Channel Zero #7

Well, what a week… everything suddenly found itself exciting about four months ahead of projections. Much has been done, films have been seen, journeys have been made, people have been met, A Pitch In Time was finally entered, comments have been read and lovely people have spoken!

Right, a post… Though I reckon I’ll be trying to be a little shorter due to yet another really stoopid injury. I cannot understate how grateful I am to the Flying Spaghetti Monster, Yahweh, Jehovah, Jove or any other Supreme Being for my not catching colds, flu, plague, whatever especially given my propensity for rendering myself all daddaky via the medium of the perilous everyday object. On Monday I managed to dislocate the top joint of my right thumb and that was just plain annoying… the reason is so embarrassingly banal that I’ll not go into it- instead we’ll assume I was wrestling wild bears, thank you very much. Anywhen, a little ice, cold water and patience and in it popped… and all I’m left with is the sort of minor sort of throb shown when cartoon characters hit their thumbs with hammers. Currently, I’m lacquered in Ibuleve. I'm thinking of selling the format to Channel 4: I'd be calling it 'Relocation, Relocation, Relocation'. The good news is that its affected neither of my typing fingers; the bad news is that the only thing that’s previously set me above the cats was my opposable thumb but now they just sit around me laughing uncontrollably! Bastards. :)

Finally, this week, at the last minute I decided I really ought to put in something for the Screenwriters Festivals ‘A Pitch In Time’ thing… a couple of Pitches went in about eleven on the Friday night. They’re not particularly brilliant due to the last minute nature but in the end if you don’t try you can’t fail! More seriously, I think there are issues: in the seriously unlikely event that I should get through to the shortlist there would be the whole getting up on stage thing and that would be a little unsettling. And I know that audience: they’ll be well armed… tomatoes, cabbages… spanners… grenades… they claim they only have them for research but what else are they meant to do with them afterwards?

Misreading of the week: “Expert shoplifters” on the back of a van outside of Oxford… that’s just blatant thought I. Er, not really when they’re actually “Expert shopfitters”!

Music Of The Week…

…well it’s just a single solitary track without a video… but what a track! The video’s just some rather obvious pictures that have been added for instructional purposes. It’s been being given away with this last weeks NME (without irritating annnouncer at the end)… and what is this wondrous track… the Manics’ cover version of Umbrella, that’s right the Rihanna song. And it works damn well. Simply because they took it seriously.

Television
Short and sweet: the Panorama on bottled water proved what I suspected… that bottled water is inherently pointless and evil… possibly. And the vanguard brand from the 70’s has to be possibly the vilest drink since the dawn of time. The stuff in the tap’s fine by me. With a rather more tenuous connexion… while the Daily Mail may be the epitome of evil, worse even than Hitler (*joke*), their campaign against plastic bags can only be applauded and welcomed- which will save some turtles, whales, seals and birds from horrible deaths. The Mail, after all, speaks both to and for one of the only groups that this Government cares about now: the so-called Middle England… the only other group they care about more is the super-rich especially if they have non-dom status! And you’ll never stop them from eating turtles!

My suspicions about The Last Enemy have been proved correct: the pace has picked up dramatically, there’s more tension and the increased presence of Robert Carlyle has injected much needed energy. Ashes To Ashes has seemingly bedded in and I’ve managed to put Life On Mars from my mind while watching… I assume that this can only indicate it’s acquired a life and identity of its own. The Neutron bomb conspiracy episode proved a bit of a cracker. The increasingly creepy presence and activities (watching over the sleeping Alex, creeping into her room, etc.) of the Pierrot is starting to worry me about a possible future direction that they may be heading with it: I sincerely hope my fears aren’t well-founded.

…and fair play to Kenneth Branagh, Mark Kermode and Miramax for showing the ‘missing’ Danny Boyle film, Alien Love Triangle at La Charrete, Gorseinon. Genuinely touching.

TV or not TV? That is a question…*

Well, Film4 is showing two weeks, solid, of British films so that’s a good starter. They will be giving a chance to lucky digital viewers to sample some of the best British (and in some cases all-time) films including the original caper The League Of Gentlemen, Local Hero, Withnail & I and a brace of Powell & Pressburger masterpieces A Matter Of Life And Death and Black Narcissus.

