Blue White Blue White Blue

The peck, the homie handshake, and other social poisons

2012-02-28T14:27:00.006Z

Is there anything worse than feeling socially obliged to wrap your arms around a stranger's shoulders, flutter a kiss against their cheek, and pull back as if nothing ever happened?

When I was little, I was sick of being kissed on the cheek by adults, and my mum said – you don't actually have to kiss them, you just have to make the noise – mwah – and sort of bump cheeks. And I remember thinking, then what's the point? What's the point of kissing someone's cheek if you're just pretending? Why do people think it's normal to go around pretending to kiss people?

Then when I was a teenager, I was saying goodbye forever to the 30-something couple whose dog I walked, and from her a hug and a kiss was easy, but from him? A handshake? But that'd be too formal after I'd let go of his hugging-kissing wife; but I couldn't hug or kiss him, surely, because he was a bloke, and kind of good-looking, and I was a teenage girl, and it'd be awkward and strange, and I could tell similar thoughts were going through his head. Then when I walked away, I thought that because I liked him just as much as I liked the wife it was a shame I'd never felt able to say goodbye to him properly; whatever the hell “properly” meant.

Then just last year, as an adult, I was in London at a very Londony meeting, and I had to say goodbye to three people, strangers up until that evening. With the woman it was a case of – are we at a peck-on-the-cheek stage, or have we been promoted to hugging? Ah, both I see! You have initiative – I like that. But with the men, one was as smooth as well-whipped angel delight and moved easily in for a handshake-with-kiss, but the other seemed set for handshake alone, and I thought, that can't be right. I've bonded with them both equally. It would seem weird to kiss one and not the other. So I initiated handshake-with-kiss (and – though I can't be sure – he said “oh, okay then!”). I swear, I analysed that meeting's farewells for about an hour afterwards, when I probably should've been dwelling on all the exciting things we'd actually been meeting about.

There's a running theme in the brilliant BBC comedy Look Around You of the male presenters delivering awkward kisses to female guests. Kisses that often land in the guest's eye or on their nose. I once witnessed an attempted cheek-kiss that resulted in severe bruising. Surely nobody likes all these unpredictable methods of hello and farewell.

It seems to be worse if you're a woman, because you're expected to plant lips on every bugger that crawls into view, but men have their own difficulties. There's one I've observed especially in guys my own age. One guy goes for this handshake:

But the other goes for this:

Which can result in tangled fingers. And often the homie handshake shown above heralds a one-shoulder-clap hug, which when unexpectedly offered looks more like a move from Strip the Willow.

Barack Obama is often obliged to do the homie handshake, and in doing so he looks stupid. Because he's a 50-year-old politician, dur. In London I observed an older black man in a suit being pulled in for the homie handshake, and he sorted of muttered “oh – well – okay”. Forget the enormous history of oppression and racism; being obliged to do homie handshakes is a plight that needs more sympathy.

To summarise, every member of the human race needs an agreed-upon method of hello and farewell. Here are some suggestions.

1. Clap your hands firmly on both their shoulders. Because of the prerequisite eye contact involved, this is a great moment to say something deeply intense, like “and good luck”, or “I love you”, or “you will never be King”.

2. Take their hand and twirl them. They can then do the same to you. Longevity of the relationship can result in more twirls. Both parties can disperse feeling dizzy and satisfied.

3. Leap dramatically into their arms. A dangerous but interesting method of greeting or farewell, as there is no knowing who is going to jump first.

4. Ruffle their hair. Fond, sweet, and easy to perform, this method will also remind them not to spend so long on their stupid hairstyle.

5. Do something overwhelmingly inappropriate. Slap them hard in the face, or honk an intimate part of their body and make a honking sound. This method is designed specifically for people who never want to see each other again, such as at certain job interviews, awkward dates, or police interviews. It saves us having to utter obligatory phrases, such as “we'll be in touch” or “we must do this again” or “yes officer I killed him, but only because he tried to homie-handshake me”.

Ricky Gervais and the battle of the fans

2012-01-31T12:02:00.005Z

Any stand-up comedian who mimes typing at a typewriter when mocking the internet doesn't understand the internet. And should probably update his imaginary props.

I'm a fan of Ricky Gervais. He flings around a wild silliness that works on a hundred levels, he's made cultural statements that millions of people listen to, and, as a rule, he is bloody funny. Ricky Gervais has blown the scalp off the comedy industry by becoming only slightly less famous than the Queen of England. And, like the Queen, he seems to live a life so sheltered from the norm that he couldn't possibly truly relate to the plebs. Not these days anyway.

At least it seems that way from his blog. Every second post is about his enormous success, spending endless cash in Harrods or The Ivy, travelling first class to New York, having dinner with David Bowie, or buddying up with American superstars. I understand that most celebrity blogs are used for marketing purposes, and Ricky Gervais garners more attention the more he attaches himself to big names. But he's already extremely rich and famous; he doesn't need the blog, and therefore must get pleasure out of it or he wouldn't keep it. He enjoys sharing stories about his wealth and power. His aura of happy carelessness means he should write about whatever he wants, and as a fan I read whatever he wants, which means I stumble across the wealth and power stuff a lot. His blog never used to be about that; most of the posts used to be photos either of his cat or of him pulling stupid faces. He used to make fun of the person he would one day become. And he can pretend he's being satirical when he revels in his celebrityism, but can you really tell me he doesn't seem to think he looks cool in this?

Or this?

Is there really any explanation as to why he stands on such a dizzyingly high pedestal? What has he done that's so divine? Okay, The Office. Extras was also good, but so was, say, Black Books, and Dylan Moran (who wrote and starred in Black Books) hasn't got a pedestal. Gervais's stand-up comedy is funny; but then, Dylan Moran's is funnier. Gervais also did a stream of crappy cameos that he previously satirised in Extras, and a couple of glib American movies that I've forgotten already. He also did Life's Too Short, which was utterly without joy. His "discovery" of Karl Pilkington has also contributed to Ricky Gervais's popularity, but that's thanks to Pilkers; not Gerv.

From what I can see, the primary reason for Ricky Gervais's great success is his exposure. So he should be grateful for the fans he has. But instead, he's trying to war with them.

I say "trying to" because from what I can see, Ricky Gervais's reaction to his fans is a kind of everlasting flame war. He digs through the internet and finds the most obscure little articles that criticise him, then he drags them up on his blog and beats the journalist into a fine spreadable paste. Then he scans through thousands of tweets on Twitter and replies to those that insult him.

He also reads fan forums. Yeah, I know! You want to tell him to stop! No! NO! No, he mustn't! If you're famous, don't look yourself up! The anonymity of the internet stretches over an enormous scale, from revolutionary shared intelligence to serious physical danger. Fan forums are somewhere in between those two. I wrote a stupid dissertation on the topic of fandom last year, and one of the oh-super-original findings was that fan-idol interaction really doesn't work. It's strange. It makes normal people strange. And Ricky Gervais goes to his fan forum, Pilkipedia, and reads criticism about his work. Then he goes back to his blog and indirectly abuses the people who wrote the posts. He might as well post on the fan forum himself. For all we know, he does.

I've been on Pilkipedia for about five years, though have made about that many posts there. It's a very large community, and isn't comprised of the geeky teenagers Ricky Gervais insults it for. His most critical fans are smart (if pretentious) media types, and they write it for fun, not because they hope he's watching. The ones who hope he's watching are the ones who desperately agree with him, possibly in the hope that he'll contact them saying "omg you witty bastard; would you like a job?"

So in discovering that his fans don't love everything he does, Ricky Gervais has gone on the assault. On his blog, and on Twitter. And who follows his blog and Twitter feed? His fans. Who don't love everything he does. So obviously the fella is deluded and thinks he's speaking to people other than those who actually want to read what he has to say. Maybe he thinks he's only speaking to celebrity fans. Maybe, in the end, they're the only ones that matter.

When not to apply for a job

2012-01-25T14:45:00.002Z

I got as a far as writing “Dear Sir/Mad” before I realised there was something seriously wrong with the company I was applying to.

The website offers beautifully-written articles to clients. It's hiring writers at $5 per 500 words. But the website boasts that all its articles are written by one person – so I suppose it's ghost writers he's looking for. And the cost a client must pay to have a 500 word article written for them is... $60. So, Sir gets $55 for doing nothing. Lucrative.

Then you take a look at his testimonials.

(That's not a euphemism by the way)

“Dear Sir, it was a pleasure to work with you” - Molly A.

“Dear Sir, I expected good articles, but these were perfect” - Thomas H.

“Dear Sir, your website is fantastic, it was a pleasure to use it” - Martin P.

“Dear Sir, thank you so much for your articles, they were a pleasure to read” - Sam T.

“Dear Sir, I have never spent such a worthwhile $60 in my life” - Sarah R.

“Dear Sir, I can see why you need to hire more writers – to come up with some quotes that weren't clearly all written by you. Still, congratulations on your money-making scheme; it's better than a kick in the testimonials” - Eleanor B.

A Game of Thrones: it's mainly about boobies

2012-01-24T09:01:00.004Z

I finished A Game of Thrones last night, the first book in the A Song of Ice and Fire series, and it didn't take me long to figure out that it's a junk book. Not like Harry Potter or Agatha Christie books, which are at least written with a bit of glee – A Game of Thrones is more like The Da Vinci Code, pretentious and devourable.

Having loved the Game of Thrones TV series last year, nothing was going to match up to it, least of all the book it was based on. The TV series is more than marginally superior, giving layers of depth to characters such as Ned and Tyrion that are just never seen in the book. In the TV series Sean Bean's Lord Ned is world-weary and understated, but in the book he's stupid and has nothing to him. And the TV series obviously has master storytellers on its side, which for all his admirable perseverance with a highly-realised world, George R R Martin is not.

This surprised me, because George R R Martin is a screenwriter. And you can tell; often his prose is description for a director but with the supposed freedom of his own space. What he describes in one page, a better author could describe fuller in one sentence. And what we're left with in our minds is a series of clear, leisurely, unexciting pictures.

By the way, George R R Martin? Any chance he's influenced by J R R Tolkien? Definitely, but he shouldn't be encouraging the comparison. The book, A Game of Thrones, is original only in so much as it revels in a world bigger than most writers would dare. George R R Martin dared, I think, because he knew he'd created a crowdpleaser and knew he'd be allowed to continue with his world.

A Game of Thrones is a crowdpleaser. Easy-reading for the under tens, but packed with swearing, violence and sex. The sex, especially, is a distraction. Beautiful twelve-year-olds come of age every few pages, whilst “seed” sprays in every direction like a disturbingly sticky fireworks display. But maybe I just haven't read enough books as an adult – maybe it's commonplace for an author to describe a character's breasts instead of her face, which is what George R R Martin does on a regular basis.

I think the idea behind the unoriginality of A Game of Thrones – and maybe unoriginality is too harsh a word – is that by creating a world full of recognisable features, the author can delve into the characterisation without pausing too long to tell us about a bizarre custom or awesome beastie. A Game of Thrones has horse-riding barbarians, fire-breathing dragons, banner-wielding knights in shining armour, and snotty noble boys who think they're valiant but turn out to be whimpering slugs. Kings are warriors, North is cold, and women are walking orifices in pearl necklaces. It's nothing we haven't seen before, but that means we can concentrate on the characterisation... doesn't it? We all have attention deficit disorder, don't we? If we caught sight of something truly original, like – heaven forfend – a medieval fantasy series in which women are equal to men, we'd be so confused we'd collectively drown ourselves in a bucket of liquid sarcasm.

A Game of Thrones should be recognised for what it is – and what it isn't. It's not a literary masterpiece. George R R Martin uses phrases like “he looked like he had a sword up his butt”. He also uses phrases like “he held five-and-twenty years since the day of his birth”. JUST SAY HE'S TWENTY-FIVE YEARS OLD. I would. IT'S ALLOWED.

But what it is is epic. It's a very confident world, so – and I said the same for the brilliant TV series – you're in safe hands. You're free to explore and believe, and turn the pages hungrily because you know there may be no mercy for your favourite character. And there's lots of characters to choose from. It's hard not to have a favourite. Each chapter follows one of the many protagonists, and each chapter heading is that protagonist's name, so it can be 4AM and you reach the next chapter and see who's next and are so tempted to find out what's happening to them that you just keep reading and reading and reading until it's not like you're devouring the book, it's more like the book's devouring you...

Like, you know. A Dragon.

Forbrydelsen & The Killing: the same side of two coins

2011-11-02T18:14:00.004Z

In conclusion, the original is better than the remake. Glad I got that enormous surprise out of the way.

Forbrydelsen is a Danish crime drama about the murder of a teenage girl and the ripple effect of the crime. It came out a few years ago. The Killing is the American remake. I promise not to spoil either of them (so if you comment, please don't give any spoilers yourself!).

I think the only way I can emphasise how brilliant Forbrydelsen is is by telling you that it is better than the world's favourite beacon of untouchable talent: The Wire. Forbrydelsen is better than The Wire.

At first, the American remake, The Killing, just seems like nothing but a very good tribute to Forbrydelsen. The story and characters are the same, even the music is the same, and some of the scenes mirror those in Forbrydelsen, almost shot-for-shot. For instance, the lead detective staring curiously into the forest as she suspects something everyone else has missed. And the father of the victim sobbing wretchedly in the garage toilets to spare his wife the sight. Brilliant scenes written for Forbrydelsen, and (there's no other way to put it) copied in The Killing.

But after laying the foundations with tried-and-tested scenes from Forbrydelsen, The Killing does show confidence in itself and makes its own decisions as the serial progresses.

At the centre of every good detective story is a great detective, and Forbrydelsen has two. Lund and Meyer, who get on like a house with regularly-tested fire alarms.

Lund (left), played by Sofie Gråbøl, is Forbrydelsen's lead. In The Killing she's Linden (right), played by Mireille Enos.

The main difference between Forbrydelsen's Lund and The Killing's Linden is that Lund is doomed. Linden is not. The curse of Lund is that she's devoted to her job too much, and will let herself lose everything as long as she can keep solving puzzles. She consistently shows a borderline autistic failure to communicate, and when a loved one is pouring their heart out to her she'll tell them to shut up, because she's trying to concentrate on the case. Don't they know how important this case is?!

The American Linden, on the other hand, is much more empathetic, and puts serious value on her own life. She's a captive of her job, whereas Lund is a captive of herself. That said, The Killing has so far aired 13 episodes compared to Forbrydelsen's 20 episodes, so maybe Linden's wholeness means she has further to fall.

Lund/Linden has a reluctant partnership with a more aggressive detective. Forbrydelsen's Meyer (left) , played by Søren Malling; The Killing's Holder (right), played by Joel Kinnaman (the lovechild of Ioan Gruffudd and Mackenzie Crook).

The Killing's Holder is a far leap from Forbrydelsen's Meyer, to the point at which it's mildly insulting. Meyer is a bloody good character; why not whip up a tribute act for him? He's the only one who's been left behind and not ripped off. It's demeaning to the character.

Meyer's job is mainly to eat crisps in Lund's car while trying (and failing) to keep her grounded. They clash and hinder one another so much that the consequences are catastrophic, but at times there's a flickering camaraderie between them, and these moments help make the show brilliant. Meyer also injects some essential humour into the show with his almost comically unexpected extra dimensions.

