leg in the same fashion... I could... er... levitate... of course, life doesn’t always work out as planned... my chin met the floor, concrete, of course, my teeth met each other... clean through my lip. It hurt. Quite a lot. My Mum was watching Poldark at the time- so it was late 70’s/ early 80’s- I’d been eating a mix of baked beans and ketchup so my face was coated in various shades of red- and the great thing about it was that it completely disguised the hole, which of course, being so clean-cut, went straight back together; so when cleaned it didn’t look particularly serious. How do I know my teeth went straight through? They met in the middle with a nice scraping sound. Bizarrely, I escaped having stitches. It’s rather a nice scar and I’m rather attached to it- and it’s rather attached to me, so I don't have much choice in the matter. This is approximately the sixth most painful thing I’ve experienced.

4. I have a beard because after recuperating from abdominal surgery (possibly the third or fourth most painful thing) I couldn’t raise my arms to shave and, having never had a beard before, I kept it (maybe I’m a descendant of Colonel Wynne-Candy). When I was able to raise my arms and tried to wash my hair for the first time in several months I found it had become a single matted dreadlock and, but for a wonderful team of hairdressers, I nearly had to have my head-shaved. Which would have been annoying. My head’s not shaped for that sort of thing.

5. I have never won anything... I keep trying to remedy this but...

6. I have invented a new genre of music/ songs (they already exist- they just don’t realise that they exist together in my own personal genre) but I’ve not told anyone the details and won’t until I can work out what to do with it. And the only person this new music, en masse, will probably ever appeal to is... me.

7. I write all my posts in word, redraft and spell-check them all before doing a cut-and-paste job...

Apologies for not being more interesting, or informative, but it is meant to be things of no importance!

Now, you may have music... and tea... and cake... and the finest wines known to humanity, if you like. But definitely have cake. Cake is good. Cake is fine. Even the word. Cake.

FC/ Kahuna: Hayling

2002, dir. LynnFox

*And Helen can consider herself a co-source if she likes... :)

Enjoy The Silence?

On not blogging...

So, I’ve been away a long, long time... there must surely have been a reason or two for just disappearing, mustn’t there?

Actually, there were many reasons I stopped blogging, fell at the way side and ended being taunted by road-kill; and they all came piling in one on top of the next at virtually the same time. And next thing I knew it was months since the last post. So, amongst other things, here’s some of the main reasons I disappeared into the land of flattened badgers...

• I was feeling a bit ill (big wow, everybody feels a bit ill every now and then- get over it!).
• I was incredibly tired: I get like that sometimes... well, often...
• ...because I was so tired, I had to make a simple choice, spend this limited energy on writing the blog or writing bad scripts... I’m afraid the bad scripts won... and they are really bad....
• There are a lot of blogs out there, better blogs: I don’t think mine stands out particularly... I don’t have anything particular to say about the art, craft or sheer hard work of scriptwriting (other than ‘put words down and if you get them in the right order it works and if you don’t it won’t’) and I don’t have the ego to suspect my thoughts are so mind-meltingly important that they warrant global exposure.
• There are a lot of blogs out there (Pt. II): in fact, too many to read and yet I can’t help feeling a bit guilty if I don’t try, which invariably leads to commenting, which, as sure as night follows day, leads to time sucked into some kind of giant time-sucking black-hole.
• I'm not particularly smart: every time I find out something new I discover there’s far more to learn (deeply frustrating) and realise that however much I know I will never know enough. So, I can’t help wondering what actual contribution I have to make to the ‘Scribosphere’. I don’t have a great desire to waste other people’s time- I'm not a parliamentary inquiry!
• There seemed to be a change in ‘atmosphere’ a while back: an influx of privately-profiled non-bloggers contributing to comment sections with apparently no other purpose than to make themselves look smart by trying to imply others are stupid. And, of course, by being non-bloggers they remain largely unaccountable. Surely a form of intellectual cowardice.
• I had become increasingly concerned, through voicing my thoughts, of the potential to damage any nascent career I might have. My inept script-scribblings can do that perfectly adequately on their own!
• Without a professional credit to my name I do tend to feel a bit of a fraud in a world of professional writers and readers- James Moran I am not!
• Finally, I have a lot to say; many, many opinions, quite a few of them contentious... some get written and go unposted, others don’t get written and others require more and better argument*. Best not to post them.

And those are some of the main reasons...

So, what about the future... will I continue blogging, will I fall asleep for a very long time, will Lois find out Superman’s secret... watch this space as they say to find out all this and much, much more... or less... who knows?

...and anyway, now everybody’s gone mental for Twitter no-one’s going to be reading a blog anyway...

*in the old fashioned sense of the word.

I Against I

A response to the good things/ bad things writing meme as tagged by the good Sister Elinor.