Saturday
BBC2: 9.30 pm: Gavin & Stacey: the entire first series of this fine comedy series back-to-back. If you’ve not seen this then, to be honest, you must live under a rock; if you watched it and hated it then clearly you hate television… maybe… or just have different taste… which just happens to be wrong! Hmm! Gavin & Stacey really is wonderful stuff relying on a set of clear human characters involved in situations which are all to familiar; beautifully written and acted and entirely lacking in that maliciousness that often afflicts comedy. (Available here and here so now you have no excuses.)

BBC4: 10.00 pm: Sweet Smell Of Success: Alexander Mackendrick’s cyanide love-letter to the New York scene.

Sunday
BBC2: 9.00 pm: The Last Enemy

Monday
BBC2: 8.30 pm: A Good Woman: Filmed Oscar Wilde play…

BBC1: 9.00 pm: Life In Cold Blood: Part 5: last chance to see…

Film4: 11.05 pm: Dog Altogether: Paddy Considine’s recent Bafta-winning short film.

Film4: 1.05 am: Shane’s World: Three short films by Shane Meadows.

Tuesday
BBC2: 9.00 pm: Horizon: Are We Alone In The Universe?

Film4: 9.00 pm: Oliver Twist: the new 2005 Polanski-Harwood version.

BBC2: 11.20 pm: Mad Men: the big new series of the week…

Wednesday
BBC3: 10.40 pm: Mrs In-Betweeny: is this going to leave the audience dumbstruck for the all the right or the wrong reasons?

More4: 9.00 pm: This Is Civilisation: New arts documentary series.

Thursday
Film4: 7.00 pm: A Matter Of Life And Death: Quite simply one of the finest films ever made by some of the finest film-makers ever made: Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger.

BBC1: 9.00 pm: Ashes To Ashes: of course…

BBC2: 9.00 pm: That Mitchell And Webb Look: turns out Thursdays can be funny!

BBC2: 11.20 pm: Ideal: Exhibit B: the third series transplanted surgically from BBC3…

Friday
Film4: 7.00 pm: Black Narcissus: another masterpiece from Powell And Pressburger.

BBC2: 9.00 pm: Last Orders: the documentary starting the BBC’s ‘White Season’.

BBC4: 10.00 pm: Motor City’s Burning: Detroit From Motown To The Stooges

BBC2: 12.35 pm: Doomwatch: the film from the BBC series.

*Quite possibly said by an actress to a bishop or vice versa… we can only wait until the Fake Sheikh exposes this entanglement!

Song Of A Wayfarer

“Home again, home again, jigitty jig, good evening JP.”

…was what I was singularly not welcomed back with… the one cat looked at me accusingly and the others just said ‘meh’ and went back to sleep… pragmatic things, cats, they care not who serves them as long as the quality of the service remains undiminished…

Of course, I completely neglected to mention I was going anywhere, didn’t I? I am a very person and shall pay someone to spank me later: did I say that out-loud? So, effectively I disappeared off the face of the earth for a while longer… in my defence, the trip did come upon me with something of a hurry. I went ‘Oop North’ for a week. ‘Oop North’ is like the West Country except colder, wetter and lumpier. And by God was it wet. Very wet. And at least it wasn’t that London… which is like nothing on earth and more akin to that which was thought under it: it’s loud, noisome, claustrophobic, dirty, too light at night and just too full of damn people who move too damn fast… often with your cash and cards… or with the blood-smeared knife they’ve just stabbed you with. No offence to all them lovely Londoners out there but how do you cope with it? My money’s on drinking. Anyway, you may just have guessed I’m not a big city sort of person. Except Leeds. Leeds is alright. To visit…

Right, so, my trip was a resounding success for a multitude of reasons. I have come to the conclusion that I have access to that most elusive and desired of things, that which I believe to be called ‘the writer buddy’. Then I journeyed further North, through the ice-fields and snow-storms, battling polar bears and militant penguins, to the city known only as Leeds where I caught up with some old (and hardy) friends. Also did some shopping aided by finding a shop closing down and selling off Tartan DVDs at two pound a time.