To be fair, the American Holder does inherit this somewhat. Whilst crude Meyer insists upon giving out stellar parenting advice, equally-crude Holder spouts knowledge about butterfly migration.

But Holder is from the vice unit, and only looks complete when he's got a joint between his teeth, and every three seconds sprouts lines like “if you don't tell, homie, your puffy white ass is gonna be in for a long time. Know what I'm sayin'?” Doesn't really work, though. Homies are as likely to put their puffy white asses in Holder's custody as in Meyer's. His easy aggression is one of the reasons why Lund/Linden doesn't like working with Meyer/Holder.

That said, whilst Lund and Meyer have the most platonic male-female relationship since Tinky Winky and Po, it looks to me like Holder is madly in love with Linden. Either that or he feels overwhelmingly sorry for her, even though, to borrow a phrase, he's got his own shit to deal with. A part of me hopes that the writers will go down an unexpected route with them, just to stray from the path already trodden well by Forbrydelsen.

It does do that occasionally, however, with a couple of plotlines that are barely even eluded to in Forbrydelsen. They are my favourite parts in The Killing, simply because I didn't know what was going to happen. But The Killing does try to go for bigger drama, and it's fun, but flattening the subtlety kicks off a few intelligence points.

For instance, The Killing bravely has a character punching a mirror, one of the most unsubtle symbols in storytelling. There's also a muttered whisper of “el diablo” and the insistence that “no. No flowers. Flowers die”. And even though it's clear that the politician character thinks something is wrong and won't have any part in it, he exclaims "it's wrong and I won't have any part in it!"

The parents of the victim in The Killing could have also benefited from more of Forbrydelsen's subtlety.

Michelle Forbes (right) plays a mother who has lost her daughter. But Ann Eleonora Jørgensen (left) plays a mother who has lost her daughter and consequently barely knows how to continue existing.

Bjarne Henriksen (left) and Brent Sexton (right) play the victim's galumphing father in Forbrydelsen and The Killing respectively, but in Forbrydelsen he is softly-spoken and has a mysterious background solidified in The Killing. If series one of Forbrydelsen is anyone's story, it's Theis's, and for that reason the finale of Forbrydelsen is one of the best in TV history. If it goes the same way in The Killing, I think the louder, slightly boring character of Stan will make it less effective.

Its political story also suffers. Forbrydelsen (and subsequently The Killing) has a big political element, led by Copenhagen mayoral candidate Troels Hartmann, who struggles with his scruples. The Killing's Darren Richmond has nowhere near as much allure as a character. Also, for some reason, Danish politics are much more interesting.

But The Killing IS interesting in its own right, and effective, and really really good, and will be more so if it travels further off the trodden path. The two run side by side, Forbrydelsen darker and cleverer, The Killing bigger and brighter.

Series two of Forbrydelsen will be shown on BBC4, with a third series already in production, and The Killing has been picked up for a second season. Knowing American TV shows, it'll be recommissioned forever and ever – which is a good thing.

Cheat

2011-09-13T15:26:00.005+01:00

I left London indefinitely on Saturday, so I'm cheating by writing this post 400 miles from London. Still! I made the rules for the London blog, so if I'm gonna break them it might as well be right at the end.

I've lived in London for a year, and three very packed weeks in 2009, which is why this blog is two years old. I love the city more than everywhere else in the world put together, and the biggest thing I've learned about it is that London is absolutely bloody tiny. If it wasn't tiny, you wouldn't be able to walk across it.

I didn't touch the underground at all in the three weeks I spent in London a couple of years ago, but this time I had an Oyster Card and it is dog-eared. Though last week I was fined for having no money on my Oyster Card. It was the Man's fault. The Man let me through and didn't read the error. Stick it to the Man.

But I always feel safe with the underground – not in the sense that it's secure, because it isn't; but in the sense that there's always one just around the corner, and it'll zip you anywhere. You can't get lost on the underground. That said, it's fun to get lost. So, walk.

My favourite place in 2009 was Camden, because it's all busy and young and stupid. My favourite place now is the South Bank, because it empties your pockets without being violent. It financially kills you but leaves a rose on the pillow. It feels like you're at the centre of the universe, and walking up and down the South Bank it looks to me like everyone else feels the same way too.

The most enjoyable place I imagine living in is Kentish Town, because it's sort of cosy and unified. I realised just the other day that the Banksy piece I saw in Kentish Town was a tribute to king tagger “VOX”, and sure enough I remember seeing about a dozen VOXes in the underpass. Some of the happiest people I've ever met are from Kentish Town.

Elephant and Castle is the grubbiest looking place I've been to. It'd be illegal to keep battery hens in the conditions some human beings are forced to live in. Elephant and Castle is somehow both wide-open and tightly-packed. I've never met anyone from Elephant and Castle.

In contrast there's Piccadilly, which is my least favourite place in London. It looks amazing, and Piccadilly Circus is something at night, but the passers-by are obnoxious, and just walking along the street feels like a damn chore. A chore you have to dress up for.

Westminster is too famous, it feels like you're walking through a postcard bought by a visiting Korean businessman, and to enjoy London's famous parks I think you have to be thoroughly in denial that the countryside actually exists. If you get excited by ponds and grass and duckies, then come to Scotland and you'll be changing your trousers every hour.

Lewisham I spent a year in, and it's big and gross and feels to me like an inferior version of Aberdeen. That doesn't mean I dislike it though. And in New Cross is Goldsmiths campus, which is bricky and good-looking, apart from its trademark tangle-sculpture on the Ben Pimlott building.

Goldsmiths is very alive, liberal, modern and sure-fire, but with fatally chaotic administration. From miscalculating tuition fees, to disabling a computer room on the day of a major hand-in, to having a careers advice service you're only able to book at exactly 9AM, to expiring a Halls of Residence contract a week before a course finishes, I guess the famously innovative methods of Goldsmiths have a negative effect on its less creative areas.

And I don't regret a second of it. I'd do it all again in a heartbeat – this specific university, this specific accommodation, and this specific course.

I love this pointless blog. So I'll try and set it up again, either by getting back to London, or by not calling it a London blog. Maybe it could be a Manchester blog. Or a Bristol blog. Or a Cardiff blog. Or a Congo blog.

Day 350

2011-09-08T12:32:00.001+01:00

"Hello, I'm a married man, both me and my husband have clean tests, I have never slept with anyone else, and I have never had unprotected sex in my life. Can I donate blood?"

The verdict in England, Scotland and Wales is “no”.

"Hello, I'm a married man, both me and my wife have clean tests, I have never slept with anyone else, and I have never had unprotected sex in my life. Can I donate blood?"

The verdict in England, Scotland and Wales is “yes”.

Day 349

2011-09-07T15:05:00.003+01:00

Last night I gatecrashed two private functions at BAFTA, got winked at by a Piccadilly doorman in a top hat, passed Susie from The Apprentice in the street, and accidentally robbed a producer.

Even just walking to the station was miserable, because on Monday I used up a year's supply of walk. And I got drenched in the rain, but by the time I bought an umbrella the rain had stopped. Then I got lost in Piccadilly, which, if you don't already know, is the absurdly swish Westminster street that boasts the Ritz. I usually get a weird satisfaction out of asking people for directions, but every single person I saw walking in Piccadilly looked like the type of people they con on Hustle. The least intimidating person was a 6'10 doorman with white hair, who looked faintly disgruntled as I asked him for directions. I added, “sorry, I had to ask you because you're wearing a top hat”, and he winked at me, stony-faced.

At BAFTA I signed in and walked straight into a private function where snotty men in suits and pink ties were saying “nyahahahahaha” to one another, then walked out of the private function, realising that the people I was supposed to be meeting probably weren't in the snotty suit room.

I met the writers and producer of “8”, a web-series I'm excitedly helping with. I'm writing an email-based storyline, so follow the link and subscribe!

Anyway, it was great to meet and discuss with the three of them (they have enviable personalities and ideas), though the room soon filled up with more suits; a private function was being created around us. We got involved in the canapés.

On the way back, on the underground (as I briefly realised I'd stolen the producer's pencil), there was an announcement I'd never heard before. “Professional beggars must stop impersonating homeless people immediately. To repeat, will professional beggars please stop pretending to be homeless”.

I don't even know what to think about that, let alone say.

Day 347

2011-09-05T17:21:00.007+01:00

I used to walk round London all the time... until I actually came to live here. But seeing as I won't be living here a few days from now, I decided to do a REALLY good one.

Today I walked from Lewisham to Hampstead Heath, which hurt.

Went along Old Kent Road and New Kent Road, a walk I've done before, but God knows why, then crossed the Thames at Westminster Bridge, most of which was taken up by a mysterious security checkpoint, where police officers appeared to be checkpointing empty boxes. Which were then caught by the wind and flew across the busy road.

Meanwhile, down below, David Walliams was swimming the Thames. I didn't see him, but I don't want to see his silly round face doing any more stupid dirty swims. Enough already with the swims. No more swims.

Then I moseyed along Whitehall, through Trafalgar Square (Nelson annoys me, with his hat and mighty plinth), then the length of Charing Cross Road and Tottenham Court Road, and into Camden, which makes my slovenly scruffiness look carefully planned. It's not.

By the time I got to Haverstock Hill and Rosslyn Hill I was wincing with every step and going at roughly the speed of a doughnut rolling up a 90 degree slope. I was gazing longingly at the buses all marked “HAMPSTEAD HEATH”. But I thought, no, no, I can't give up now, I'm almost there, I'm almost there. Oh I wasn't almost there.

When finally the Pret A Mangers turned into genuine mansions, every road swarming with black cars, I was in Hampstead Heath. I limped around a pond and a bit of green, then went, okay, that's enough, I'm not here for a flowery leafy walk in the fake countryside. And got the tube home.

I figured out in total I walked about 12 miles today, including detours (not all of which were purposeful), and have possibly injured myself mildly, but nobody will ever know. It was well worth it though, because although it makes sense to take transport at least just to get over the grubby A roads, if you walk the whole hog, including the grubby A roads, you stumble through literally dozens of neighbourhoods, see a lot of strange buildings, and get to watch thousands of people dashing urgently to and from work and shops and friends and booty calls. And I like to think there's not many people who saw the streets of London as thoroughly as I did today.

OH! And speaking of the streets of London – I finally saw a Banksy! It was just off Tottenham Court Road. I took a photo, but I don't have that plugger inner thing with me, so here's a Google photo of it:

As I blankly experienced my first Banksy, a very small old lady with a walking frame hobbled past it, did a double-take and stared at it for a moment. Then she gave it a tiny nod of agreement. And continued on her way.

I like Banksy much more than I used to ever since seeing Exit Through the Gift Shop, so I was really pleased to see one, seeing as I'd heard the vast majority of them have now disappeared.

Which must be why, in Kentish Town, I saw ANOTHER Banksy! Apparently it appeared only weeks ago:

See how the sunlight bounces off the perspex? Just like he always wanted.

Day 346

2011-09-04T01:10:00.007+01:00

… er, so when I said “see you in August”, I meant “see you in September”. Slip of the tongue. Typo. In fact, you must have misread. It's your fault.

I got back here to London the other day and hung my head in shame at the demands of “W-WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN” from various flatmates, all of whom I'll soundly miss when we all get chucked out of the Halls on the 10th.

Unfortunately, catching up with people means I have to leave my bedroom from time to time, URGH. So I've been utilising bedroom-time well. I ordered nine Greek boys. Actually, I stayed in and watched Ringu. Because Oliver says so.

It still counts as “watching” if I turn the volume almost all the way down, doesn't it? I'll watch it again soon, though the soundtrack is bloody terrifying. I'll have to listen to some whiny American pop music very loudly as I watch it.

I like the psychological thrill and clever twists of horror movies, but I avoid most of them if there's a chance of massive jumps or very vulnerable characters being terrorised. I don't give a crap if a fleshy bronze lead man gets tortured, nor a supermodel with boobs that flop over her shoulders as she flees, but having elderly characters that scream and cry should be out of bounds.

Anyway, Ringu doesn't bother itself with any of that. It's very chilling, but probably the most precise and meticulously structured chills I've ever seen. The opening scene is two young girls enjoying themselves by scaring themselves stupid with tales of a rumoured cursed video. It comes on late at night. If you see it, the phone rings, and a week later you die. The girls act like kids at a sleepover, jumping when the phone rings, and giggling when it's just mum on the other line. Then one nips upstairs for a moment, and the other pads into the sitting room where the TV is flickering...

There's also an unexpected extra depth regarding the girl in the well and the protagonist's reaction to her “plight”. Kind of moving, really. I intend to watch Ringu again, but I've no idea what I'm going to do about the volume, short of going through on Windows Movie Maker and muting every jump moment.........

The other film I saw was Submarine, because the London Film Festival is coming round again, and last year I narrowly missed getting tickets for the press screening of Submarine. It was written by Richard Ayoade, who as an actor I love.

It was very well received by critics.

It's pap.

The biggest problem is that it's pretentious. This means the makers think it's okay to a) not have a story and b) have a “fade to red” at the end of scenes. The 15-year-old protagonist (who I strongly suspect is autobiographical), is pointless and difficult to like, and I can't think of a single reason why I'm expected to care about him. Maybe it's meant to be about a boy's experience. And if so, what boring, stony, pointless experiences “boys” must have.

Being pretentious also means that they think they have the right to attempt timelessness. There is no setting that I can remember. Every scene, interior and exterior, was extremely affected. INTENTIONS flying at you from every direction. Why can't a house just be a house? If you have good characters and a good story, you don't need a meaningless fishtank glowing magical colours in the dim.

By the way, did I mention I only watched two thirds of Submarine before giving up and eating some noodles instead?

Day 282

2011-07-12T14:04:00.007+01:00

The internet is such a DANGEROUS place. Anyway, here's a screen-shot of my bank balance:

So I've replaced my five fruit 'n' veg a day with tap water. Not that I ever ate five fruit 'n' veg a day to begin with. What kind of a person do you take me for.

Coincidentally, I'm going home for a few weeks tomorrow. And it really is just a coincidence. It's irrelevant that they have steak at home.

This blog has gained a few more peeking-eyes-through-the-dark-trees since I started it a couple of years ago, so I'll fill you in on my stupid pointless rule: this is a London blog, I can only write in it when I'm in London. So I won't be writing here for a few weeks.

I'll still be on Facebook though, pathetically. If you are one of my relatives from Oz and you're not on Facebook, get on Facebook with the rest of us! And be reminded of how disturbingly obsessed with cats we all are. I never knew cat-love was a gene.

I'll also be continuing to ramble on Write Here, Write Now, where I've been a happy little guest blogger for a few weeks. Write Here, Write Now is a writer's blog with a feminist slant, and I got an internship with the organisation, Bang2Write. It involves writing the blog and the Facebook page.

If you're interested, the pieces I've written for the blog so far are:

1. Personality Is Personality: Making Gender "Irrelevant" In Characterisation
2. Why You SHOULD Do A Course In Scriptwriting
3. The Criticism Sandwich
4. In Development: Script Editing Evening With Andrew Ellard & Paula Hines
5. Write What You Know? Then Write About Being A Writer! :P
6. Screenwriting Tip: Audio Description For The Blind

Blogging's great. Would love a column. Hire me. Thanks.

Anyway, I've got to get back to packing.

Done. See you in August.

Day 280

2011-07-10T00:34:00.012+01:00

The ex-staff of News of the World will finally get a good night's sleep. Before waking up to unemployment just like the rest of us.