The Meme’s brief: “When it comes to writing, what do you know you’re good at, and what aspect of writing are you worst at? (Procrastination is not permitted as either part of the answer.)”

This is one of the harder memes to answer accurately because I am possibly the least self-aware person on the face of the planet- especially when it comes to my writing.

Thankfully I don’t procrastinate... I worry... but that’s usually after the event. However, even without procrastination I am very slow at the writing- at the start through caution- I was brought up with the mantra from my Dad who was good at ‘building things from scratch’ that you should ‘always measure twice, cut once’. This has filtered through strongly to my approach to writing- I do lot of pre-planning and try and get the drafts quite right from the off (which is, of course, delusional and impossible). Once done there emerges an obsessive perfectionism that requires everything to be absolutely correct. And on top of that I never know whether the result is any damn good- even now I still suspect that the Red Planet people may have got the wrong person...

So, with this in mind, I have based the good points list on the things that seem to have been regularly praised over time in various reports:

• Apparently my characters are quite interesting, compelling and well-rounded;
• Apparently my dialogue tends to be quite good- probably because I read it out loud using a variety of funny voices;
• Apparently I’m quite good at conjuring atmosphere with nifty settings and visual description that immerses people in the world of the story;
• Apparently it’s seen as quite a good thing that I have themes, ideas and something to say- which seems to be considered a plus point.

Now, the bad points (which I can do all by myself!):

• I take scenes and ideas in isolation whether from dreams, flashes of inspiration or whatever and this can lead to a fragmentary narrative;
• I am very good at over-plotting- I haven’t yet realized how little plot there is needed in the average film;
• I am appallingly bad at structure;
• I overwrite enormously- massive chunks of unnecessary description- never use one good word when fifty superfluous ones can be used- however I have now bought a red pen!
• Endings- I can really screw up an ending- sometimes something good comes to me but mainly it doesn’t. This is in part based on my dislike of the tendency of films to end with violent outbursts which, besides reinforcing notions that ‘might is right’* and that the person who is strongest is entitled to ideological supremacy, I find lazy and easy. I call it ‘Schrader syndrome’: how to damage an otherwise good film by not knowing how to end it and resorting to a convenient fire-fight (cf: Light Sleeper; Hardcore, etc.).

I’m overly self-critical and don’t know when something is actually finished- I’ve actually started just asking other people.

Then there are some areas of which I have no idea either way... as roughly everything I do is roughly within a genre and set in recognizable places I do wonder to what extent what I write might be considered ‘original’. Not helped by my having watched far too much film and television... from which I may have accidentally absorbed and subsequently used devices.

So there you go, hope that fits the brief without being too revealing. I’ll probably re-read this in twelve months time and disagree completely but at least I’ve got room for improvement- no resting on my laurels- and most of the problems areas fall under the heading of practice and technique.

If there’s anyone left out there who’s feeling untagged and left out... well, you know who you are and you know what to do!

*with the honorary exception of World War Two- see Theo’s speech in The Life And Death Of Colonel Blimp for the best explanation of why.

Scarlet & Other Stories

On going absent without leave, computers, eyes, recent developments and an important request- rather long but please bear with me...

First, I hope you all had a good Christmas and I wish you a happy, healthy and prosperous new year.

It occurred to me that it would probably be polite to start the new year by explaining why things tailed off during the last.

The last you may have heard I’d sent in a selection of random script pages to Red Planet and was pacing more nervously than a prospective father during the 96th hour of labour. Except I’d all but decided not to bother completing the complete draft having decided the first ten pages I’d written were drivel. Thankfully, I had the sense to thrust them upon a sentient being who said these were quite good so ‘write the rest’. So I did. The first draft needed to be properly storylined then clocked in at around 100 pages and was done in a couple of weeks. Then I sliced and diced until it was a more appropriate length. If I remember correctly this was dealt with by the beginning of November. While I’d written something rather poor it was still fortuitous, so it turned out, to have a completed draft...

Do you know what a ‘backlight’ is? Neither did I. It’s the thing that makes the pretty pictures appear on a laptop screen. When it dies the computer dies: it is not economically viable to repair. And thus my faithful old Toshiba started to die after 6 years loyal service while I was writing the RPP piece. Unfortunately, within a day of completing, and just before I was about to back it up and check all the most important files were also, the hard-drive imploded. So, I had to find a new laptop and hope that I could get all my data recovered including the just completed script. A new laptop was relatively easy to acquire (they sell them in something called ‘shops’), the data recovery was tough going as the hard-drive was hard to access (but apparently I only lost 14 files and I still haven’t worked out what) but the hardest thing was getting back online as apparently the drivers needed for this (and practically all other things) change by the day. And have to be downloaded. And how do you download the drivers for internet access when you haven’t got internet access?