The most important part of the trip, however, was the discussion of UCT which, as I have expanded upon previously, has been languishing somewhat due to a lack of a sufficient ending. So, I had a decent conversation about the piece and suddenly things started to fall together mentally and, during a late night showing of Cape Fear, I worked up the day’s thoughts into a fair schematic of the ending. It’s not perfect by a long shot but is an ending; reasonably nifty and gives the rest of the story something to work towards and to which be tailored. On presentation of this to writer-munki it received a seal of approval and means I can now go full steam ahead… of course, he may just have been saying that to get me to never speak of this matter again. My other concerns are now taken up with whether the rest of the piece is too obvious (I can’t tell because I know how the story ends) and by the lack of a ticking clock. Ticking clocks aren’t essential but are recommended and create artificial tension where none otherwise exists.

I did a double bill in the main Leeds fleapit*: this is noteworthy as I tend not to go to cinemas as it means, firstly, expense; secondly, communing with humans, which gives me the heebie-jeebies and, lastly, means lurking in a darkened room for two hours with humans, any one of whom may well be heavily armed…** The films viewed were I Am Legend (2007, Francis Lawrence; SP, Mark Protosevich, Akiva Goldsman) and Enchanted (2007, Kevin Lima; SP, Bill Kelly). The former is a fine film- one of those ‘don’t mention the vampire’ stories that I think must have started with Channel 4’s excellent 1998 series Ultraviolet. Exciting, good jump moments, the always entertaining Will Smith, vampires, suspense: a thoroughly enjoyable film. Also worth mentioning, which has probably been mentioned ad nauseam in serious film magazines is the intriguing politico-religious subtext (not so sub- in some places). Ground Zero is mentioned at least three times, for example, and, while this term existed pre-9/11, the current connotations of the term can only draw the mind to the War Against Terror connexion. The continual battening down of hatches and pulling down of shutters; the withdrawal from the world: all these lead to a clear post-9/11, W.A.T. reading of the film… the nearest and clearest antecedent to I Am Legend seemed to me less The Omega Man and more The Village. If this is how Americans are currently feeling then it is concerning as, while I may not approve of everything the US does globally, I do know that this world more needs a co-operative, interacting and friendly US than not. And anyway all the Americans I’ve ever met have been thoroughly nice, decent and generous people: admittedly all these have passports and leave the country and are not those who stoned the Top Gear team! Personally, I’ve never been a big admirer of The Omega Man (1971, Boris Sagal; SP, John William Corrington, Joyce Hopper Corrington); it seems too ‘easy’ a film; too glib and just too ‘Hestony’. My real surprise came a couple of years back upon finding a copy of The Last Man On Earth (1964, Ubaldo Ragona; SP, William F. Leicester, Richard Matheson, Furio M. Monetti, Ubaldo Ragona) with Vincent Price; Price succeeds in curing the ham, the sparse setting and black and white photography producing a genuinely bleak and eerie feel which is entirely missing in The Omega Man and, to a lesser extent, I Am Legend. I would still adduce by dint of acting, direction, production values (etc.) that I Am Legend is by far the superior version, but assert that The Last Man On Earth should not be overlooked- and it does have the imprimatur of the original author. I am told by the chap I saw the Will Smith version with that the new film’s ending is completely different to the novel and inverts, changes and ultimately loses the essential point of the book. I wouldn’t know…

Enchanted, the second in the double bill, was something of a contrast… and I don’t care what mirth this choice provokes! It was that or The Kite Runner but at 11pm on a Saturday night 3 hours or Afghan misery isn’t high up the list of things you might be wanting to watch. There’s less to say about it apart from that it’s fun, enjoyable, doesn’t take itself too seriously and forced me to exit the cinema smiling… but that may also have been relief that I hadn’t been brutally stabbed in the dark!

So, after seven hundred miles of driving, the shocking discovery that if I empty the petrol tank and have to refill it this now costs over sixty quid… and to any curious Americans who’ve stumbled their way here that would be one hundred and twenty of your shiney dollars whereas the equivalent petrol at US pumps would probably have cost me about five dollars... or something... but I now have a bag of very cheap DVDs of probably very good films and an ending to UCT! So, all in all... a pretty good trip...