I sympathise with them. We're all in the bullshit industry. We advertise products we'd never dream of using ourselves – scripts we've never read, events we've never been to. We stir up interest in things we have no interest in ourselves. A footballer cheated on his wife. It's scandalous, it's juicy, it's pleasurable, it's fascinating and entertaining and remarkable and surprising and controversial and NO IT'S NOT. No it's not. It's not any of those things. It's just bullshit, but we have to sell it.

And if we're not selling actual products, we still have to sell the company we work for. Our company has integrity, we have strength; we care, we have principles, we have backbone, we're determined, we're alive, we're contemporary, we're now, we're NO WE'RE NOT. We're bullshit.

And even if we're not selling a company, we're still at least selling ourselves. The biggest pieces of bullshit in the world. I'm ambitious, I'm sharp, I'm enthusiastic, I'm experienced, I'm professional, I'm a people-person, I'm a team-player, I'm independent, I'm young, I'm dedicated, I'm keen, I'm NO I'M NOT. I'm sleepy and weird and obsessive and it's kind of unlikely that I want to spend any time with you at all.

Marketing words have lost their real meeting. I can't tell you the number of times I've typed the word “remarkable” in my career. Every word has been bastardised, and claimed by us bullshitters.

We're all staff at News of the World. But some of us have given in so staunchly to the power of BS that we've started to believe it ourselves. It's such a common phenomenon. I've always used that phenomenon to explain introversion and extroversion. If you act confident all the time, and say you're confident, you'll be a confident person. And if you act shy all the time, and say you're shy, you'll be a shy person.

Similarly, if you say you believe spying on innocent people in order to splatter their private lives across the nation to be in any way excusable, and if you act like you believe it's excusable, then you're going to start believing that it really is excusable.

But the people who say it's excusable may be bullshitting. For marketing reasons, of course. They have to sell themselves. They have to sell those they work for. And to keep what sliver of self-respect they have left, they have to believe that somehow the nation will see through the bullshit and realise that, on the inside, they don't believe in what they're selling.

That is indeed pitiable, but it's also the very definition of unprincipled. And if you live by it, you might end up looking like this:

There are many figures that deserve condemnation for the hacking scandals, but Paul McMullan is my favourite. Because he's exactly what evil journalists were like in films when I was a kid. Snide, snotty, conceited, humourless, manipulative. And quick-thinking. Always with his top button undone. Looks like he smells of unclean flesh.

Him being pinned by Hugh Grant was bizarre and kind of fantastical.

We know who's going to be playing Hugh Grant in the movie of all this, then.

Day 277

2011-07-07T02:59:00.011+01:00

If you're a real TV fan, you can't shirk from reality TV. Steve Merchant said on the radio that reality TV used to be like observing ants in their nest and now it's like putting the ants in a jar and shaking the jar violently. But those ants are still smeared on most pages of the Radio Times. You can't avoid them.

When I was 13 there was this reality TV show called Bedsit. It followed the lives of twelve strangers who became flatmates in a London house. What they didn't know was that the vast majority of them were moles/actors. Brilliant.

Also remember watching The Carrot and The Stick. Bunch of people in the army, one group is punished for their wrongdoings and have their achievements ignored, and the other group is rewarded for their achievements and have their wrongdoings ignored. Also brilliant. (And the results of the experiment were pretty obvious: the carrot group became happy, lazy, egotistical and low achieving, and the stick group became very high achieving but very dogged and sort of glazed).

I never watched Big Brother when it was about observing ants (I was never allowed!), but I did get into it on the first "Big Brother goes bad" experiment in 2004. The jar-shaking, then.

I love TV, I think both directly and indirectly it controls the universe including all the twinkly bits. I hadn't been watching enough reality TV recently so I made an active decision to commit myself to two shows this year. The first was Britain's Got Talent. The second was slightly higher in the brow area.

The Apprentice is a 12-episode BBC series in which belligerent business baron Lord Alan Sugar sets a group of businessmen tasks, then fires one each week until he's left with a new employee. Apparently this year it's not an employee he's looking for but a business partner, which ups the stakes and supposedly the calibre of the contestants too.

The contestants are strange. They use email talk in real life, like "I look forward to hearing from you", and "many thanks for the opportunity". They also say things like "I'm confused dot com", and "I'm going to put 110% into this". I HATE people who say "110%". There's no such thing as 110%. You can't have 110% of a pie. That's impossible. And if you're going to say 110%, why not say 112%? Or 200%? Or 445843354%?

Alan Sugar himself is not as horrific as I was warned. On the contrary, while he is very strict and frank, I also found him logical, fair, diplomatic, and open to changing his mind and listening to people. And the famously unforgiving "*points* you're fired" is often proceeded by "you're very nice and very talented, but --" or "I'm sorry to say this, my friend, but --" or "I greatly regret this and wish you the best of the luck for the future, but --"

Lord Sugar is not personable, but he does strike me as reasonably polite and not at all abrasive.

As for the contestants, we're past week 10 now, so down to the final five.

There's Tom Pellereau, who is literally an Inventor with an evil laugh. He's batty but beguiling, and his weakness seems to be that he's too nice and humble. He seems to rely on the mistaken assumption that being Lord Sugar's business partner involves a learning curve, but actually Tom doesn't need a learning curve! He's clever, determined, open, and talented. He's just a bit of a mouse.

Another mouse is Skincare Entrepreneur Susan Ma, who was born in the 90s, which is a revolting fact. Her young age seems to be a bit of a complex. She brings it up often, which reminds everyone else of it, and it's very much turned into a weakness. I don't doubt for a second that if she's fired, Lord Sugar will cite her youth as a contributing factor. It doesn't help that she's very consciously small and sweet. Nor that she'll go down in history for the unbelievably earnest question: "are the French fond of their children?"

Also in the running is Sales and Marketing Manager Jim Eastwood, who kind of resembles a sexy toad. He reeks of charisma, but his hypnotic nature is down to the fact that there is no soul behind his "Irish eyes". His greatest talent is manipulation. He bends people to his will, it's a bizarre talent to watch. Jenny Eclair describes him as Derren Brown gone bad.

I also liked Executive Assistant Helen Louise Milligan up until she recently proved herself to be crap in the most recent episode. She has won the most tasks in The Apprentice, and is distinctly sane. She's diffused a fair few situations and seems to be very sharp. But she's a bit stiff and strange. I sort of imagine she has loads of kids but has never had sex. See, look at her eyes.

The fifth remaining candidate is Recruitment Manager Natasha Scribbins, and I think the fact that she's still in the running is evidence that the elimination process isn't stringent enough. She's the one who used the phrase "I'm confused dot com" with a straight face. She's extraordinarily corporate. I think she probably makes a great manager, but I thought they were looking for unique people for The Apprentice. I think she's the next to go.

I want Susan, Tom or Jim to win. But Susan's a bit naïve, Tom is too humble, and Jim is literally evil.

One of the things I enjoy most about The Apprentice is that there is no excruciating personal stuff. Sometimes I do want more. Sometimes I think, do they share bedrooms in that big house? Do they get days off to meet up with their families, or is it 12 weeks locked in? Do they get help from the internet? Do they make little packed lunches for the tasks? Do they get to bring their own cars? Do they film pick-ups? When someone's fired do they get to say goodbye behind-the-scenes? Do they socialise a bit with Lord Sugar or his aides? What about the production team? When do the cameras arrive in the house? Are those suitcases really packed when they go to the boardroom? Because I think they're not.

... okay so obviously it would be fun to know this stuff, but at the same time it would feel oddly inappropriate. The Apprentice is not Big Brother. It's entertainment, but it's also a genuine real-life interview process, albeit televised. It's distinctly business-orientated.

I Googled some of the candidates early on, but I quickly backtracked upon discovering that a frighteningly large number of candidates, past and present, have battled cancer. I don't know why such a high percentage of people on The Apprentice have, and I have no idea what it means. But I do know that it's far too personal. Click cross, and flee back to the safety of the show itself.

The Apprentice isn't voyeuristic, it doesn't stick its greasy nose against the windows of their personal lives. It's faced-paced and interesting, and different every week. It's a good TV series, and the best reality TV I've ever... made myself watch. And it's not about shaking ants in a jar, it's about squishing them one by one until you're left with one giant super-ant in a business suit. Great fun.

Day 273

2011-07-03T19:26:00.008+01:00

Woo, I've really grown up now that my attitude to film recommendations is to actually see the film rather than childishly refuse. And it's been a while since I've been recommended anything more than Bridesmaids.

So I saw it, and there is one major issue I have with it which I'll get to in a sec, but generally I really enjoyed it. Bridesmaids is a very funny comedy, and also had a fair few "awwww" moments with lots of double-yous on the end.

SNL's Kristen Wiig exudes a Jennifer Aniston-esque likeability as Annie, the 30-something protagonist. Annie desperately wants a boyfriend, and she bakes cakes in the shapes of little flowers. She's female, then. But the observational comedy pumped into her character is clever enough to make her a recognisable and realistic creature.

Annie's position as "best friend" is threatened by the arrival of Little Miss Perfect (played by the gorgeous Rose Byrne -- who by the way, is dating Stephen Merchant, EXCUSE ME WHAT). It's a story of female friendship and general... womanhood. Bit broad, really, but it works.

The context of a wedding and the run-up to the wedding is a treasure trove of great gags and situations. In suggesting themes for the bachelorette party, for instance:

"Fight club. Female fight club. She comes in, and we just beat the shit out of her. It'll be a surprise".

There's one man in the main cast. Chris O'Dowd, who we know to be... let's just say "beautiful on the inside"... unexpectedly makes an extremely attractive love interest. Great character. And I wouldn't be surprised if Chris O'Dowd went the way of a new Mr Darcy, the rate he's going.

A strong movie then. It's got all the right pieces. However, it did not have to be marketed as a chick flick. People have been describing it as "a bromance movie... but with women!".

"But with women" is not a twist. Most of us are women. Some of the reviewers are acting like it's revolutionary to have more than one pair of tits in the room at the same time. Bridesmaids is not a revolutionary movie, and I thought it was cowardly of them to call it a chick flick. Absolutely nothing about the film suggested to me that it was a woman's movie (although, why do female characters listen to female singers all the time?).

To prove my point, here's the poster.

Yep. Girls in short pink dresses posing against a brick wall (for no reason whatsoever, by the way), big pink letters branding it a "CHICK FLICK", and an extremely insulting nod of the head by someone saying "THESE ARE SMART, FUNNY WOMEN".

Smart, funny women?! Oh lucky us! Let's go to the cinema to see the smart, funny women. I mean, we can't just go to our friends, mothers, sisters, daughters, wives, girlfriends, aunts, cousins, nieces, colleagues, bosses, teachers, or just look in the mirror, can we.

Day 270

2011-06-30T00:27:00.001+01:00

Exhausting but very enjoyable day of rehearsals for tomorrow's scriptwriting showcase. We fought against the forces of chaos and survived. The rehearsals themselves were extremely fun. The cast is brilliant, and includes two little 'uns. I say again what I've said before: when I grow up I want to be a child actor.

Long day (the very kind porter waited for us rather than throwing us from the building), but cured by much-needed writerly dinner and wine at the end of it. All of us excited for tomorrow.

Day 269

2011-06-28T00:17:00.003+01:00

It's intriguing, scary, unique, brave, rich, witty, and very captivating, and that was only five minutes in. Watch GAME OF THRONES, the critically revered medieval fantasy series on HBO. Over here it's on Sky Atlantic, which isn't good enough. Some other channel's got to buy it, and when it does be sure to watch it. Or wait for the DVD to come out -- or hell, just download it. But whatever you do, start from the first episode of season one, which deserves to be treated like the first chapter of a book. And it's a page-turner.

Game of Thrones is known for having the lovable Sean Bean in it, playing the human equivolent of a Yorkie bar, but the rest of the cast is equally worth watching, and I've yet to find a single weak character. The audience can find humour, horror, devilish villainy, sex appeal and heroics in all the right places. Pleasantly surprising cast members include Lena Headey and Mark Addy.

For anyone willing to acknowledge that Game of Thrones is a significantly ADULT series, it feels almost tailored to suit every single individual fan of great storytelling. Game of Thrones is set in amazing world, fat with ideas. So, recommended to all. I'll keep you updated if the only episode I've seen so far proves an anomaly, but I doubt it will. I already trust the thing.

Day 268

2011-06-27T14:40:00.002+01:00

I'm sorry, but what's going on with James Bulger.

I was only five years old when he died, but in the years that followed I remember his case being used as a jackhammer for the issue of violence in film and the effect it has on children. Children aren't developed enough to understand film violence in the same manner as adults do, and this, alongside other factors including, all importantly, mental disorder, caused the two 10-year-olds to do what they did, obviously unable to apply their actions to a moral compass we all take for granted.

It was an enormous case because of the children and the motivations, and of course the incident encompasses perhaps the two biggest nightmares a parent could ever have -- your child being killed, or your child being the one responsible.

We call him "Jamie", just as we call Madeleine McCann "Maddy". I find this unsettling.

And I believe that James Bulger has not felt any pain, of any kind, for over eighteen years. Imagining what he could have been does absolutely nothing but cause masochistic pain for those he left behind. I know that if a parent loses their child there's no healing to be had -- after all, a dead child is unnatural, so we're not really equipped for it -- and talking about it can be helpful, but if you talk about it all the time, on Twitter of all places, and eighteen years have passed, then it's time to find a new approach. I wonder if Mrs Fergus has tried avoiding the news for a while, blocking out all mention of Jon Venables and refusing to give her comments on it. It's certainly impossible to avenge James Bulger's death; the worst that can be done to Venables is arrest and detainment, both of which have been done to him already. She is obviously an intelligent and good person, but if I were her I would be concerned that I was simply waiting for Jon Venables to die.

Bringing it all to another level, ticking off boxes of moral squalor as he goes, Venables was recently denied parole having been charged with possessing indecent images of children. Despite the high profile status of the crime he committed as a boy, obviously what money that could have been spent on rehabilitation has been spent on media coverage instead. Jon Venables is as damaged as his victim. And he's not harmless; for someone you'd think people would be keeping a hellishly sharp eye on, his list of further crimes and misdemeanours is long. Why isn't he the project of criminal psychologists across the world? Why is there no stopping the eighteen year long shadowy drawl of this entire case?

Day 252

2011-06-11T04:26:00.009+01:00

I've been revisiting record-busting TV dynamite Lost. Obviously this is a bad idea, given that there can only be 24 hours in a day, 7 days in a week, and 4 nerdy TV addicts in a flat at any given time. But Lost is safe and comfy territory; it can be fodder, backdrop, padding, punchbag and blissful escape pod all at the same time.

Lost first appeared in 2004. I was in secondary school, and when David La Chapelle's enamouring teaser was released we were all sucked in like pins into a hoover.

A plane crash-lands on a desert island and everyone starts yelling at each other above the crashing of waves and the bubbleybubbleybubbley sounds of the tropical woodland. Someone is heroic, someone is selfish, and someone is preggers. There's terrifying roaring/clickety noises in the distance, and the possibility that they're not the only people on the island. And in the meantime, they're not getting rescued, so everyone has to worry about mangoes and fishies and brushing their teeth.