The new laptop has taken some getting used to because at some point since buying the Toshiba they decided to change where most of the keys were and made them a lot smaller (or closer together) and the screens are now a lot wider... apparently for no other reason than so America can have two pages on screen at once... and what America wants we all get. I thought it was just to annoy me!

When I got back up, running and online in late November I discovered in a somewhat well-stuffed inbox the telegraph from Red Planet telling me that they too rather liked the play what I wrote. I was rather pleased. As it had arrived nearly a week before I was very concerned that I might have missed the next deadline- and still don’t know- and had to hurriedly go through the somewhat rough, full script making sure that it had not been ‘corrupted’. That got sent off and now I’m back to pacing in the aforementioned corridor. Of course, I’ve since realized quite how ropey the script is and have already set about a comprehensive ground-up rewrite.

The Problem
The new laptop didn’t just require adjustment to new hardware but also to new software- Vista doesn’t ever do as it’s told- I change the settings, it decides I’m wrong and changes them back again; Word 2007 is shockingly bad and I’m hunting down Word 2005 or earlier (I can’t find anybody who actually likes or uses 2007)- but these are things you can get used to... even if you don’t want to!

Now, for several years I have feared that I have been slowly glowing blind but, as I’m very squeamish when it comes to eyes, I’ve put off doing anything about it just in case there was something wrong. The new machine has a wide shiny LCD screen that has a brilliant burning intensity. I’d always turned the screen brightness down on the old matt-screened Toshiba but turn the new one down to the right level for me and it turns into a very good mirror. Turn the screen up and it feels like I’m staring into a light-bulb. In the first month of use I was finding it harder and harder to see- and using the machine less and less- I was left unable to focus my eyes, things were very blurred, over-bright and my eyes hurt and strained constantly. But this only happened after computer usage. Finally (presumably this is the approach to the innermost cave), I bit the bullet and went to the optimist optometrist.

Several years of worry have been assuaged- I am not going blind. In fact it turns out I have very good eyesight, both near and far, and good peripheral vision to boot. However, although the lady didn’t give it a name, I seem to have some form of Photophobia which hadn’t previously been a issue. Thankfully, it’s not severe but apparently is irreparable. I think I know where it’s arisen from though I’ll probably never be certain. In hindsight it has explained a few things including why I’ve been dreading the ban on incandescent light-bulbs as I have found the fluorescent bulbs quite painful. What I really need now is a screenguard for the laptop which is proving impossible to find- everybody says they exist nobody knows in which mythical land. If you know somewhere I can get a laptop screenguard please get in touch as a matter of urgency.

In the meantime, I’m trying not to spend so long at the machine and I write everything in detailed notes on paper (like I always used to) and just type it up so it’s a good job my typing speed is half-way decent. So you’ll have to forgive me if I spend less time online.

Other Stuff
The most unexpected thing I realized while I was computerless was how little I missed the internet- and how little I really used it for- email and eBay primarily. The loss was more irritating than devastating. I didn’t use these iPlayer type things- why watch TV in pixelated form on a small screen when I can watch it on TV? I’ve never played computer games- online or offline- life’s too short already. I just went back to music, reading, watching and terrorizing the cats with my own inimitable brand of terrible guitar playing. Being unable to type was a nuisance but I’ve always done a lot on paper anyway. The other thing I hadn’t realized until I stopped was how deeply tired I was. Maybe sometimes people need a bit of a break.

...and in the meantime, I appear to have acquired some followers. Which is strange, new and unexpected. This wasn’t there when I was last about. What’s it all about? Do I have to do anything? Should I reciprocate? When I get 12 followers I’m going to start a religion- I already have good recipe for loaves and fishes... well... pilchards on toast. And now I must be thinking about a meme- and rather a difficult one I suspect...

Logic

I have just noticed the following on the label of one of the supermarket medicaments I take to rein in my arthritis… ‘JOINTS!’

Is this another case of dumbing down; false advertizing to hippies, diversification (I’ve never checked the list of active ingredients) or are they just taking a leaf out of the Gospel According to Ronseal?

How long has this been going on? Why haven’t I noticed this before? Maybe I should check whether my bread is marked belly or the Piriteze is marked nose?

All rather inconsequential but does give me an excuse to include some clips from the now surprisingly prescient Alex Cox written and directed film Repo Man from 1984. If I had a short list of favourite films it would probably be on it.

***clips contain a near full house: violence, sex, swearing, drug abuse, hardcore punk and spoilers***

The Opening 10 Minutes
In which the anarchic and counter-cultural Alex Cox proves that he is not immune to following the mainstream Hollywood rules. Check the supermarket products in the scene from 4’20” to 5’50”. You also get some rather cracking music.

Miller explains the Weirdness
No relevance to the post but I like it. The logic is so perfect, so impeccable and yet so wrong.

Support the ongoing Alex Cox project by buying Repo Man and/or Highway Patrolman.