On coming home I discovered that now, not only does Gordon Brown want to know everything about you during life, he now wants possession of your body after death… his plan sounds good in theory but consider the implications: the State will own you for spare parts- like buying a second vintage car for parts. And they can now use pretty much anything: when you die you’ll need not so much a large coffin as a small Tesco carrier bag. But how long will it be before the State asserts ownership over you during your lifetime: claiming a lung, a kidney, a chunk of liver or a few pints of claret as and when required? Oh, and now we’re going to be force-fed cloned animals…

…but on the plus side a small herd of rare (and cheap eBay) vampire films had arrived for me when I got back… which was nice.

…and I brought the wet weather back with me… which wasn’t. We’re now facing Flood II: The Sequel. What fun. Don’t tell anyone I’m to blame… I do so hate it when the villagers hove into view with their pitchforks and torches…

*It’s not actually very fleapit-ish… it’s highly swanky and comfortable.
**I saw that documentary called The ABC Murders…

New Year’s D’oh!

…yawn…

…stretch…

…is it 2008 already?

…I seem to have slept for the last week. One too many relatives: I’ll not eat another one. After this ‘holiday’ season I need a vacation.

Well, first thing’s first: a happy new year to all you lovely people! And may all your (legal) hopes and desires be fulfilled this year!

I haven’t had much time to think any randomized musings to post… so I thought, ‘what about telling you some New Year’s Resolutions that I’ve made up’. But I don’t… so I can’t… and I won’t. I’m singularly lacking the resolve for such things.

Right so, what I’m going to attempt in the near future:

• Utilize the most excellent script notes from Mistress Lucy’s House of Correction*. Well, those I definitely agree with! That should keep me out of mischief for a while.
• Finish the first of two treatment story things…
• Finish the second of two treatment story things…
• Write a couple of scripts from them… cunning, huh?
• Become the first person in the history of Oscar to win for an unproduced script: if I don’t win this year I’m going to give up writing…
• Finally quit watching TV… I actually think this every year but ‘they’ just keep making it increasingly likely!
• Make loads of money: unfortunately this means giving up proper scriptwriting and becoming an odious slimy porn baron: how hard can it be (oo-er) to write ‘I’m here to fix the heating’… ‘Ooh, that’s a massive tool’… ‘It’s so hot in here I’ll just have to take all my clothes off’… ‘Nice moustache’… and most erotic of all ‘8 litre quad-turbocharged W16 throwing out 987 horses with a top speed of 253 mph and a 0-60 of 2.46 seconds’… started to drift there…
• ...and, of course, I will continue to obey the every whim of the Kitty Overlords...

And a big thank you to Tom for his invaluable advice to this computer illiterate…

By the way, in answer to my recent request for world-peace via the medium of Nicola Bryant, the Beeb showed Blackadder’s Christmas Carol. My mighty bloginess has the power to change things: it will cause nations to tremble! Or am I being hopelessly over-optimistic? Anyway, in this Cassandra-like spirit I shall make some predictions for the coming year…

• There will be more soap operas…
• Their makers will end the pretence of bringing back previously definitively dead characters with ludicrous excuses and a character will return as a bona fide zombie: nobody will notice.
• Serious drama will become ‘just a shining artefact of the past’.
• Andrew Davies will continue to craft fine adaptations; he will take out a copyright on the classic adaptations genre: all will start with an entirely gratuitous sex scene and focus on nubile young women… 71 year old Davies will increasingly seem a D.O.M. (apologies to Dom).
• Catherine Tate, Little Britain and Jam & Jerusalem will continue to be entirely inexplicable.
• Richard Curtis will continue to be a nice chap who writes enjoyable stuff and yet everyone will continue to deride him…
• British cinema will still struggle to break free of its conventions: films that tick all the right boxes; films that tick all the wrong boxes; films in period costume and rom-coms and dramas set in Islington (or similar) which are completely out of touch…
• Jeremy Kyle won’t do the decent thing…
• Sadly, neither will The Sisters Of Mercy…

The Year may play out as follows... but probably won't!