The Swiss Family Robinson aspect of Lost can be really fun to watch. Early on in the series there's an episode devoted to them settling into some caves with a convenient waterfall (Mira Azora 9.8kW Electric with a removable showerhead). There's also an episode in which meaty redneck Sawyer is getting headaches while reading Watership Down, so they make him a pair of reading glasses. Having their lives on the island properly enjoyed by the audience like that makes the island seem much more alive.

Which is important, because the premise of the entire series -- all six seasons -- is that the island is alive. I saw all the episodes as they came out, but at the moment, on my re-watch, I'm still on season 1.

I can't remember if it's the best season, but it's certainly the one people refer to as the good old days.

So far, I've noticed two things I never picked up on before. One is that the incidental music is extremely manipulative. Some of it is really enlivening and sweeping, but they (the editors? who?) have a habit of ending scenes on a cliffhanger and then adding in a deafening crescendo. Like this: "I'm going to do it. I'm going to kill him". nnnnnnnnnNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN.

The other thing I noticed is that the director likes to take the female characters when they're feeling vulnerable, strip them half naked, and then pan slowly over their body. Generally, in film and TV, slow camera drift over male flesh is considered homoerotic, but slow camera drift over female flesh is convention. I brought this up on Facebook and my cousin, a genius, replied that the answer to this problem is as follows -- "A show with a lot of flesh of both genders, and ONLY slow camera work. If a shot of the face must be done, then pan up from an oily torso".

To be fair, there is a lot of eye-candy on Lost. Namely Daniel Dae Kim and Michelle Rodriguez -- and Naveen Andrews (playing an Iraqi), who I just caught in one of the most startling/inappropriate Jonathan Ross interviews I've ever seen (go forth, if you interested. Just be prepared to grow bored of hearing the word "heroin").

The best plots involve Dominic Monaghan's lovable guitar-strumming drug addict turning to fatherhood, Jorge Garcia's lottery-winning comical fat guy discovering he's cursed, and the annoyingly-named John Locke putting aside his lonely tragedies in favour of jungle-loping knife-weilding button-pressing fatalism.

Lost is known (and sometimes avoided) for being puzzling. It can pretty much be summed up by the title sequence. Just the word "LOST", blurred. When the word finally comes into focus it's almost out of shot.

And it's true that after the first couple of seasons Lost does begin to bide its time, but answers are eventually given, and spotting clues to the sixth season in the first season is irresistible.

There's enough characters to please most people, and the island itself is just FUN. Lost may be Strongbows to The Wire's Châteauneuf du Pape, but at least you can down it.

I apologise for saying "Châteauneuf du Pape". It won't happen again. Now shh.

Day 245

2011-06-04T22:09:00.007+01:00

The last time I watched Britain's Got Talent was when Pol Pot won.

You know. Pol Pot. The fat guy? The opera singer? The guy who won Britain's Got Talent in 2007? Pol Pot? No...?

Anyway, I made an active decision to watch it again this year. TWO REASONS. One, it feels like you're sharing something with half the country. Like a venereal disease. And two, BTG is quite an extreme show.

It's extreme in its mission to entertain. The only analogy I can think of is that if you were thirsty, BTG would jam a bottle of water between your teeth, grab your hair, force your head back, and tip the contents down your throat. When you eventually emerge, you're spluttering, choking, and probably crying. But you're not thirsty any more.

The hook of every show is its cast, so for BGT that's Ant & Dec and the judges. I like Ant & Dec. Mainly their magnificent foreheads and their sense of fun. They're ideal hosts for something like BTG, and they're a doubleact famous for never missing a beat. The judges were Simon Cowell, David Hasselhoff, Amanda Holden, and Michael McIntyre.

Simon Cowell is undefeated as the most dislikeable person on television, and he's so botoxed and spray tanned now that he resembles a chocolate duck. Any logic he voiced was cancelled out by his unconditional love for performing dogs, and his frantic dream of finding "the next Lassie". He's out of his mind.

I was surprised to be endeared by David Hasselhoff, with his roars of happiness and his bewildering love for Briddish culture. But as a judge he kind of failed, because he kept telling lies. His reaction to most of the acts was overwhelmingly positive, but when next they took the stage he sprang on them "I actually didn't think you were that good last time, but now I do".

Simon Cowell and David Hasselhoff were playing the roles of Man, and much of the time had shirts buttoned so low that you could see their sweat drizzling straight from forehead to treasure trail.

Amanda Holden played the role of Woman. She bludgeoned her responsibility as the only woman on the panel by a) allowing Simon Cowell to hold her hand every time they made an entrance, and b) talking endlessly about boobs and bums, which, to be savagely honest, I think a lot of 40-year-old women do in an attempt to be considered one of the girls again.

Michael McIntyre was the only one who brought giggles to the panel. And he was good. I really like Michael McIntyre. I do. And I've probably argued about him with my friends more than I have about any other subject. I automatically have good feelings for every stand-up comedian -- they have default high status, as far as I'm concerned. And if he can bring comedy to broad audiences who would never -- ever -- have been seen attending live stand-up before they discovered him then I think that's brilliant. Michael McIntyre's brought comedy to a wider market, so if you're in the comedy industry then you should be having an intimate mouth-on-shoe session with him as we speak.

BTG was on every week for a while, and over the last week was live every day -- and at least half the time I managed to catch it. The live aspect was fine, except Simon Cowell was obviously dwelling on it a bit at first, because five minutes into the first show, at 7.30PM, when the viewers at home were tucking into their potato smiles, Cowell had already mentioned breasts and masturbation, and had feigned a sexual advance or two on Amanda Holden.

After we slid past that slimy beginning, it was on with the show. Which was like being on a massive high, but in Poundstretchers.

That said, the majority of the acts were completely crap. I mean, sure, the whole premise of BGT is that it's for enthusiastic amateurs, so they're naturally rough round the edges, but there really was some anti-talent in this show. And I don't just mean in the auditions, or in the semi-finals, but in the grand final itself. I think this was partly because the judges kept putting through acts based on the sheer willpower of the performances, rather than the quality. That's very nice and everything, but it's not called Britain's Got Effort.

As for final performances, the production was horrible and blinding, and smeared with embarrassing backing dancers/singers that only ever made the acts much, much worse. There was also the issue of time. The last auditions, the semi-finals, and the final itself was all jammed into one week, so many of the performers had days -- or even hours -- to come up with a whole new act.

The key talents included: bending, staring, flashing, waving, dressing, crying, flapping, miming, painting, barking, clapping, mooning, and old age. There was also singing, dancing, and a few instances of being staggeringly cute. The leader of the staggeringly cute category was Ronan Parke, a fey 12-year-old with such unabashed sugar sweetness that Dec was at one point two seconds away from signing the adoption papers.

Over the last week, Ronan Parke was bullied by the internet and smeared by the media, and it all seems uncomfortably cruel to a kid with obviously delicate sensitivities. Or to any kid, for that matter. (I can only imagine the playground reaction to the two lads who performed a rap called "I love you granddad".)

Ronan Parke didn't win, possibly because of (in all likelihood false) press allegations that he'd been groomed for the show. The winner was dark horse Jai McDowall, a Scottish power balladist whose almost crippling nervousness charmed everyone.

He grinned happily through the closing credits, stammering the word "amazing" and sweeping confetti from Ant & Dec, and the nation went "YAAAAYYY OH MI GOD YAAAAYooh look, Doctor Who's on".

Day 244

2011-06-03T02:31:00.007+01:00

After a million years of acceptable fear, I eventually came to realise that it was a bit counterproductive of me to turn my nose up at an instrument as useful as Facebook. Trying to network without Facebook is like trying to write a script with a pritt stick.

I just thought it would gnaw up my time, leaving nothing but the bare bones of a broken day, and that I'd spend all that time trawling slavishly through other people's unrelated lives. This is my dog. This is my dog's kennel. This is my wife. This is my wife's kennel.

I'd much rather waste my days properly, by, say, watching The Tudors, over and over and over and over and o...

But h'actually, I like Facebook. I've run FB pages for a couple of companies before, but I've never had my own until now, and it's been genuine fun tracking down my past. And for a small child, I have a surprising amount of past.

Quickly, though, I realised that Facebook is a bit of an organism (and I just want to confirm, for those of you who did a double-take, that I said "organism" and not "orgasm"). It updates without you having to refresh the page, it's constantly moving. And everyone's online at the same time. That's what surprised me the most. I was thinking -- you're a full-time lecturer, and you're a popular photographer, and you're a busy office bod; what are you doing on Facebook on a Thursday afternoon?!

So maybe we're all the same, resting our sweaty foreheads against the computer screen and waiting for the next update, while the work and kids pile up at our side.

The extreme activity and size of Facebook hit me so quickly that I set up my laptop in the kitchen, carefully placed a box of Turkish Delight beside me as bait, and ushered in a steady stream of flatmates. All of whom (the brilliant beasties) helped me set up Facebook while tolerating my abrupt stints of silence/violent typing as I discovered the terrifying live chat feature.

The splendid mister Allison Burnett told me Facebook's like a great cocktail party, and it is. Except more fun. And very crowded. And everyone's talking at exactly the same time, which is absolutely mental in real life. But here in fakeland, it works.

So in conclusion, I never thought I'd say this, but... um. Er. Facebook me.

Day 239

2011-05-28T13:45:00.010+01:00

I can't remember the last time I didn't have repetitive strain injury. These last few weeks especially I haven't been able to lift anything heavier than a pen or a marshmallow or the full magnitude of Ryan Gigg's public dignity.

(Bit of current affairs there. You're welcome.)

Anyway, I thought I'd share my "writing process".

This is desk.

So writing doesn't take place on desk. It takes place on bed.

Writing is based on notes I've made on printed scripts. Notes to be transferred onto laptop are kept on chair.

When notes are transferred, they go from chair.

And onto floor.

Day 237

2011-05-26T17:14:00.004+01:00

London has erupted into a cacophony of wall-shaking thunder, car alarms and police sirens. Somewhere there's an old man in white robes standing at the top of a very tall tower, arms aloft, beard flailing in the wind.

Day 234

2011-05-23T13:41:00.005+01:00

Woke up, wrote, fell over, ate supernoodles, wondered why supernoodles were promoted from normal noodles, theorised with my flatmate that God should be a committee, went to campus, met someone called Frasier, drank an unidentified pink liquid, wrote, watched Exit Through The Gift Shop, wrote, got a Tetris score of 500000, wrote, then saw this:

There's that word killing again.

I guess they can't say "terminating female foetuses", because that kind of wording would put us in mind of simple dowry-related cultural sexism rather than foreign serial child killers.

I imagine Kulwant is going to be bloody delighted by the headline accusing her of "killing her girls".

And I'm pretty sure that small girl in the photo is still alive. I feel so cheated.

Day 229

2011-05-18T11:28:00.002+01:00

The British reaction to Jamie Oliver in 2005 was embarrassingly messianic, but I'm still a fan of his TV campaigns. Namely the ones that condemn schools for jamming eggshells and poster paint and badger droppings into the greedy fat mouths of "our" kids. I love the ambition, the drama and the humour, and I love Jamie Oliver's straightforward, unabashed faith in Gandhi's foolproof proposal: "be the change you want to see in the world". It makes happy viewing.

But even though Jamie Oliver is as proactive as he ever was, there's a feeling that he's no less naïve. I know that's a really patronising thing to say, especially coming from someone like me, but he's on TV, he's open to judgement. And the judgement is that sometimes he takes too optimistic an approach.

For instance, last month I watched Jamie's Dream School. It follows 20 tearaway teenagers who have already left school (with no flying colours at all, not even mauve). Jamie puts them in a building and funnels celebrities into the building in order to teach them.

The celebrities aren't teachers. They're TV presenters, politicians, actors, athletes, and so on. Inevitably, this means that they're out of their element -- completely. None of them know how to handle the kids, and some of them are actually pretty rude to the kids, in an attempt to be cool. In one excutiating scene, David Starkey calls a child "fat" unprovoked, presumably over-eager to make a pre-emptive strike. Starkey then proceeds to lie to everyone that the kid insulted him first. Starkey forgets that he was filmed, and it is shown on camera that Starkey insulted a kid who then insulted him in response. But Starkey continues to lie about it. "He insulted me first!" Bewildering.

Anyway, since that's the kind of "teaching" the kids have to deal with, they have no problem settling into their natural state of extremely loud and desperate chaos. It's easy to think they're all just lazy and can't be bothered to learn, but from what I could see it was mostly the case that they were extremely frustrated by a) the incompetence of their teachers and b) the bad behaviour of the class as a unit. All they needed to do was cut out their tongues Titus Andronicus style. Simon Callow could've taught them that. He was there, after all. "Teaching".

But unfortunately there was no tongue cutting, and at no point in the 6-episode series did the rabble learn discipline. So the project couldn't even leave the ground. It just dragged itself along, born flightless.

As for the drama aspect of Jamie's Dream School, it was repetitive, and nobody seemed to grow. And the drama overwhelmed the education almost all of the time. At one point, Alastair Campbell, trying to teach politics, didn't notice a perfect bit of potential in his class. There were two girls, one arguing for the creation of LGBT youth clubs, and one arguing against. Each side was so passionate that they almost had a punch up. The result was a big ole telling off, and the camera following them hungrily into the playground, where they screamed at one another.

Why didn't Alastair Campbell show them some of the bickering in the House of Commons? Why didn't he point out that their unruly passion can be, and IS, politics?

All that was achieved by Jamie's Dream School was that it raised awareness of the country's nasty, screamy, bored, neglected teenagers, but we know about them anyway. There's one over there, look. But Jamie's Dream School gave us an excuse to really be snobby about them. Hurrah.

We can also be snobby about Americans, not that we ever weren't, because Jamie's been getting back into his comfort zone: food revolutions. Yesterday his newest series began, and we got to blink like startled deer at Los Angeles, where kids are literally eating mushed-up cow bone washed in ammonia.

The problem is, the schools won't let him in to have a nosy around. I think that's because of his optimism again. He's always bemused as to why some people don't want him to help. Because he really does just want to help. But others don't see it like that. He's making a TV programme; it's gotta be entertaining, and everyone knows that means stirring up drama.

And in America, TV goes to extremes to be entertaining, especially reality TV. Epilepsy-inducing rapidness, Hans Zimmer-esque incidental music, cartoon sound effects, the same reaction shots used again and again - all desperate to the extreme. Watch, watch, watch, look, look, look, stare, stare, drool. That's what American TV shows look like to me. All about entertainment, and never about integrity. So if that's what Americans expect from TV shows, how can they think a TV show maker wants to help them more than he wants to make a dramatic story?

The first episode of Jamie's Food Revolution Hits Hollywood created minimal attention with the LA locals, and I can't see that changing. But he's got the rest of the series, and Channel 4 wouldn't be showing it if nothing happened in it, so we may as well stick around and expect Jamie Oliver's trademark optimism to finally kick some blubber.

Day 228

2011-05-17T20:53:00.003+01:00

It's interesting when your plans go completely amiss and the unexpected results turn out to be much better than what you originally had planned. It proves two things. Actually, it only proves one thing: it's a waste of (months of) time to get too attached to "plans", because it turns out we're all shit at planning, and none of us have any idea what's best for us anyway.

Also, it's annoying when people are ostentatiously vague, but OH WELL, DON'T WHINE ABOUT IT.

I'll make a proper blog post tomorrow, because Jamie Oliver's on tonight and I haven't even rambled about his "Dream School" thingy yet...