**********

Currently, 70 pages into the first draft of the TV episode- so far it’s very flabby with too much dialogue including way too much very bad dialogue. A week had to be spent initially editing and re-writing the original episode plan when a re-reading discovered several problems not least amongst these that a character actually dies twice. Not good. However, I think this current draft- which no-one will ever read- has entered the home stretch. Then the red pen can be wielded with due ferocity!

Reality

It must be about four weeks since the deadline for the first 10 pages of the Red Planet Prize. And I have been ploughing on with the full version of mine ever since… just in case I hear the call. However much I suspect this to be highly unlikely but it’s surely better to have something ready and not be called than be called and have nothing.

In the immediate aftermath of the deadline I was comfortably thinking my entry is safely in the post- it’s not an absolutely terrible piece of writing- and I can have a couple of minutes break. It was a good feeling, most definitely it was. For as long as it lasted. Then I started to read the musings of my fellow blogonauts… big big mistake. The brick of reality flew through my window of hope. As I mentioned, I changed horses mid-race, and have probably come a right cropper, but it didn’t stop me from thinking there was some quality to what I’d done. Then I read other people’s accounts of their ten pages; how some got read 5 times, 15 times, 327 times; how they’ve been read and re-read, drafted and re-drafted; mentored, buffed and polished until the gleam would take the retinas from the pilots of passing jets… while I merely thought hard, put something down as best I could, revised it and redrafted it then put it in the post. And I realised what rather smart people I am up against. And that last year’s winner had been working on theirs for years and was mentored by someone smart as well.

I read somewhere that someone had tried to put a small cliff-hanger at the bottom of each page (apparently the new thinking) and yet if I’d tried that, catastrophe would have ensued- I would have gone back, lopped out a line or added a new one and the whole thing would have ended all over the shop pretty sharpish. So, I’ve pretty much convinced myself that I really only stand a chance if the entire pile of other scripts spontaneously combusts. Bizarrely, I will continue writing the project despite this being entirely counter-intuitive.

However, in the end it did start a new train of thought… presumably, everybody gets some ‘reading’ and notes done. Fair enough. Very sensible. And yet… is there such a thing as too much ‘script-reading’? Is it possible to have too many notes? To do too many re-writes? When I was doing the whole giving and receiving notes thing at University, in a group of four and a tutor, most people would get a reasonable consensus while I would get a pretty even split of opinion- two who loved the draft and two who hated it. I never knew why and I have no reason to suspect this situation might have changed in the intervening period. So, who should I listen to- the ones who happen to agree with me- or the ones who don’t? And after a while what happens to the essence of what you’ve written? What happens to the fire that produced that first draft- is it quenched after buckets of notes have been poured over the flames until all that remains are a few struggling embers. What comes of the happy accident? Can it just be that the ur-text is the one that really worked best, the one that retains the anger or the fire or the passion or the pain that inspired the writer in the first place? When I was learning to paint I was told it was not only important to know when to start but, crucially, to know when to stop. To stop before it’s ruined.

So, here it is, my own unique and special skill. Other people have innate talent, some have passion- I have self-doubt. I am neither naturally artistically talented or technically gifted so this self-doubt may not be such a bad thing. For a start, with low expectations there’s less chance of disappointment; also you already know you have to work hard because you know life’s not a level playing field and you will always have to go that extra mile; you work harder, think harder, revise and redraft harder because you will never really match your own exacting standards. With the self-knowledge of self-doubt you have a clearer view of your limitations so are less afflicted with ego; you’re less certain the world owes you a living and ultimately you’ll be more grateful for what you get.

So, if there’s one thing I would be destined to meet in my own personally Room 101, it will be doubt. And yet I should be grateful for it!

Of course there’s self-doubt and then there’s sheer horrible hateful reality…

Positive Thinking

Well, the deadline for the Red Planet Prize has come and now gone… and despite nearly giving up on several occasions in the past few weeks I did finally get something in the post- though it was a very close run thing. It has prompted me to offer the following advice- try not to completely change projects 4 weeks before the deadline! (Annoyingly this didn’t leave enough time to farm it out to herds of people for criticism.)

To some people writing comes naturally and they can probably carry off this sort of thing. Unfortunately I’m not one of them: I find this writing lark pure hard graft- emotionally draining and physically exhausting. And frustratingly I don’t have the first idea whether I’m actually any good at this writing thing in the first place- so for all I know I might just be wasting time that I could instead be spending on my plan for ‘total world domination in the next five years’. So, I’ve had to maintain radio silence for the last few weeks to keep up the work rate- that and it gives away position to the U-Boats! Now, as a contingency for the (highly unlikely) event that I receive the call for the full episode, I now have 4 weeks to write the remaining 45 pages. What fun.