• In January, a critic will finally dare to pipe up that, especially with its new 16 episode series, Shameless is actually just Eastenders with swearing.
• In February, I will fail in my bid to become the first person to win an Oscar for an unproduced screenplay. My failure to give up writing will cause a queue to form at Beachy Head…
• In March, a new Poliakoff drama series will be blamed for a nationwide out break of narcolepsy… later NICE will approve its use as an insomnia cure.
• In April, Big Brother will begin… this time it will never end…
• From May, all the channels on Freeview will continue to change number or completely disappear with a newfound intensity: the first major change will be when all the numbers will be reversed: 23 will become 32, 24 will become 42, etc.; later changes will include moving all the numbers up one place every time there’s an ‘A’ in the month; Channel 12 will start broadcasting every alternate week… This will not make any real difference to anyone** as Freeview is still not broadcast quality.
• In June, Russell Brand will jokingly tell people to jump off a bridge: thousands will…
• In July, Simon Cowell will be extradited to The Hague while…
• In August, the opening ceremony of the 2008 Games will climax with a mass execution of political dissidents (including bloggers), the ritual slaughter of the final Yangtze River Dolphin, the beating of some Tibetans and a cheque being handed directly to the Janjaweed; smog will render many events invisible but still they will be declared ‘the best Games ever’…
• In September, a 3 hour film will be released that features 2 people sitting near motionless, about to talk to each other but never quite manage it… As an Ang Lee film critics will rave: the same would be true if it had been Wes Anderson, Todd Haynes, Alexander Payne and a whole herd of others…
• In October, the US Presidential elections will be cancelled; all pretence will cease and Rupert Murdoch will be crowned King of America…
• In November, an increasingly uncertain Gordon Brown will crack and also hand over power…
• In December, the return of Nicola Bryant to TV will herald outbreaks of world peace…

And finally, I will continue to be nice to everyone…

There’s probably a whole host of other things that I’ve managed to forget… but there's another 12 months to grouse about them.

*That's going to be fun to watch on the search engine results.
**Except those whose analogue signal has been turned off…

OK Computer

So what ‘very important thing’ shall I post about today? Global warming? Economic meltdown? Possible timetable for nuclear war? Nah! Let’s go with a post for people like me… idiots!

Or more precisely, this is a post for all those people like me who are normally quite sane and intelligent* but when confronted by technology turn into a particularly stupid two-year old. And so to a modern morality tale... or at least a modern tale with some sort of moral. Or maybe even a moral with some sort of modernity in its tale. Don’t ask me…

Sometimes my head is filled with luminous luxuriant thoughts brimming full of such magnificence and glory that the sun itself could be dimmed by them; of course, mainly my thoughts tend to burble along like a clear mountain stream with a song that sings of cats, music, cats, film, cats, music, cars, music, cats and cats… And, of course, sometimes my head is just filled with a sort of molasses-like drivel that makes no sense to man nor beast.

Of late my laptop slowed to a crawl… taking upwards of five to ten minutes to load a single web page, so I gave up trying, and at one point became so gummed up that it took over an hour to become unstuck again. Now, does my poor beleaguered head tell me to think through things logically and work out how to resolve them amicably for all parties concerned? Or does it tell me to run round the ramparts wailing and gnashing my teeth waving my fist angrily at a vengeful God? Give you a clue: wasn’t the former. Finally, the brain found some semblance of sanity and remembered what I used to do on a semi-regular basis. Before the rot set in.

And here comes the moral for all the technophobes and fellow idiots out there…

Laptops, and presumably other devices, have various things lurking around inside them. These things are sometimes put there to help. There is a thing called ‘Cache’. This needs clearing out on occasion. There is a thing called ‘cookies’. These should be eaten occasionally and the crumbs disposed into the midden. If you have an ‘Ad-aware’… use it. Oh, and properly turning off ‘the machine’ rather than always just shutting the lid for hibernation is a good way of clearing the virtual memory. And lo, when all these things had been accomplished, it was good: the laptop did work wonderfully and, indeed, the internet was not actually broken.

And the moral of the story? Sometimes it’s not just the technology that’s out to get us; sometimes it’s given a more than adequate helping hand by the fool with the opposable thumbs.

Of course, the good thing about all this is that I’ve been able to take a longer than usual break from the screen which has allowed my eyes to settle back to that whole being able to see properly thing.