Day 226

2011-05-15T06:37:00.002+01:00

Dear Not-At-All-Sensationalist BBC,

Please stop using the word “beheaded” in your news headlines.

Thanks.

Day 217

2011-05-06T20:42:00.004+01:00

In voting for or against AV I think we've latched on to the wrong definition of "alternative". Arguably the most common definition of the word is "pertaining to unconventional choices". As in, "an alternative lifestyle", or "alternative medicine". Not a great rep. Alternative medicine, for instance, is often used to mean medicine that simply doesn't work. (Or else it'd be called "medicine") And as much as I adore Stewart Lee, his "alternative comedy" reaches a minority.

So I don't know why we thought this country could vote for anything "alternative". Except by accident, of course, because a libcon coalition is pretty alternative - but nobody actually voted for that.

I worry a bit that people think change is dangerous and liberalism is wishy-washy. It's like people believe that in brighter days we could be as alternative as we wanted, because the days were bright and sunny and free cash would flow freely from the orifices of passers by.

Then the economy went "lol goodbye" and everything was dreary and clerical, and the voters went "enough liberalism, let's be serious now. Let's be grown up".

Liberalism is for students and alternativism is for tree-huggers. Right? Right? I can hear it now, the chorus of the grey: "thank you, liberal, you're very charming with your doves and leaves, and you have some clever little ideas, they're coming along nicely, but we don't have much time, sweetheart, so why don't you get us a grown-up?"

Then there's the feeling that maybe possibly perhaps none of us actually know anything about AV, and we were a bit confused because we didn't know which was the good guy and which was the bad guy.

It doesn't help that the democratically glorious chance to vote for how we vote was twinned with MP elections. Did people even vote for the MPs? Actually, did anyone even vote in the AV referendum severally? Or is everyone still turning politicians into celebrities like they do in America and casting their AV vote based on wispy correlations like "I'll vote NO because of Nick Clegg" or "I'll vote YES because of David Cameron"?

And I might as well take the whole thing completely out of context as well, because the whole country is depressing as sin, and, just to show our positivity, our optimism, our spirit, our hope, we rise up and yell:

YES.

... actually, we rose up and muttered "no". Hark.

Day 215

2011-05-04T03:13:00.004+01:00

Our scriptwriting projects remain so big and indulging and fun that it must all be some kind of practical joke. Or self-congratulatory sitcom.

And we got the date for the hand-in of our first drafts today. A classmate asked our ~~Tudor~~ tutor: “what happens after we hand in our first drafts?”, to which our tutor replied, “the abyss”. We all laughed, and asked again: “yeah, but what really happens afterwards, on the course?” We got the same reply again: “the abyss”. “But seriously though – what happens?” More laughter, and the tutor joins in for a moment but is then straight-faced: “I am serious. The abyss”.

… got that to look forward to, then.

Day 214

2011-05-02T05:53:00.010+01:00

There's been two enormously historic events in three days. It'd be neater if it could've got done in two days, but three is fine too.

And the following story arrived only minutes ago, so I'm sure there's ample more to say and reveal about it, not least the actual facts.

But Osama Bin Laden hasn't "died" -- he's "been killed". Naturally the world is better off with one less whiplash-malevolent warmonger, but only in the sense that the world would be better if he hadn't been born, or if he'd wasted away or killed himself.

Instead, the focus of his death is the killing. The fact that he was killed, that's what's being celebrated. Stubbed his toe on a mine or got shot in the trousers, or whatever it was. Why is the killing aspect the focus? Because allegedly it was America that did it. And the American president that announced it. Bin Laden smote America, so America destroyed him. Oh, justice justice justice.

That's not called justice: that's called revenge.

I read the announcement of his killing on the BBC news website, and they chose this quote, of all quotes:

An unmistakable message? Yeah, he's right, I think the message is pretty clear -- if coincidence works in your favour, milk it ruthlessly and try using it to explicate international politics.

And why is killing considered justice anyway? Why is it that after all this time of having two little feet and two little eyes and some mushy grey matter humankind still can't think up punishment other than physical punishment? Zap, pow, kill, torture, confine, hang, draw, quarter, shoot in the trousers.

Even kids's film are pro capital punishment. The bad guy might redeem themselves, and the good guy might try to help them, but after the bad guy redeems themselves they die. Having them live would be messy, wouldn't it. It wouldn't be a tidy tie-up. Kill them.

Society has existed for a wee while now, and people still get it confused with humanity. If someone disobeys the laws of society, banish them from that society. That makes perfect sense. Take away their place in society; but not their place on the planet. What the hell do we know about the planet? What do we know about life? Nothing, but never mind, let's kill them, let's kill them dead, that's really easy.

And if we do kill them dead -- which we will -- let's say we meant it, and it was meant to be, and that it's good and right and just and true.

To mourn Osama Bin Laden is unthinkable (to me), and to celebrate his no longer being here is more than acceptable -- and even to be darkly satisfied in the knowledge that he's going to be "greeted" in death by absolutely nothing -- but to rejoice at his killing is animalistic and wildly hypocritical. Mistaking bloodthirst, happenstance and murder for justice is horrifying. Forget getting rid of religion: let's get rid of the concepts of justice, pride and honour, because they're abused more than any other concepts in the world, and for as long as some people live they use them as excuses to kill. And they keep believing it -- up until the moment they too get met with "justice".

PS. He probably would've died from old age anyway, he was getting crusty. Ooh, justice.

Also:

What's going on there?! Let's hope article XXXXXX turns out to be S Club 7 getting back together.

Day 213

2011-05-01T14:39:00.005+01:00

This is my blog post about the royal wedding.

He had six royal weddings. Divorced, beheaded, died, divorced, beheaded, survived. A couple of years ago they made a documentary about him. And by documentary I mean an epic fantasy soap opera.

The Tudors, which follows the reign of King Henry VIII, is as much based on real history as The Lion King is based on Hamlet. On one hand, that's nothing to pour scorn over - it is, as writer Michael Hirst happily admits, entertainment first and foremost. So it's a waste of time boasting your knowledge of the Tudor dynasty by sneering at this melodrama . But on the other hand, I won't forget what Phil Parker told us in his lecture - if you write something even loosely based on history then you have to take responsibility for what people "learn" from it. Many people get their information from TV and film, not from books. Just think of how many people get their Scottish history from Braveheart. The Tudors is called "The Tudors". People can and will and do get their information about The Tudors from this TV show.

Under this set-in-stone artistic license many liberties are taken. You'd be weird to not expect them. 16th century female beauty is replaced by the botoxed-up waxed-down pop stars of the 21th century, and some of the language is so contemporary that King Henry may as well be be booming "check out my bitches, y'all" from a pimped up hatchback.

Despite this, it's gloriously medieval in a larger-than-life and fantastic way, with green forests and rowdy townsfolk, people shouting "rue the day!" or "make way for the King!", and twing-twong Greensleeves music playing in the background. The correct reply to "how are you?" in the world of The Tudors is "I have gout".

The perpetual eyeline of the characters is about four foot from the ground because everyone's always bowing to one another, probably proving a nightmare for the director as everyone keeps ducking out of shot. But they're magnificent, sweeping bows - and it's no wonder, because everything about this programme is magnificent and sweeping.

Inevitably including the legendary King Henry Vee Eye Eye Eye, who is played by Jonathan Rhys Meyers (who'll forever be known to me as "Steerpike"). He's portrayed as a smouldering, wild and fickle King whose political and religious opinions are based entirely on sex, wresting matches and vain whims. In The Tudors, the historic separation of the Church of England from Rome is explained entirely by the King's lust for Anne Boleyn, who the Pope would not allow him to marry. When not whispering fiercely into people's faces or working the ticket barrier for his endless queue of saucy wenches, the King can be found slurping on fruit and wiping his mouth with the unread letters of loved ones. He's also the main reason for this programme's famously sexual content, which at times is so prominent that they genuinely hang a whole series on the King's failure to orgasm.

There's so many enjoyable characters in The Tudors that I can't mention even a 10th of them, even if they are played by Sam Neill. Some of my favourites are the King's wives; especially the flawless and wise Queen Catherine of Aragon, whose command of dignity insinuates that the promiscuous King wouldn't dare sully her by lusting after her. Anne Boleyn is even stronger a character. She's principled and sinister, with a trademark lopsided smile and delicate chopable neck. And Anne of Cleves, as beautiful as the rest of the them, is supposed to be ugly; but, as it transpires, the King's repulsion of her is satisfyingly countered by the revelation that... the King reeks.

Queen Catherine's daughter, Mary, is the most innocent and well-meaning character of them all - a beautiful red herring, given that in her eventual reign she becomes known as Bloody Mary. I learned yesterday that the actor of Mary, Sarah Bolger, is a friend of a friend. Everyone in Ireland knows one another, and that's a true fact. Still, it doesn't detract from the fact that Mary is, to me, the most fascinating character in The Tudors.

But my favourite character by far is the sneaky sneaky Thomas Cromwell. He's played by James Frain, who portrayed the similar Villefort in the 2000 adaption of The Count of Monte Cristo. Born poor, Cromwell's political ingenuity and ambition leads him to massive success. He becomes the Lord Chancellor and arguably the most powerful man in England; even more so than the King, over whom the Pope claims Cromwell holds devilish control. The Pope, the Emperor, the English nobles and the English commoners loathe the insidious Cromwell, but somehow he manages to stay alive. And Frain plays him so subtly that when his downfall finally looms all he shows of it is a shaky breath of fear. Compare that to the reactionary roars, crashes and tears of everyone else and the character of Cromwell is the most delicately played and written of every character in The Tudors; and one of the best in modern TV.

King Henry treats Cromwell physically like a dog, beating him one moment and patting him reassuringly the next. The King eventually denies his pernicious pet mercy and has him put down. The noblemen, resentful of Cromwell's rise from rags to riches, ply the executioner with alcohol so that Cromwell suffers a botched and disgusting beheading. The executioner hacks blindly at his shoulders and skull until one of the guards, repulsed by the bloodbath, grabs the axe off him and lops off the still-screaming Cromwell's head once and for all.

Each beheading scene (of which there are many) is juiced mercilessly by sudden emotional backstory. For instance, Cromwell was a merciless man who, whilst being known to the characters as a heretic and traitor, was known to the audience as being responsible for the torture and killing of countless innocents. But hours before his arrest he rejoices in the birth of his grandson. Similarly, Anne Boleyn was portrayed as manipulative and mad - before suddenly having recollections of a happy childhood. Out-of-the-blue emotional backstory is a common trick, but unneeded here, because most of the beheadings are of long-term loved characters.

So in amongst watching The Tudors, jabbering to everyone about The Tudors, writing about The Tudors, and sometimes not writing about The Tudors, I was inspired for a short time to do what everyone else did when they watched it and pick up on the historical inaccuracies. Then I decided that I really don't care. But I did get really involved in reading about the Reformists and the re-establishment of Roman Catholicism to England; of all the caricatured religious politics in The Tudors, the Reformation was by far the most interesting, and I know a lot more about it now than I did before The Tudors inspired me to research it.

Like its fellow Showtimer Dexter, The Tudors is a slightly daft but massively entertaining programme, and at the moment it's my absolute favourite. I'm sure that feeling will pass, but only when people tell me to shut up; which might not happen soon because, as it transpires, everyone else loves The Tudors too.

Day two-hundred-and-something

2011-04-29T03:47:00.001+01:00

Peter O'Toole is the king of almost everything.

Yes that was my first blog post in a month. Wasn't it a corker.

Day 183

2011-04-01T19:01:00.006+01:00

Apparently a few passengers ~~prone to gullibility~~ who don’t own a calendar braved a tentative nibble! I hope there’s some left over when I’m travelling tomorrow, it means I won’t have to pack a sandwich.

‘Tis homewards that I am bound; for a whole creepin’ month, no less. Partly due to cheaper train tickets, partly due to the hunger for cat fur inhalation, but primarily so I can flop around like a Maharaja, dress like a 1990s homeless man, avoid the locals and pad round the garden in my socks. I have lots and lots of work to do. I’ve pressed the keys on this laptop so many times that the markings have rubbed off, so over the next month I’ve got to try and type enough to rub them back on again.

See you in May.

Day 180

2011-03-29T09:14:00.009+01:00

The references that occur most often in our small handful of film/TV classes are Memento and Twilight. I saw Memento for the first time recently, a brilliantly smart but crystal-clear thriller I can’t imagine anyone not enjoying. I’ve also seen Twilight, a satisfying but single-levelled girl’s film about teenage infatuation.

Those two are referenced the most, but sometimes a film/TV show will be mentioned once in passing as an example of something really interesting. Recently the UK TV series Mad Dogs was brought up as an example of being an exploitative piece – it exploits the fame of its cast as its one and only selling point. Apparently.

My neighbour woke me up today by seemingly rearranging his bedroom at 5AM and I couldn’t get back to sleep again so I got to work on the whole 4-part series of Mad Dogs before my morning class. I wanted to see if the show has any merit besides its cast.

I did my research beforehand, and Mad Dogs was apparently made because John Simm, Marc Warren, Max Beesley and Philip Glenister are chums and wanted to work together. As chums. It’s an uncanny coincidence that they’re all famous British actors of course. You’d think Marc Warren and Max Beesley would be closer to Philip Glenister’s big brother, the awesome Robert Glenister, because they worked so closely together in Hustle, but let’s forget that’s the case.

Mad Dogs was shown on Sky because, according to Philip Glenister, “the problem with the BBC and ITV is more people coming in and telling you what to do. We are grown up and big enough to know where the boundaries are”. I don’t want to speak ill of Mr Glenister, but commissioning is a whole field in itself; knowing about it has absolutely nothing to do with being “grown up”. Philip Glenister is an actor, not a commissioner. It’s like saying to a gun expert “shut up and give me the gun; I’m old enough to know how to use it”.

Anyway, so these four are the main cast, which suggests two things. One, that it’s going to be a self-indulgent Judd Apatow-esque tribute to male platonic love. And two that the machoism is going to be balanced out to appeal to a female audience because all – I mean all – of these four actors are major British sex symbols. Nobody need worry about the second part though, because it’s set in Majorca. The “major British sex symbols” are a quartet of pink men with sweaty cleavages and sunhats, bellies protruding from their crinkled cotton shirts.

Again, not that I want to speak ill of them. I do like them all. I've liked them in everything I've ever seen them in. It's genuinely a treat to see these four acting together.

Mad Dogs is about five male friends “of a certain age” (I don’t know what that means) who go to a villa in Majorca for a week-long holiday. One of them gets shot by an assassin, and the remaining four have to figure out what to do. Most of this four-part series is not great. Lots of time is oddly taken up by the boys having trouble tying up boats, they keep stopping in random places to stand in a circle and have a discussion, and the frequent close-ups of irrelevant insects is conspicuous.

As for the characters, they’re all supposed to be exactly the same age (they were in the same class together at school), but they look like they range between 28 and 55. The likeable and funny Marc Warren plays the childish one, John Simm, who looks like a grape, plays a mean but delicate lawyer-type character, and Philip Glenister and Max Beesley take up space for a while, but I’ll get back to them later.

The vast majority of the dialogue throughout the whole series is just character setup – expositional explanation for their relationships and backgrounds – to the extent at which the characters get unexpectedly shouty and cruel and pick on each other’s weaknesses just so the audience know that one’s an alcoholic and one stole the other’s girlfriend and so on.