However, to all those who got something in and will spend the next few weeks anxiously waiting for results, cleaning, tidying and generally buffing up their pilots; and all those that couldn’t get anything ready for this year and are already thinking of something for next year, I dedicate the following from The Magnificent Two…

…and by a staggering coincidence this, for the time being, is a rather nice response to the recent meme (“a song that sums up what you think it means to be a writer and post the lyrics and why you've chosen it”) which various people have left as 'open tags' (and especially Elinor). I suggest it’s less about the being a writer and more about the continuing as a writer. I’m sure I have another song that is a better answer for the task but for the moment…

“When you feel down, try positive thinking,
That’s what I told them and said,
Don’t wear a frown, try positive thinking,
Laugh at your troubles instead.

You’ve got to look on the bright side,
On hope so much depends,
With your confidence sinking, positive thinking,
Helps you on the way my friend.

When things look black, try positive thinking,
Treat every season as spring,
No glancing back, try positive thinking,
Trust what tomorrow may bring.

This crazy world what we live in,
Will keep on spinning round,
But with good, strong, positive thinking,
We’ll get together and life won’t let us down.”

When You Don’t See Me

Thought it might not be too bad an idea to bore you rigid with an update on the writing situation… and gives me an excuse to waste time with which I could be doing something, er, useful. Like writing.

The great thing about a lack of internet connexion is that it liberates a lot of time- this is because the internet is in fact a seductively evil time-stealing monster- enjoyable but evil… the bad thing about the lack of internet is that if what you are attempting to write is going hideously and unbelievably wrong there is nothing to take your mind off it. And little by little, hour by hour and day by day, you start to steadily go insane…

Way back in July I had a nifty little idea for my entry to the Red Planet Prize. ‘Hoorah’, quoth I. ‘That’s nifty!’, I did reiterate. Then I wrote down the bits that I knew and realised that it was only 5 episodes and didn’t have a ‘cracking opening episode’. Alright, that’s not a huge problem, I can come up with an opening episode. Could I ‘eck as like! Truth be told, while I watch a vast amount of TV I’ve never really been able to comprehend how to work it- it’s that having to roughly return things to the status quo at the end of each episode so that things can start again at the beginning of the following one that partially flummoxes me. I’m not that hot at film-writing either but at least I have a vague understanding of it. While at University I had to have a stab at writing an episode of a returning series, in this case Doctors… suffice to say it went disastrously wrong… it featured religious fanatics and an exorcism and the first draft clocked in at over an hour and a half. This was bad. Finally, I got it down to forty minutes… it was still bad.

Having a ‘nifty idea’ was rather encouraging, not having the first episode… less so. So there then followed a considerable period of procrastination… and now that period is over what have I to show for it? I have a decent outline for a feature film, a new short film script and I’ve redrafted two previous short scripts. What don’t I have? A first episode. Oops! So, with the Red Planet Blog Clock Vorderman-esquely pointing at the 28 days left on the clock I am now wondering what to do... Oh and the other big problem with the ‘nifty idea’ is that it’s really a serial. Not a series. And I’m not even sure if there’s enough material to make it a whole hour long per episode. Or is there too much? I just don’t know. I really don’t understand writing for television.

So, where do I go from here? The words are coming out all weird. Ha!. Well, I’m still going to try to think of a world-beating first episode for the possibly very boring, very parochial and very tedious serial. However, I’m also trying to think of something more series-esque. All I can come up with is something rather derivative and a bit similar to something that used to be on the telebox (whether the other thing is coming back or not, I don’t actually know). The trick will be to make it less similar and more brilliant. But is that really possible? Really?

Who knows? Or even dares to care?

Oh well, 600 hours of writing time left until the last posting date… assuming I ignore sleeping and eating… but they’re pretty over-rated.

Event Horizon

Right so, the postings from the wonderful wacky world of the SWF will be brought to you through the random mediums of interpretive dance and Sisters Of Mercy unofficial release titles… you lucky people!!! This may not be a nightly occurrence, of course, so lap it up while you can… these golden nuggets verily drip from my pen! Say what?

This very evening I found myself at the first annual (hopefully) Arnopp-Beckley Scribomeet… and I know you’re all just itching to know just how things went… sadly I fear you may be pinning your hopes on the wrong person for I, your humble narrator, did shamefully fall victim to the parlous evils of intemperance and, dare I say, strong drink… So tonight I can only express simple opinions as befits one to whom the torpor of liquor has tainted; for whom the fingers are ever so slightly numbed and the brain most likely addled! Or coddled.

The basics: this was, to put it mildly, a lovely evening spent in the company of many lovely people, oft-times too numerous to mention but I’ll try to give creditable names to them what has it due!