So, onto other mindless trivia exciting** news. I’ve spent a good deal of the last couple of weeks worrying about the fluffiest of the cats (known variously as Billy or Flib but known to himself only by his own private cat name… the only thing he actually reacts to is the sound of a mousse lid being peeled back- he just can’t spell!). So, Bill Flib came in and settled to doing absolutely nothing for a couple of days having been out scrapping all night… He’d only managed to get a hole carved out of him the size of a marble… no blood but the world’s largest quantity of vile smelling pus. And so a trip to vet to get it looked at and a second trip to the vet because I decided to worry unnecessarily. The vet cleaned the wound with a cotton-bud and the thing went in and under the skin about an inch: watching inanimate objects entering living flash where they didn’t ought is a genuinely bizarre sight. So for a while he was more a pusycat. I was very surprised at how fast this managed to heal up: two weeks to go from gaping wound to mere scab. Staggering!

Other exciting*** non-news: a CD bought on the highly addictive eBay arrived. The Best Of X-Mal Deutschland, apparently pressed in Brazil^ but bought from a nice chap in Poland. Took a grand total of 5 days to arrive which is far faster than most Brits can manage. It’s very good- how’s that for reviewing prowess? And also arriving was a nice 5-disc Stravinsky set (Orchestre de la Suisse Romande conducted by Neeme Järvi) which was a present to me from me. And I’ve gone back to ‘Untitled Conspiracy Thriller’ (UCT) with the intention of making it work properly this time. I’ve gone back to first principles and the entire plot is now on small scraps of paper pinned to a board. Currently, the major problem is the missing last ten minutes: I don’t particularly want to ‘do a Schrader’. This ending issue also seems to have flummoxed those who’ve trodden this road before me. I know these things: I checked.

And in the immortal words of Columbo ‘just one more thing’: does anybody know if the woman in the Bold 3-in-1 advert is the lovely Nicola Bryant, formerly of Doctor Who…?

*You’ve never met me… you can’t contradict!
**Legal note: I’m using the word in the loosest possible meaning of the word.
***Again with the lies!
^Not sure how legitimate this actually is but the quality’s good as are the songs.

Darling, You’re Meme

…word has reached my mountain lair that I have been ‘memed’. This means I have inveigled my way into being accepted… and thus the first stage of my plan for ‘total global domination within the next five years’ is now complete! Mwahahahaha! Until I reveal the list… then you’ll all just laugh at me! Actually, this turned out to be far harder than I thought it would as I realised I considered what I thought I was proud of deeply lame! So, here, in no particular order, are ‘five things about myself that other people may consider lame, but this writer is secretly proud of’.

I have never willingly taken illegal drugs. Why does this make me lame? Because I kind of assume that pretty much everybody else nowadays is regularly getting off their faces!* Because of this I have been able to reach the following conclusion...

I have never understood fashion. For example, why would I need a new pair of jeans with a different fit just because some gonk on a magazine thinks I do? My old jeans work fine- battered but comfortable, why buy new while they're still functional?

This applies to things thrown up by technology. Facespace? Mybook? Friends Dehumidified? Not a clue! I got my first CD player in 1993 (so I could listen to the Under The Gun and Tower of Strength CD singles amongst other things). It sounded great in ’93. It sounds great in ’07. Why would I need to upgrade? I don’t own an iPod; I will never own an iPod… I want to be aware of my surroundings. Then there are computer games: I played one in the 80’s then once again maybe a year ago. What on earth is so endlessly fascinating?**

However, I do have a mobile phone… it has a dial^. And if I was a complete Luddite you’d be reading this when the carrier pigeon knocked on your door. Fashion: an excuse to try and sell me things I neither want nor need just to keep the economy growing. Not being interested in any of this fashion stuff frees up a lot of time for other far more useful things like...

I have catalogued all my Vinyl & CDs and all my Videos & DVDs. Really. Lame. Until you consider the numbers involved. I don’t have a deep desire to start duplicating things just to avoid appearing geeky! Everything is then sub-divided and cross-referenced just to increase the lameness of the whole endeavour. On the other hand, the setting up of these lists was how I taught myself to type without looking at the keyboard. Which I’m also quite proud of… even if I can only do it on a flat laptop-style keyboard! This has no bearing on the fact that...