The twin backdrops to this character-driven series are 1) holiday and 2) gangster. Mad Dogs claims to be a black comedy, but it doesn’t get any comedy at all out of the holiday setting apart from one character sneering at another for wanting to use after-sun cream. But the gangster plot is funny. They don’t know what to do with the corpse, and there is a great moment when an armed gangster screams at them to put their hands up, but they’re all holding cereal. So they have to discuss what to do with the cereal. Should we put the cereal up as well, or...?

The first three episodes are mostly doubtful, but the fourth and final one was genuinely really good. Philip Glenister is finally convincing as a character other than Gene Hunt, and he plays the part brilliantly. A pushy lecturer character that ends up pushing himself and going a bit Rambo. Max Beesley also finally holds his own as distinctly the only likeable character of the bunch; an emotionally-damaged recovered alcoholic who now just wants the best for everyone.

The last episode is treated with a funky little soundtrack and is suddenly packed with references that I notice (I’ve never seen Sexy Beast, the main comparator). It has mirror scenes and character scenes straight from The Shining, and John Simm is Dustin Hoffman from Straw Dogs:

My favourite character in the series isn’t any of the main four, but the beautiful and affable police officer, María, who “is not who you think”. However, none of the characters express any opinion on her whatsoever, at any point. So she’s nothing but a plot device; not a character at all.

Actually, none of the characters have much to do. It’s never even implied why they were friends at school, so the “why” of the whole series remains unanswered. Apparently a second series has been commissioned, and I hope it’s 12 episodes. 12 hours. Just so they can finally move on from the endless exposition (which is, after all, telling and NOT showing, which is supposed to be the biggest no-no of scriptwriting!!!) and have some character dynamic in the here and now.

The appeal of Mad Dogs struggles fiercely to be let free. Like a mad dog. I bet the BBC or ITV would have let it out, Mr Glenister.

Day 178

2011-03-27T21:09:00.002+01:00

I've booked a train home for next week, but apparently East Coast is already having problems without me getting involved.

East Coast rail delays spark passenger anger

Yes fair enough, I don't get why it's the most read article on BBC News but I do get why delays = anger. Just look how Mussolini reacted. But it's some of the language in the article that has me double-taking.

"They have complained of being left to fend for themselves."

"The company had tried to keep passengers informed by sending members of staff to York station."

"'They ran out of food, it was very cold and we didn't know what was happening'".

... okay hold on a minute, we are in 2011 aren't we? What were they "fending for themselves" against? Wildcats? Dingos? Natives? And what do they mean by "sending members of staff to York station"? What, they walked along the rails or something? Couldn't they be kept informed by that newfangled device that goes "ring ring"? And if they "ran out of food" why didn't they just go foraging for nuts and berries.

I don't know why the whole thing is such a big deal; most of us have similar experiences of train platforms anyway. Besides, the bottom line is that being stranded makes a good anecdote. Everyone knows that. I suppose the problem is that being quoted on the BBC News makes a better punchline to the anecdote than "it wasn't that bad anyway, I had some crisps and met a lovely lady in the picnic basket weaving trade".

Day 177

2011-03-26T05:10:00.003Z

What? No, it's 5AM. I'm not going on a march. The spending cuts are fine when I'm asleep. When I'm asleep I'm far too busy worrying about an enormous arctic hare riding a cloud and shooting lightning bolts at Felicity Huffman.

Day 175

2011-03-24T16:43:00.007Z

I know it’s a boring subject, but WHY DO PEOPLE STAND STILL ON ESCALATORS. WHY. In the words of Terry Gilliam, we’ve got two legs from our hips to the ground and if we lift ‘em they walk around. An escalator is just a moving staircase. And even worse, instead of walking up the left side of the escalator, people prefer to QUEUE for the right side. TO STAND STILL. PEOPLE QUEUE TO STAND STILL.

Apart from anything else, it looks stupid. It just does. Next time you’re on an escalator, look at them. Look at those stupid people gliding dumbly heavenwards. Look at them.

Anyway, the reason I brought this up is I did a lot of toob travel today. From the old (and quite beautiful) Baker Street station to the trendy Wood Lane station. I was in Shepherd's Bush because I was invited to the BBC by a Goldsmiths alumnus I’ve been chatting to. He was very very nice and helpful, and even showed me around a bit.

Television Centre is very exciting and rich. The sunlight was glinting off all the Porsches in the parking lot. There was a TARDIS over here and the Quattro from Life on Mars over there, and Top Gear apparently scoots around right here, and Gary Lineker keeps shooting him dirty looks right there, and I got to see the Comedy Department, and I was given a very interesting scoop on one of my favourite scriptwriters, and I thought I saw John Simm and I thought I saw Dara O’Briain, but the truth is, I once thought I saw Whoopi Goldberg in Turkey, so...

Day 174

2011-03-23T01:32:00.001Z

Having just filled in the National Census, I have decided that when I grow up I want to be an Irish Traveller.

Day 171

2011-03-19T15:24:00.003Z

Because most TV programmes aimed at young people revolve around sex, there's an assumption that young people dictate "who's hot and who's not" in TV. This isn't the case. Because most people who work in TV aren't young. Most people who work in TV are about a hundred.

It's middle-aged people who decide who the sex symbols are - no it can't be Emma Watson, it's got to be Billy Piper. And it can't be Robert Pattinson, it has to be Gordon Ramsay.

Most prominent among the middle-aged fanciers is the marvellous Alison Graham of the Radio Times. She was the one who decided on Gordon Ramsay. She also plucked out Hugh Laurie. And Philip Glenister. And the entire Top Gear team. Now there's a new one -- Matt Smith, the new Doctor Who.

Why? He's bony and pasty and has such a strange face that the only person in the world who looks like him is his own reflection in a spoon. And he's in his 20s, so he can't get any better looking. Maybe it's because his personality is all nicey nice. PERSONALITY, PFF.

Day 167

2011-03-15T01:21:00.001Z

I was going to talk about the entertaining 2003 version of Zatoichi that a classmate asked us to watch, but I'm always rambling about films, so instead I'm gonna jump on the chance to talk about another medium of entertainment.

The other week I was happily persuaded to pre-order the new Pokemon Black (or Pokémon Black, as show-offs call it) on the Nintendo DS. I played it for three hours in the sun and then went directly to Script Editing, which confused my brain a bit. Anyway, my brain is enjoying Pokemon Black, though it doesn't blow your teeth out or anything.

The same storyline has run through each Pokemon game since 1995. You're a young boy or girl who lives with Mom in a picturesque backwater village in a world inhabited by Pokemon, colourful creatures that look like wonky doggies and piggies and birdies and so on. From a kindly professor you get your first ever Pokemon, and so begins the coming of age ritual: embarking on a journey on whose path you battle your Pokemon with other people's. Like cockfighting, except with less feathers and squawking.

In each game you also have a rival whose story is much more interesting than yours. This is because your character is flawless, well-adjusted and mute, whereas your rival always stumbles into a curiously dark spiral of despair primarily based on an abundance of ambition and a lack of love.

The structure of the journey consists of winning a badge from every Pokemon Gym in every town in order to defeat the Champion. Running alongside this journey is a gang of stupidly-dressed bad guys who want to take over the world. But on more than one occasion the bad guys have had strangely environmental or noble agendas. In Pokemon Black, for instance, "Team Plasma" (isn't "plasma" a sort of watery colourless fluid in your blood?) believe that Trainers battling Pokemon is cruel, because the Pokemon get hurt.

The idea is that the rightness and wrongness is ambiguous. The world isn't black and white, so it doesn't force you to choose.

I chose Pokemon Black by the way.

Other than the pleasing 3D swooping and the embarassing in-game Nintendo propeganda, what stands out the most is that this time they've attempted to ensure that you don't go on your great adventure alone. You have your two best friends with you, and although they disappear and reappear, the implication is that you're all backpacking together and meet up every night for a Pikachu Pie or whatever it is they eat in this world.

You do have to be a bit shameless to play Pokemon, but it's semi-aimed at people my age. When I was 11 my cousin introduced me to the very first Pokemon game on the monochrome Gameboy in Australia, so like Spiderman or Batman the makers have to please (and thank) the oldies. Pokemon does this with satirical nods to past versions, and a general tongue-in-cheek tone throughout the dialogue.

It's a masterful and endearing little game, and it's very easy to get sucked in and happily ignore phone calls and homework, but luckily that phase passes quickly. Still, I highly recommend it to anyone whose foot really really hurts because you stubbed it on the side of the pavement on the way back from campus.

Day 166

2011-03-13T20:14:00.002Z

People have been praising the dark quality of Black Swan. I don't think it has any quality of any shade. It stars Natalie Portman's ribs as a psychotic little ballerina trying to play the good-and-evil lead of Swan Lake. It's a disgusting film packed with Cronenbergian body horror, but with none of Cronenberg’s intelligence.

It's not moving, beautiful or bittersweet. I wouldn't understand if fans of the ballet liked it, though I imagine a certain ilk of voyeurs might enjoy the tiny fragile ballerinas with giant heads.

Natalie Portman's ribs failed to captivate, and the grotty context she was jammed in was undeserving of Tchaikovsky's famous score. At best Black Swan is a tribute not to Swan Lake but to The Fly. A crap tribute.

Day 165

2011-03-12T01:38:00.003Z

Unluckily for Charlie Sheen, the big dramatic lawsuit he planned to have shake up the papers today was rightfully swamped by the disaster in Japan. Still, a remix of Sheen's famous stoned interview has more hits on YouTube than ever. THE PRIORITIES OF YOUNG PEOPLE THESE DAYS.

Anyway who cares, here's the video:

Day 156

2011-03-02T23:00:00.006Z

Charlie Brooker only reached the terrestrial channels in recent years, and he's being juiced from every nozzle. As well as 10 O'Clock Live at the moment he's got Why TV Ruined Your Life on BBC 2 and it's exactly the same as his forever-definitive Screenwipe programme. The episode of Why TV Ruined Your Life I watched today had a brief review of a programme from 1998 called Killer Net. Killer Net had a weird premise and I had a few hours to waste, so I scuffled around for it and gave it a watch.

Its backdrop is the insistence that all students are cool (they're not; I'm one). Three students -- psychology, law, and nursing -- live together in a flat. Leading the cast is Tam Williams, a pretty and floppy-haired actor who didn't get anywhere with Killer Net, which is surprising; because although he does little other than frown, he's easily convincing as Scott, a psychology student who starts playing a computer game called Killer Net. The concept of the computer game is both outdated and ahead of its time. The player has to stalk, kill and dispose of women. The uniqueness comes from the fact that the game is set in Brighton, where Scott is playing it, so he can visit the real locations himself and plan the perfect murder. Creepy.

Inevitably, one of these murders happens for real, and it transpires that the computer game, Killer Net, is the tool for a serial killer who uses it for perfect murders.

Despite this orrible concept, it's not really as orrible as it sounds (except for the pointless finale). It's not grey. It's not Jimmy McGovern. And when the police keep getting confused between the game and real life it's really funny.

The cast includes the memorable Mark Tandy, the unmemorable whatsisname, and a member of Blur who overcompensated for his crap acting by doing too much of it. But most significantly, Killer Net introduced the cool, gangling and sinister Paul Bettany to our screens. It was his big break. Without Killer Net we wouldn't be doing the pretentious slow nod of approval whenever his confident and enjoyably dramatic presence lopes about in modern films.

The plot of Killer Net has more holes in it than the Holy Ghost, but it's still gripping. It's a naïve and conscientious story with a simple message that explains its unpopularity in the 21st century -- not only are computer games sick and wrong, but computers full stop. Luddites will never win, sorry. Labelling yourself anti-computer is stupid, and I’m surprised they commissioned it. The series ends with the young protagonist heaving his computer from the top of a high building. These days his computer would be so thin it'd probably float to the ground and soften its landing with the new pillow app.

Day 155

2011-03-01T23:04:00.001Z

Inhaled canapés at the BM. William Hague and the President of Afghanistan were there. Normal.

Day 154

2011-02-28T20:03:00.002Z

We woke up this morning to another truckload of identical leaflets jammed through our letterbox. Vote Fran. No I won't Vote Fran. Not because her publicity team is pro-litter and anti-environment, not because I don't vote in student elections anyway, and not because I think Fran is a bad person. On the contrary, I genuinely have every confidence that she's a very good person, because I've met a few student electives at Goldsmiths and they're all likeable, creditworthy, and, most importantly, really involved in what they do.

No, the reason why I'm not going to Vote Fran is because it says Vote Fran. Vote Fran. Vote. Fran. Fran. Vote Fran.

At Aberdeen University one of the student election leaflets read as follows:

Tom. Half student, half wolf: ALL MAN.

I bet Fran isn't even 1/4 wolf.

Day 153

2011-02-27T15:00:00.006Z

Well okay, but 230,000 people died in the Haiti earthquake last year. Does that mean it's 1564 times more catastrophic than the New Zealand earthquake this year?

In 2010 when I was seething self-righteously about how some people weren't appalled enough by the Haiti earthquake someone pointed out to me that the human capacity for emotion can't actually work in numbers. We reach a certain death toll and then our emotional response can't increase any further, no matter how much the death toll does.

In New Zealand the number is still low enough to be increasingly worrying. In Haiti the number stopped mattering, so the media picked on what they could to keep us "empathising".

In other news, "I'm working very hard" says Clegg, "I am honoured to have won this marathon" says knee-high Japanese robot, and "I'm selling my hair because I know people like my hair" says Justin Bieber.

Day 150

2011-02-24T18:51:00.003Z

Had a really proper sorting-things-out morning of cheques, loans, tax and savings. All very serious. Then I went to Gamestation and chatted with some really lovely people and ended up pre-ordering this:

Oh shut up.

Day 149

2011-02-23T08:05:00.005Z

There are people in my class who have immaculate note-taking systems in their lives. Moleskin journal by their bed. A large stock of a very particular brand of pen. Everything colour-coded, pristine and, lets face it, a bit compulsive. I'm one of the far less organisationally gifted ones - I have a cheap reporter's notebook whose pages drop out the moment you write in them, but most of my notes are kept on my laptop in txt files.

Every now and again I'll clean them out and piece together all the notes worth remembering, but this time round I've found more garbled, incomprehensible bullshit than ever, and most of it I genuinely can't remember writing. I definitely can't remember what any of it means. Here's a few examples:

Day 148

2011-02-22T08:41:00.012Z

In the last few days I had the pleasure of meeting a real life TV script editor, and a real life TV scriptwriter. They were both brilliant and full of great advice. I also tried spam (the luncheon meat, not the Viagra emails) for the first time, which was probably much more of an Event than it should have been.

But forget about spam. I've been revisiting the work of Jimmy McGovern. I was informed a few days ago that he is a small man, in specs. Suffice to say, he is also the scriptwriter who has produced, in my opinion, the best gritty British dramas to ever appear on our dusty smudgy TV screens. I revisited him because we had to watch "Breaking the Waves" for class, and I'm half convinced that Lars von Trier is a Danish McGovern. Or Jimmy McGovern is a Scottish von Trier.