There was a veritable smorgasbord of Scribonauts… a Jason Arnopp, who you must all know by now as the fine and stand-up gentleman that he is, to whom, sadly, I may have mentioned that some Dr. Who episodes could have been better than maybe they were- yet as such a fine and stand-up gentleman he declined to enrich me with the lamping that I so rightly deserved; Piers Beckley, another gentleman of some renown; Lee Thomson, who looks nothing like his photo and presumably is in cognito (I won’t give away as what); Stuart Perry, yet another gentleman; Gavin Williams, what knows stuff; Dom Carver, who I regaled with too much information but mainly bored with abundant tales of crashed cars; Jennifer from Ireland, with whom I talked at length about religion and regionalization; Sara of Italy; Jeremiah; Ricky; Cecile, Isabelle, Tony, Steven and quite possibly literally hundreds* of other rather lovely and altogether spiffing people whose names I either didn’t catch or can’t quite, at this late hour, remember…

…of course, I knew there would be an embarrassing point and, yeah verily, I did find it! Nobody mentioned that the chap standing right there in front of me was the Adrian Mead! So what did I talk of? Offal, mutton and, specifically, why people weren’t eating enough of it! It was some time later that the irrepressible Arnopp told me with whom I was speaking and mentioned that I may be recalled for all time as the Mutton Man. Over all analysis of the night’s pre-festival festivities? Three words…

…it was good!!!

…and now to bed with the hope that I still don’t get hangovers! I feel the fear of meeting people nigh-on drip away from me in a molten fashion! Be good!

PS: One of the cats gave me a snide look as I came in... they don't like to see me in an unfit state for feeding duties!

*Not literally hundreds!!! But literally some…

Paranoid Android

Well, the SWF looms ever larger on the horizon…

…and how are things going? Well, at this precise moment the nerves are really starting to hit home- I have to go out in daylight; so I’ll probably turn into dust; I can’t recall a single person on the delegate list not even The Arnopp* (eep!); can’t recall who’s actually speaking or what they’ve done; just in case I’ve tried to sort out my pitches for the couple of specs I’ve written and they’re rubbish- they always are- I’m terrible at pitches and pitching- always have been; do I bother to do anything for the rough projects that are starting to look promising- they might be lovely- actually their dark and miserable… but in a lovely way.

And what of the Festival itself? Worries course through me. What if nobody talks to me? What if I forget what people look like after I’ve already spoken to them at length? What if I embarrass myself and everybody beats me about the face and neck with fresh haddock? What if they’re all undercover cannibals and think I look mouth-watering? What if I take a can of pilchards instead of a notebook and start inexplicably hurling them at Mike Leigh? What if I don’t deodorize? What if… what if… what if… ?

...excitement is mutating into mild fear…

…and yet having just watched the documentary on the WWII comando raid on St. Nazaire dockyard I wonder what right I actually have to feel scared about what is essentially walking into a room. Albeit a large room full of people I don’t know who might, at some point, hold my fate and the course of the rest of my life in their hands. Still a bit daft really.

*Isn’t this a paradox?

Forever Delayed

Tomorrow, I am officially one year older and one year closer to the grave… that sounds right miserable! It’s true though. If you haven’t worked it out- that would make it my birthday. Unfortunately, I’ve tended to have to go to funerals in this week in previous years and it’s possibly for this reason that tend to find myself looking back as much as forward…

It’s been a strange year, this last one, there’s no doubting that. I have a few more lines around the eyes, white hairs have started to streak the beard and, seemingly overnight, long white hairs have appeared down the full length of my hair. There’s been the SWF 2007 followed, nipping at its heels, by torrential rain, terrible flooding, being marooned and a complete loss of water for several weeks; the Red Planet Prize (or rather lack thereof for me!) at one point done by candlelight due to the flooding; Digital Shorts, for which I was upbraided for not giving my characters back-story… there was Jason and Dan’s premiere (which was fun) and annoying painful dislocations (which was less fun) then there was pestilential near-death experiences (which was about as far from fun as anybody’s currently found). And the writing has suffered badly. All the stoppages have disrupted the thought-flow, the worries have overwhelmed and there’s been a general loss of momentum. But, I’m reckoning that I’ve now pretty much covered the whole gamut: disease, death, flood, pestilence… let’s be done with it- bring on the rain of frogs and swarms of ravenous locusts! I’m ready and I’m waiting!!!

It’s after years like this that a sane person might begin to wonder whether making plans is actually a sensible thing at all… but I’ve tried sanity and, in the main, it’s over-rated.

I’m thinking this year to try and keep things a little more simple: maybe give competitions and prizes a bit of a miss (I just end up hurrying and getting slapdash). Of course, it will depend on the competition and the prize! I’m figuring that now’s the time to just get on and write. I’m looking towards the UKFC scheme (if, by the time I’m ready, it still exists); I’m looking to get a third spec written- then I can start stalking agents; and I’m churning around three stories at the moment which seem half-way reasonable and can’t think of any reason to stop now.