I seem to prefer the company of cats to humans. They’re self-contained, can be self-sufficient, they’re smarter, friendlier, more honest, less greedy, better conversationalists, don’t get drunk and keep themselves cleaner… albeit in the most disgusting of ways. Of course, this excludes all members of the Scribosphere, family members and potential employers who are all wonderful, wonderful people. I’m backing the ‘opposable thumbs for cats’ campaign! When we recognize their place as our Overlords the world will finally be set to rights! I have never catalogued my mogs but they do help with the fact that...

I believe in Ghosts. Not the nice Hippy-New Age kind that come with crystals and chanting and then do the dusting with the corners of their sheets. Oh no. These are the type that cause cats to stare into space and hiss. These are the evil spirits that throw crockery, poke you in the eye and hide the teabags (could there be a greater Evil than that?). However, I'm safer than the rest of you because I know they're out to get us. Thankfully, they won't sneak up on me because...

I never switch off. My brain is continually fizzes. Everything is there to be learned from or studied. Films, TV, magazines, books, CD’s, CD booklets, the internet, watching people… thoughts and ideas explode every second and every single one must be written down. This means I never need to take drugs...

I must sound suitably lame by now? Did I pass the audition? Of course, nothing I do is actually lame… everybody who doesn’t do what I do is! Isn't it the truth that one man's meat is another man's poison. It should also be noted that most of the music I have collected could well be considered ‘lame’…

…I shall put the mark of the meme upon…. Valentine Suicide, Rob, MJ, Tom and the person who keeps arriving here via this search or alternatively Andy…

*I chose those opening words very carefully because about 20 years ago I was ONCE givena mug of hot chocolate spiked with a well-known resin by a ‘friend’ for ‘fun’. It was all a waste of time as I’d already drunk the best part of a bottle of Smirnoff. I just fell asleep. The 'friend' soon became an ‘ex-friend’ and I never felt a need to try it again. I also recently discovered the painkillers I was prescribed for my dislocated knee a decade or so ago were Class B but that was all legit as there was a prescription.

**Is this Halo 3 thing that everybody mentions a computer game of some kind?

^That’s a lie… it’s just two tin cans on a line of string!

Houston We Have A Problem! The Eagle Has Landed On The Red Planet!

...hopefully!

And lo! It came to pass that I got the old bounce-back for the 'ubiquitous competition'. So, I just re-sent (not resent- I don't hold grudges against it) my submission to the Red Planet People. (Martian Men! Not very covert declaring yourself as such but, hey, now we know there's Life On Mars.)

My submission is a 'supernatural thriller'. When I'm feeling smug I think it's the best thing since the invention of the tea bag, nay, the opposable thumb. Ah, the opposable thumb, the only thing that keeps us safe from our Feline Overlords. When I'm feeling less smug I spot the major problem: the words. There's too many of them. ('Very good, my dear Mozart, but far too many notes.')

Actually, there are 3 possible problems, none of which work in its favour:

1. Overwritten: too many words. Conjure up atmosphere sure but do I really require quite so many words to do it?
2. Passive Protagonist: if it was up to me (and it is- see not only smug but also arrogant) this wouldn't be a problem. Moreover, the protag. isn't actually passive... they're actively seeking to be passive... and they're not very good at it! (Conflict too!)
3. No Clear Antagonist: I shouldn't even have to explain why I'm annoyed at myself for thinking how bad this is: spot the antagonists in The Sixth Sense, Jacob's Ladder or The Station Agent and a herd of others.

I'm not going to try and sort these out for the time being. I have other things I want to be doing right now. To be precise, I want to write a 'conspiracy thriller'... with ordinary working class people in it. That in itself is surely controversial and political. Everything of this ilk that I see is full of people I find hard to identify with: love Enemy Of The State, Three Days Of The Condor, The Parallax View, The Pelican Brief, The China Syndrome et al. but I do find it hard sometimes to sympathize with the Lawyers, CIA Agents, etc. who populate these films and they all seem to come from rather rich backgrounds. So, I was thinking of doing something about someone from a more small-scale background: something about an underdog.

One of us.

Not one of them.

"This one's for the freaks, you're so beautiful." -Underdogs, MSP