I'm a fan of McGovern’s genuinely harrowing "Hillsborough", the plodding but sexy "The Lakes", and the sad and criminally forgotten "Priest", which is so forgotten, in fact, that it hasn't even made McGovern's Wikipedia page. But the best thing he's ever written, or one of the best things anyone's ever written, is "Cracker", starring Robbie Coltrane as Fitz, the world's best contemporary detective character.

Fitz is actually a psychologist, not a detective, with every flaw under the sun but a wit and frankness to remember. The stories cover everything you'd ever hope for in gritty psychological drama, and then some. Religion, race, sex, politics, society and lots and lots of mysterious crimes. Cracker is brilliant not only because of Fitz, but because the fascination with the crimes isn’t the whodunit, but the whydidtheydoit. I realise that isn't as pithy. One of the most interesting but (psychologically) disgusting stories, which serves as the subplot through a number of episodes, covers the painfully gradual decline of one of the coppers.

People have been recommending McGovern's latest, "Accused", so I watched the first episode of that. The absurdly glowering opening credits are followed by the silent revelation that Christopher Eccleston, possibly the most intimidating actor on TV, is increasingly resembling an overcooked parsnip.

I can remember little of the rest of the episode, but it may have been because I knew not to invest in the character because we'd never see him again. Each episode follows a new character's story.

One thing I don't think McGovern writes all that well is women. They're always over-confident (when they're not fragile little Catholic daffodils), often nonchalantly sexually promiscuous in a manner that would never be anywhere close to sympathetic in a male character, and they still do the ironing. The only difference between McGovern's women now and the women written in the '60s is that McGovern's women iron feistily.

I found this on Google Images. My favourite part is where it warns the reader that "Robbie Coltrane is not the burglar".

Day 146

2011-02-20T05:49:00.008Z

I had written a whole blog post about an article from a respected news website, because the article paired the topic of avoiding the objectification of women with a very breasty photo. But a) having been a marketing assistant I know how difficult it is to get permission for the photos you actually want to use and b) the website swiftly changed it to a non-boob photograph anyway, so pfffff....

Day 143

2011-02-17T00:55:00.006Z

We finished the last of the strange label-less liquor (definitely liquor), which means my birthday week is officially over.

I especially enjoyed having family over last week -- not the whole family, of course, just a select trio of middle-aged people. This was bewildering for some of my flatmates, as our lifestyles in halls of residence are not appropriately equipped to deal with the over 30s, apart from in one particular case that mirrors the relationship of Socrates and Plato. Mentioning no names. Except Socrates. And Plato.

Anyway, with the family I got to explore much more of Greenwich. This included The Old Royal Naval College, a structure so symmetrical that I felt a bit dizzy, not the greatest state to be in when mooching around the National Maritime Museum.

I also got to take them to my favourite London restaurant, which makes me feel smugly Londony, and to my favourite recent film, The King's Speech. I didn't catch much of the BAFTAs, but I know that Colin Firth has been flashing his cinematically underused grin. I think he won a lot.

Speaking of nothing, when 10 O'Clock Live started being broadcast last month I got a slew of texts from friends asking if they should tune in or not. I was startled to find myself treated as an authority on the matter, but then I discovered that lots of other people were also being asked. It was a minor epidemic of uncertainty. Should I tune in to 10 O'Clock Live? Should I?

To use a line from Scott of the Sahara: 10 O'Clock Live is the story of three people and a woman.
Everyone knows that "live" is a synonym for "shitter than it would be if it wasn't live". Yes it's off-putting when you're watching, say, QI, and you dimly realise that it's probably the fourth take of the "off-the-cuff" gag that just made you laugh out loud, but because of the nature of live TV it's even more meticulously rehearsed than pre-recorded programmes like QI. And "anything could happen" (an obvious fallacy), meaning that the presenters are so nervous that they can't manage any semblance of visible enjoyment.

10 O'Clock Live has a horribly over-used studio audience that makes the theme tune to the show "WOOOOOOYEEEEEAHWOOOOOO", repeated at ear-splitting volume at every transition. The noise of 10 O'Clock Live is truly horrible.

There are four presenters who, despite being visibly skittish, rarely manage to fluff, corpse or spelunk, whatever that means. The presenters are Charlie Brooker, whose misanthropic ingenuity was more enjoyable ~~before he married a Blue Peter presenter~~ when it was just him and the cameraman; David Mitchell, peculiarly wild-eyed these days; Lauren Laverne, an embarrassing matriarchal organiser; and Jimmy Carr, a clever and measured comedian whose gimmick is to tell a joke and then either address the joke or leave a silence in order to provoke a second laugh.

The programme consists of three things. Firstly, comedy bits that aren't very funny (because it's live). Secondly, news bits in a format seen on literally every single non-fiction TV programme anyway, such as the news that Jeremy Paxman accidentally said the word cunt. That's the third time that very specific accident has happened in as many months. Surely the Daily Mail's going to start calling it "cuntgate". Why hasn't 10 O'Clock Live come up with that joke? It's the kind of joke they tell.

Thirdly, there's political bits, where one of the presenters sits down with serious persons. These bits do have a surprising Paxman-esque feel to them actually; and I say it’s surprising because 10 O'Clock Live feels like a comedy show with serious bits, rather than the originally-intended serious show with comedy bits. David Mitchell is good at serious bits, and it's turning him into an oddly unplaceable figure. I don't think TV really knows what to do with him. It's hard to remember that he's an actor.

It does make me suicidally annoyed, though, when the audience applause each agreeable political point David Mitchell makes. Despite being an hour long, the programme is so rushed that someone always announces that they have to move on to the next bit just when it gets interesting, so the audience have obviously made a collective decision that smugly slapping their raw bleeding hands together in support of someone who, lest we forget, is the presenter, and thus designed to be agreeable, is a much better use of time than actually continuing with the interview.

Mind, I’m sure I'd applaud David Mitchell too. The presenters, at least, have some life in their voices. The guests are all dead. Politicians are boring. They just are. Look at them. Look at them. I imagine they've all been given a formula on what is “charismatic” and “interesting” and will attract The Great Unhosed, so they all have the same words and hairstyle and hand gestures and little trousers.

To answer the initial question, yes you should watch 10 O'Clock Live. Even though it's not hugely interesting, and it's not hugely funny. In my experience live TV doesn't do humour very well, and this one is no different -- although Charlie Brooker did blurt out a memorable jab at the Richard Hammond Mexico furore, but it was kind of lost in the applause. Hammond had said on Top Gear "imagine waking up and realising you're Mexican". And Brooker said "imagine being Richard Hammond and waking up and going 'oh no! I'm this'".

It's Charlie Brooker and the other three that means you have to watch 10 O'Clock Live. That's why people watch it. It's the closest TV has ever come to unvoluntary viewing.

Day 138

2011-02-11T03:04:00.005Z

Have just finished watching John Frankenheimer's 1962 film Birdman of Alcatraz.

Burt Lancaster plays Robert Stroud. Despite being a remorseless and bad-tempered young murderer with a holier-than-thou attitude that never wanes, the characters all seem to be very taken with him.

One of the guards is particularly smitten with handsome Lancaster's brooding character, to the point of throwing a whiny little hissy fit about how he (the guard) is always so nice to Stroud (Lancaster) but Stroud is always so mean to him. At which point Stroud, like a sly olden-daysy husband who wants something from his wife, apologises and promises to be nicer.

Stroud is also loved by his overbearing mother and his chaste wife, neither of whom treats him as anything other than an innocent man, which he pointedly isn't. In an effort to sound more like a young rebel, Lancaster affects slang. The tameness of the language and behaviour extends throughout whole film despite the famously ruthless setting, the height of insult being "hey what kinda nut are you anyway, friend?".

The convict caring for his birds is probably more endearing than ever intended. Although the idea of everyone in life-long solitary confinement being allowed pet birds seems wildly implausible, it's all true.

(Except not really)

More prominent, though, is Stroud's non-reflection on his crimes. The character is liked, admired, respected, and, by some, desperately loved, and he certainly thinks a lot of himself, but why never address the murders? The film is two and a half hours long, and covers every other subject under the sun.

It's done brilliantly, though. Stroud is a bit arrogant, so Lancaster does a lot of the acting behind his eyes. Stuck alone in a cell for decades he's forced to explore the gamut of human social experience through his birds. By the end of it, he's that wise old calm prisoner character that has appeared in every jail film ever since. Especially The Shawshank Redemption, which is arguably even better.

Birdman of Alcatraz has given lots more staples to the film industry too. I had a few moments where I went "oh so that's where we get that from!".

Fantastic film. As long as we don't try and learn too much from it.

"Fly, my avian friends. I give you the illusion of freedom".

Day 137

2011-02-10T20:27:00.002Z

I’ve been researching, and discovered something I didn’t expect. The TV series I’m writing for the course has a character who considers herself a “fangirl”, so I’ve put together a survey for fangirls and posted it in a variety of internet communities. The survey includes questions about your feelings towards being a fangirl, writing fan fiction, having a social life online, and so on. It also asks for age, country, occupation, family – stuff that’s all listed in their profiles anyway – simply because it’s especially interesting if a fangirl is 40 years old and living with her parents, or has a very respectable and serious career but writes Twilight stories on the side, and so on.

So far, fangirls have been enjoying the survey. I’ve encouraged them to go into depth and ramble, and they have, and it’s all extremely interesting. Only one thing has been stopping them – fanboys. They’re asking what it’s all about. Do I have approval to use human subjects in my research. Do my questions meet research ethics criteria. The fangirls seem to understand that it’s a casual, friendly survey, and none of it is going to be quoted or published, but the fanboys all seem to be qualified Research Methodists.

And this is in communities where they write stories about what Dumbledore would have been like as a woman, or run discussions on the density of Stephen Mangan’s chest hair, or draw pictures of Jon Stewart as a Lord of the Rings elf.

Obviously I'm going to write a fanboy character now.

Day 136

2011-02-09T13:44:00.003Z

On my 11th birthday I got this brilliant homemade dollhouse, with stairs and fitted carpets and wallpaper and everything. Tiles on the roof, little windowsills, teeny tiny willow pattern plates. Years of fun. Then, when I got a bit older, further years of fun when we decided to put kittens through the door of the dollhouse and bet on which window they would emerge from. Today I'm celebrating the 12th anniversary of the day I got that dollhouse.

Celebrations have been fairly spread out over the week as far as friends and alcohol are concerned, and with more still to come I've decided the plan for today is to maybe eat toffees and watch a wine program (for no particular reason). And people have always been shocked that I've never tried the student staple of a fishfinger sandwich, so that's what's planned for my birthday dinner.

For now, though, my shower is broken so I have to let the working classes into my bedroom to fix it. I hope they hosed beforehand.

Day 135

2011-02-08T18:39:00.002Z

There's a thousand brilliant movies we could have chosen to intricately analyse, pausing every four seconds, in today's workshop. Anything from The Godfather to Blue Velvet to In The Loop.

"There's enough C-4 on this thing to put a hole in the world!"

Day 133

2011-02-06T15:42:00.008Z

Two of the best headlines I’ve seen on the BBC News website in the last week:

But obviously the story that everyone’s talking about is the Prime Minister’s straight-faced soggy assertion.

I find it frightening to the point at which I’m genuinely convinced I must have misunderstood something. From what I can see, our polemic government is on a quest to undo the Cyclone Yasi-esque damage done by political correctness in the ‘80s. Undo decades of growth in British tolerance in order to weed out a small number of very particular dangerous individuals. Dangerous individuals who can’t be stopped by a “stronger sense of National identity” – extremists who hate Britain so much that they want to hurt it are not going to be stopped by scrutiny of Muslim organisations or tighter immigration laws or more public money spent on accidental arrests of innocent people or white-faced tight-lipped politicians going “gosh, isn’t it awfully nice here in Britain, we have such a hearty selection of teas”, or whatever it is Cameron means by a stronger sense of National identity.

I really have misunderstood something along the way. But for the first time in my life I have a very diverse group of friends of various religions and nationalities, and it seems lots of people are misunderstanding. In fact, everyone’s misunderstanding. What exactly are we supposed to understand.

On the subject of National identity, though, there’s another story that caught my eye this week about the only British TV show I watch weekly -

I don’t know why Jeremy Clarkson’s stringy red face is on there. What he did during said xenophobia was look worried and surprised. Who’d have thought it? Clarkson’s comments on Top Gear make headline news all the time, and usually they shouldn’t, because it’ll be a joke about current affairs, there to make the show look current. But Richard Hammond’s “joke” on Mexico that sparked off complaints was along different lines. There’s no use quoting what he said, because you can’t see his lip curl in a quote.

The Mexican Ambassador complained on behalf of the Mexican people in Top Gear's substantial worldwide audience. But shouldn't Top Gear itself be taking care of its viewers; or at the very least, shouldn't the BBC? I thought that was what the BBC did? Cover all angles, to the point of being criticised for their strict guidelines. For some reason, they held back the scissors for this one and thought Hammond’s comments appropriate for... multicultural viewing. The BBC defended him and said he didn’t mean it maliciously. Of course he didn’t, it was just a joke.

But actually, I think he DID mean it maliciously. He looked angry at the Mexicans. He looked disgusted, in same way as he does when he's talking about male homosexuality or the implication thereof. Either he’s had some hateful experience with a Mexican person or he came up with the joke previously and was so proud of it that he couldn't wait to get it out in the open.

In which case, good for him. A passionate comedian. Needs to get his jokes out there. I wonder if he puts "Comedian" as his profession? This is the kind of stuff that Frankie Boyle gets death threats for, and Frankie Boyle IS a comedian.

I’m “misunderstanding” lots of things today.

Day 132

2011-02-05T22:04:00.004Z

While finally breaking in my Oyster Card I went to the “Assistance” booth, where the guy behind the desk was pacifying a queue of customers by singing “Que sara sara, whatever will be will be”. None of us seemed to have a problem with this.

It took nine hours to get through the Tate Modern Sunflower Seeds exhibition, some pubs, some banoffi pudding and some exploration of the South Bank, because I was in the company of the two Directors of the Ragged University. The world’s full of bad ideas that need charming people to persuade you that it’s a good idea, but the Ragged University is already a good idea to such an extent that it needs (or rather, has) charming people to persuade you it’s not too good to be true. Ragged University is both good and true. All noble-like and happy. It puts entertaining education on a ~~silver platter~~ beermat and offers it to you, completely free of charge. You sit with other friendly people in a pub or café and listen to a speaker who cares deeply about their subject. There’s no restrictions like curriculum or qualifications; it’s unified, face-to-face, interactive, and you can sip on things. Or invite other people. Or get up and leave. Or eat toast.

The Ragged Press, in the meantime, gives unknown authors the chance to see publication and profit. It takes neither copyright nor money -- the author gets to keep both. In return, Ragged Press gets to discover untapped potential while bigger publishing houses bin unread manuscripts just because they don't recognise the author from Celebrity Love Island.

At the moment there’s Ragged University events in London, Edinburgh, Manchester and Glasgow. It's everyone, taught by everyone, entertained by everyone. Free knowledge flying all over the place; you might get some in the eye. Could sting for a bit. But never mind, pop on an eyepatch and do a talk on pirates.

Day 127

2011-01-31T09:09:00.007Z

There were two big challenges I signed up for when I decided on my main project for this year-long scriptwriting course. The first challenge with it is to write for an almost exclusively female cast without excluding a male audience, and the second challenge is to make computers interesting. Lots of people think of The IT Crowd when they think of successful TV shows about computers, but it’s not about computers in the slightest. You get maybe one or two shots of a screen in three series.