Yet, at the back of my mind, I find myself taunted by the thought- ‘am I any good?’ Not with putting words down, anybody can do that; not with structure, that can be taught; not with formatting, that can be taught or Lucy can tell you why writing in crayon isn’t the best way forward. No, I’m thinking about that unteachable intangible- the ideas themselves- do I have any? Are they any good? Am I just wasting time? In part this comes from noticing that so many people I was at University with were dealing with fantasy and the snippets of ideas I’ve heard on the Scribosphere all tend to be fantastical- there seems so much about new worlds that need saving, standing-stone gateways, flying death-fish, mythical creatures, time travel, horror, space battles- and I find myself continually wondering am I being too prosaic, too boring, too hung up on the real world. By not doing the fantasy thing it almost makes me wonder if I wasn’t listening in on the right conversation…

But as the painter Hopper said, “maybe I am not very human- what I wanted to do was to paint sunlight on the side of a house.” There aren’t the fantasy elements in anything I write now- they’re just about people who are trying to cope with the modern world as best as they can… maybe that’s my painting the sunlight on the side of a house… oh well, all got a little more introspective than I intended!

Anyway, this next week there is a Screenwriters Festival- no wait- the Screenwriters Festival, where hopefully this year I won’t be hamstrung by the desire to hide under a table when anybody turns to talk to me. And as I’m knowing that a bunch of Scribonauts are away to it, I presume and hope I’ll be seeing some of you lovely people in the flesh… so to speak!*

*Please, for the love of God, please keep your clothes on!!!

About You Now

I recently clocked up 50 posts; more by luck than judgement I’d say, and it got me thinking back. After technical glitches and the lay-off over Christmas, when I came back to the blog thing, I realised I couldn’t recall what I’d been annoying you with: I wasn’t even sure why I’d got a blog in the first place. (As I said in the first post, I don’t have much to say and I’ve been saying it ever since- empty vessels and all that…!)

Faced with not remembering what people blogged about, I looked at the other blogs and was reminded how individual they all are: the veritable information-stations (take a bow Danny, Lucy and Robin); some that tell you what they’re doing or have done and some offering opinions and reviews. Some blog frequently, some less so; some spread the love, some vent the spleen… but behind them all is someone with a desire to share something.

However, I’m still not quite sure why I continue with this blog… it started by accident, I was considering what title and URL to have, putting it in blogger to see whether it looked good and pressed the wrong button. That I continued was at the prompting of Phill, The Arnopp and Sister Elinor. So I continue.

Yet, I cannot help but have the same sense of being the interloper that I had at the Screenwriter’s Festival last year; there I was, surrounded by people I assumed to have worked in the industry for years discussing fascinating aspects of craft and I couldn’t help thinking ‘how terribly presumptuous of me to be here; any minute now I’ll be found out’. And here, when I think too much, I sometimes find myself thinking the same: I don’t have special knowledge or insight- only opinions; I’m not particularly qualified; haven’t been published or filmed; I don’t even watch many films- maybe one every couple of days; and I’m aware there is a lot left to watch and a lot to know about pretty much everything. So, why do I blog? And what should I blog about? I only have opinions and questions.

In the end, I suspect I blog because:

• I’m curious about things; I have questions. I like to hear other opinions; I like debate and discussion- I’m particularly interested in media attitudes. (I like comments and to comment myself.)
• Rather selfishly, I hope it gives me a chance to ‘meet’ people before I actually meet people. I retreated from people several years ago when I realised that 95% of those I knew or had known were either after something and/or felt good about themselves solely by making others feel bad; 4.5% were likable people who also happened to be veritable scumbags and who I’ve rid myself of; leaving a tiny handful of decent people…
• …and arrogantly, I like to think I have some small contribution to make to this ‘Scribosphere’ thing…

The other thing that has haunted my blogging is, being an opinionated bastard, how far should I censor what I put here. There are some pretty good reasons for this concern:

• Several recent articles on TV and in the press have discussed how potential employers (especially in the media world) are habitually Googling potential employees and searching for them on Facebook, MySpace and the various blog sites- researching attitudes and personal life- if you’re bragging about turning up seriously hungover (i.e. still drunk) at work an employer may just be put off.
• Should I mention much about any ideas I’ve had? If I put them half-formed on public show and someone (less scrupulous than all you lovely people) half-recalls one of them and uses it to great success would I be able to get legal recourse or would it just be my own silly fault?
• Not so long ago, there was a case of a teacher, Sarah Green, the details of which you can catch here and here*. Basically, Green is a young woman teacher at a public school who was previously an aspiring actress. She has been suspended, pending inquiry, because an in-industry advert for a building-clothes company, in which she appears in a sex scene (variously described as steamy or soft-porn), appeared on YouTube and was enjoyed by her pupils. Parents have declared her unfit to teach and called for her to be sacked forthwith… although she hasn’t killed anyone, slept with a kid and has presumably passed the CRB check. All she did wrong was leave a record of her legal past activities for all to see and now it’s coming back to bite her on the ass**. Does this mean Greta Scacchi shouldn’t be allowed to teach kids? What about Kevin Spacey’s workshops for kids at the Old Vic- has he not done sex scenes? So, while some blogs enjoy anonymity and can vent to their heart’s content, should the rest of us monitor everything we say or write- in fact make sure our lives are entirely blameless in case we change career? And what of Chip’s persistent attempts at career suicide? (Sorry Chip! :)

So if you’re still reading this and, I haven’t sapped either your soul or your strength, maybe you could share some thoughts on the following…

• Why did you start blogging and why do you continue?
• How do you decide what to blog about?
• Do you write straight out or pre-plan what you’re going to write.
• Do you censor yourself?

…and that’s that. Thanks for reading! :)

*Try and ignore that it’s a really terrible and sexist advert.
**There is an entirely different discussion to be had about how and why an increasingly liberal society has become increasingly judgemental and prone to leap straight for the portable gallows!

My Little Empire

I just had another look at the second from last post and realised how terribly Victorian it all sounded. Like some long dead explorer’s diary entry…

‘…a strange and terrible melancholy has settled over all since we finished the last of Oates for our morning repast. I fear this could take some explaining back in the Mother country. Will have to think of something heroic to put in journal… and something new for the pot…’

So, the melancholy has lifted a touch and so on and so forth. Yadda, yadda, yadda. Time to stop whining.

The good news of the week has been the announcement of the new Bond Title, ‘A Quantum Of Silence’ (for those who live under a rock… on Mars… or just have better things to do). Which must have made everybody smile and scratch their collective heads in equal measure (for more ribaldry see here). And there’s a date posted for Portishead 3 (14-04-08).

The sad news of the week, though, has to be the death of the talented Heath Ledger. While Batman 2 has been filmed and, presumably, will be released on schedule, this does lead to the strong possibility that Terry Gilliam’s film The Imaginarium Of Doctor Parnassus is in jeopardy.

Shiny thing of the week has to be Bjork’s Declare Independence Package. The first physical single from her latest LP. The package bears a striking similarity to a Babushka Doll… I’m not sure I’ve managed to get to the heart of it all yet!

For good or ill, UCT now has a full story which is currently (and hastily) being typed up: whether it’s any good is another matter entirely but it does have some characters and a purpose; and a beginning, a middle and an end which are all probably plus points in the general scheme of things….

…and my Gran found an old photo of my Great-Great-Grandfather taken, we think, in the 1890’s. He looked somewhat like Elgar with an enormous moustache. This sort of thing (direct-ish contact with history) always appeals to me. He worked in a pin-mill apparently (i.e. a mill that made steel pins of various sizes from lengths of steel wire).

Vienna

Vienna, 1981. Directed by Russell Mulcahy.

…a strange melancholy seemed to descend upon me over the last weekend and has not yet lifted. Maybe it’s the time of year… I don’t know. However, I’ve been trying to catch up with all your blog-posting that I’ve been missing over the last couple of weeks and you’re all so disturbed insane eccentric amusing that it’s been a pleasure and perked me up somewhat. But I thought I’d foist some of my melancholy onto you. Like a cold. Aren’t you lucky?

I suspect I’ve been thinking of the past and future just a little bit too much of late. I’ll not bore you with the details; so, broadly, I’ve been thinking on the funerals I’ve been to over the years… when it hit twenty I stopped counting and then started running through the people and all the things you should have said, all the things you shouldn’t and all the things that can now never be. These kinds of days always remind me of the Ancient Mariner’s lament. On top of this I’ve been thinking on the Screenwriter’s Festival; to go or not to go…

Vienna has been running through my head for the last couple of days… I’d completely forgotten about it and, despite having loved the song for many years, I’ve not got a copy*. It was always around when I was younger and I can’t believe how long ago it actually was. Of course, back then I didn’t realise where the image system and reference points came from… turns out to be all the films I’ve watched since! Strangely, while the song itself is inspired by the brilliant The Third Man** (1949, Carol Reed; Sp: Graham Greene) the promo itself, I think, reminds me far more of a great Burt Lancaster film, The Killers** (1946, Robert Siodmak; Sp: Anthony Veiller, Richard Brooks, John Huston)... but I’d have to check. I was staggered to find that the promo was directed by Russell Mulcahy. It's become very easy to mock 80's things but how much of current popular culture will look patently absurd in twenty years…

*I’ve just realised- I think I was invaded by the trailers for Ashes To Ashes…
**Despite all evidence to the contrary, I do actually like some films… both of these are brilliant: The Third Man being one of the greatest films ever made and if you don’t agree may all your toast burn ever so slightly for the next seven days!