My tutor recommended something that made computers interesting – a 2010 documentary called Catfish. I watched it just now, and it’s astounding and fascinating.

It’s by three happy and good-looking young New Yorkers. Two of them decide to make a documentary about the third, Nev, a photographer who has received in the mail a painting of one of his most well-known photographs. The painting is by an 8-year-old girl, and on Facebook Nev begins an innocent friendship with this cute child prodigy and her mother and her beautiful older sister.

As much as I’d love to ramble about what follows in massive obsessive, gleeful depth, I can’t, it needs to be watched (and no trailer, review, clip or Wikipedia page can even begin to do it justice). But it’s amazing. It’d be unbelievable if you couldn’t see the reality in all their faces.

At times there’s a feeling of exploitation, but the filmmakers are three extroverted young guys, so of course their priority is entertainment and curiosity at times. There’s one scene that’s especially hilarious, and it wouldn’t be if it wasn’t a documentary. No scriptwriter would ever think of it. But there’s an amazing array of emotion, and there’s no sense of maliciousness. No kicking up dust for the hell of it, no fierce interventions, no showdowns. There's nothing sinister about it, though because the subject is the internet you'd expect there to be. In fact, the film is gentle and benign despite being extremely suspenseful, and its message isn’t anywhere near what you’d expect it to be.

As much as I liked The Social Network, Catfish is the other film about Facebook that came out in 2010, and I don’t know how long we have to wait for it to be revered.

Day 126

2011-01-30T23:09:00.001Z

You know it's probably time to lay off the fried chicken when discover that the health of your eyes is being effected by your diet.

I found this out at the opticians yesterday when trying out new contact lenses called "Aquaclear" or something. I entertained myself by calling them "Aquafresh", "Aquaman" and "Aqualung" and seeing if the Optometrist noticed. She didn't.

Anyway, fried chicken can effect your eyes. Who'd a thunk it. So I went on a health spree yesterday. A few weeks ago when I promised I'd cook every day, I did manage it for five days before I fell off the wagon, and now I'm trying again for the sake of eyekind. I cooked yesterday and I cooked today. I'm going to cook tomorrow as well. I should probably learn to cook.

Day 122

2011-01-26T16:58:00.003Z

The grid's down - no electricity in student accommodation. Means we all have to talk to one another and there's sudden building-wide bonding. Fine for the afternoon, but then darkness falls, all laptops run out of batteries, and of course nobody has any candles or torches, and ya know - the doors into (and out of) the building are electric! People couldn't get to class, ahahahaha. When we got out/in it didn't make it any less dark. I was planning to go to a BAFTA thing tonight, but no shower, no mirror, no way of finding clothes.

So, looking a bit like Ozzy, I've escaped to campus where the lights and computers are still on - I'm using a Mac for the first time ever. That's going straight on my CV, along with clicking and double clicking and lifting heavy objects. Macs don't have right click, by the way. And they don't scroll properly. And the window won't maximise. I'm gonna go buy a torch. Or a bonfire.

Day 120

2011-01-24T01:46:00.005Z

I met someone today who loves a certain synthpop song but is ashamed of it ever since she learned it got only 1 star on a music review website. Sorry, but that's just not fair. Why should the sanctimonious decide what we should be proud and ashamed of enjoying? Besides, should something be deemed "1 star" just because it wants a thousand hugs from ten thousand lightning bugs?

Everyone knows critics are wrong. Everyone's seen one of their favourite films in Empire or the Radio Times and have observed with disbelief: "... they've given it only two stars".

Simple solution: they're wrong.

Angry that people keep calling Inception the best film to ever exist ever ever? Don't be angry. They are wrong. Upset that people call the latest Narnia movie weak? Luckily, however, they're wrong. Embarrassed that people think you should be ashamed for wanting a thousand hugs from ten thousand lightning bugs?

Obviously when I got home I had to look up this synthpop song that's caused so much shame, and it's caused so much shame because it's childish, all sugary and young, but that's because it's about childhood nostalgia, it's the whole point of the song! I don't really like pop, but I've never hated it. I don't understand the lip curling. The lyrics are about nice things, not whores and crack addiction and stabbing people in the ear.

PS. I really did think Inception was crap by the way. And if you think differently... you're wrong.

(Actually, I'm wrong. I just didn't understand the film.)

Day 117

2011-01-20T20:07:00.003Z

Just came back from “The Best of the 2010 BFI London Short Film Festival”. It was only three short films, but all were over 20 minutes.

The first was about a little girl who was stolen from her mother by a religious fanatic who convinces her that she, the little girl, is the only daughter of Jesus Christ. This is a plot with a bit of potential but it is of course buried in endless melodramatic horror moments of pretentious sizzling rubbish. You can also practically see the Director prancing around going ooh look at me look at me, look what I can do with the camera.

The second short film was about a lonely man who finds a dead woman in a car at the side of the road and then has sex with her. Shrug.

The third and last was, from what I could tell, about absolutely nothing. There was an old man obsessed with his pet birds who lives with his daughter in a disgusting house in the woods. And he breaks people’s necks for some reason.

All three films were equally grotty, cramped, pretentious, obscene, meaningless, unrealistic, exploitative, confusing, garbled, boring and dim. The characters were, for all intents and purposes, idiot lunatics.

I saw about a dozen short films at the festival last year, and enjoyed them. I paid for a delegate pass for the film festival and have loved every visit I’ve made to the BFI. So the fact that I found these three so unpleasant isn’t a reflection on the festival, it’s a reflection on whoever picked these three as “the best”.

The following fact is absolutely true: all three films featured bare breasts.

I’m not implying anything.

I’m just saying.

Day 116

2011-01-19T21:49:00.003Z

This term we have a class with the radio students. Today we had the first of those classes and it seems like it'll be a handy course. And I think it can be thought of as a good thing that the tutor goes off on tangents about how to write an anthropomorphic teabag and stories about his mother heckling in the Royal Court Theatre.

Having finally seen The King's Speech, I really recommend it, it won't let you down. It's got some of the best actors in the world in it -- Gambon, Spall, Rush, Bonham Carter, Pearce, Jacobi, Firth -- see, I just have to say their last names and you know exactly who I mean! -- and wow the locations/sets are beautiful.

I'm sure there's critics who think that the royal family are incapable of emotion on any level, and those critics will probably sneer at bits of the film -- because gosh, wouldn't it be so much more exciting if the characters were toneless, repressed, unemotional, unsympathetic, stony-faced empty shells. But actually, The King's Speech is full of very moving moments, but it doesn't push it. It gets it just right, and it's padded with laugh out loud moments too. Colin Firth is flawlessly brave as King George VI AKA Bertie, middle-aged, bad-tempered, bullyable, kind of greedy, who we happily support from the first second to the last, and Geoffrey Rush plays a character the likes of which I've never seen before.

Just to lower the tone, here I invented a Colin Firth smiley:

:]

Day 115

2011-01-19T03:55:00.001Z

Just spent 18 hours with the Circle of Trust. Now I hibernate.

Day 114

2011-01-17T12:27:00.001Z

Obviously there's no crimes in London, then. Given that when one stringy little hippy kicks up a fuss half the Met are free to thunder along, pummel its back until it falls to the floor, grab its dreads and grind its face into the ground. One officer would've been sufficient. Okay, maybe four: one for each flailing limb.

Is there really nothing else for the police to do? At night? In LONDON? Because if not, I have a few ideas:

1. Take down that Billy Connolly billboard. It's out of date.
2. Outlaw fried chicken, or at least up the price by 500%.
3. Arrest ______ for _____ in that ___ ______ on a _____.
4. Figure out why this olive oil tastes like petrol.
5. Figure out why there's olive oil in the petrol tank.
6. Maybe go for a walk.
7. Put Camden on this side of the Thames, and Deptford over there please.
8. Arrest the IT guy for giving out wrong IT instructions.
9. Arrest the campus.
10. Arrest Rudolf Elmer.
11. Pass me the cider. Thanks.
12. Bring me Steven Moffat. I have questions for him.
13. Pick that up.
14. Anything else. This is New Cross. The takeaway round the corner has a sign above the kebab menu that says "no drug, get out", and the Newsagents across the road has a ___.

By the way, don't you think the internet claiming that it "failed to validate your identity" is a bit philosophical for a computer?

Actually don't answer that. Quiet time now. You've been jabbering non-stop.

Day 112

2011-01-16T02:38:00.003Z

Actually, the cheapest method of travel is walking, so shuddup already.

I walked Lewisham today, and for some reason it reminds me irresistibly of Aberdeen. After a while I realised I was doing a lot of pointless haggling, then I thought back and remembered that wherever I’ve been I seem to enjoy haggling, as long as it’s a stand or a slightly grotty shop. Ever since Camden 2009. I think it might be because debating with strangers is extremely fun. I never let Jehovah’s Witnesses get away. If Jehovah is sitting at home looking at his watch and wondering where all his Witnesses are, they’re standing in the street chatting to me about atheism.

Haggle of the day was bringing £8 down to £3 just because... you know... I CAN AFFORD EIGHT POUNDS.

In Lewisham Centre I went to an “M&S Outlet Store” because I thought, what’s an Outlet Store? I soon found out.

You know if you’re in a faraway land with camels and things (mum has a geography degree, taught me everything she knows), and there's well-off people swanning around and there’s bottled water and cheap jewellery and it’s all very touristy? You go just round the corner and suddenly you plunge into the REAL life of the faraway land, with shanties and windswept sand and cooking in the street.

An Outlet Store is kind of like that.

Day 111

2011-01-14T13:14:00.001Z

I don't think I've EVER been so annoyed, at least not in people's faces. I had a deadline at 12.00. I set off to campus at 10.00, knowing how bad the printers are.

I handed in my work at 12.50.

Those 2 hours and 50 minutes were horrific. I've never gotten to know the campus and its staff so well. Despite the anger and adventure of the whole thing, it's really kind of a boring story because it's all about printers and photocopiers and rooms and tags and money and page numbers and corridors and bits of paper and holepunches, so I won't bother telling it.

But I was eventually driven to the point at which I barged uninvited into important busy people's offices and asked for things. I also tracked down the person responsible for the whole issue, who was really very kind, and made him run around for an hour. As punishment.

Appalling afternoon.

I'm going to complain to the Queen about this.

Day 110

2011-01-13T23:39:00.006Z

I’m trying to write for TV, so it’s okay to be fascinated by it, innit. All the same, the TV phases I go through are a bit fickle. There’s the obvious stuff – all the sitcoms and comedy dramas and the like – but sometimes it gets weird. Mainstream. But weird. A couple of years ago in Aberdeen I’d get home at about 7AM and would have a lecture at 9AM, so would watch the Jeremy Kyle Show. Sometimes I’d watch it every day. A few months ago, I got into cooking shows. I don’t cook.

And now I love Top Gear, and honestly I DON'T WANT TO.

I’ve never been behind the wheel of a car, or had much interest in it, but now I seriously want to drive a Porsche 911 Carrera RS 3.0 at 163mph. But I don’t want to want to do that.

The show consists primarily of atmospheric music videos with shiny cars and zoom noises, with the driver giving their analysis as they skid around. There’s a camera on the inside of the passenger seat door, meaning that the driver will speak to you as if you’re sitting next to them. Bet you never noticed that before. It's surreal and makes them look mad.

At first Top Gear was about cars, and cars, and things like that, but then they realised that humans are always a nice touch. So the producers piled on buckets of the adventures, rivalries, foibles, and personalities of presenters Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond and James May, and now Top Gear is absurdly popular to the extreme and people latch themselves onto the presenters who, as Stewart Lee said, exactly mirror the relationship of The Three Bears.

There’s original beer-gutted petrolhead Jeremy Clarkson, who gets paid liberal amounts of money to produce considerably less than liberal “opinions”. Only a year or so ago I had no idea that Clarkson was known for being on Top Gear – I thought he was just an unemployed bigot and royalist that tabloids went to when they got bored of talking about women who put cats in bins. I thought the BBC was rigid, I don’t understand why they allow all the iffy bits in, and I don’t believe in the message behind “boys will be boys” and I don’t advocate the excuse of “know me, know my ways” - but despite all this, in the majority of Top Gear Jeremy Clarkson is not wildly objectionable. He’s not as witty as the other two, but he’s funny, and he’s (obviously) beyond caring about perceptions, so he indulges in things like his embarrassing bird-watching hobby.

Several feet down from Clarkson is his resolute sidekick Richard Hammond, a big-eyed adrenaline junkie who pretends to be hyperactive and who flashes his pearly whites at every opportunity, in the knowledge that our grandmothers think he’s cute.

In 2007 a Vampire Jet-Powered Dragster travelling at 288mph got so annoyed by this that it filmed itself giving him brain damage and putting him in a coma. To paraphrase Stewart Lee again, maybe Hammond was lying there, broken and bleeding, thinking “I hope I get seriously injured in this crash; then I’ll be able to write a bestselling book about it”. And he did – a few, actually – and gave a million interviews on a million chatshows and a million tabloids, as did his wife, every single little detail of every single little shudder of heartbreak. They sold the whole experience, him and his wife, and because the experience couldn’t be taken away from them, they were able to flog it again and again – they still can, and they still do. If only real life economy was like that.

Despite the controversies of Hammond and Clarkson, most people I’ve talked to about Top Gear find their favourite in the quieter James May, who is still a bit “ooh pikeys”, but PC central in comparison to Clarkson. May is a bit hazy, he looks like he enjoyed the ‘70s (as they say) and he has long hair and wears baggy shirts a lot, but he is generally a shiny-shoed gentleman who refuses to run on television. He seems like he should be a great writer or Pipe Smoker of The Year, but he’s not, he’s on Top Gear. Which is fine. It’s great fun to watch his diffidently amused face.

And sometimes we get to watch all three of them together, on wild adventures through deserts, the arctic, rainforests, mountains, volcanoes, cities, oceans, tunnels and skies. Sounds like I'm being sarcastic there, but I'm not. Top Gear is big budget, and I love their massive adventures.

Even though the most publicised public impression of Top Gear is how everyone loves or hates the presenters, I’ve spoken to lots of real life walky abouty people about Top Gear, and interestingly the strongest opinion is that there’s not enough technical stuff. I agree. Even I want to know more technical stuff, and I had to look “horsepower” up on Wikipedia. I’ve watched a lot of Top Gear episodes now, and despite learning an upsetting amount of jargon I still don’t know the very basics of how the hell a turbo engine works; I just know it makes the car go “vroom vroom” to an extent that makes those three testosteroney presenters look like they shouldn’t be on TV before the watershed.

Day 109

2011-01-13T02:37:00.003Z

Tonight I went to BAFTA for a special screening of West is West, the sequel to East is East (obviously). I greatly enjoyed it, it was enormously feel-good and pretty funny, and, just like its predecessor, got the balance just right. After a few drinks and after my friend showed me her second favourite street in London – a street for which I felt underdressed – I realised on the tube from Piccadilly that much of my affection for West is West might be down to the love that was poured into it by the makers, evidenced by the speakers before and after. The producer had seen it 60 times. And the director is Andy de Emmony, who directed Red Dwarf!!

... well, I find that fact exciting.

West is West will be in cinemas on February 25^th – go see it! I realise its sequel status is overpowering in its unattractiveness, but I haven't seen East is East since it came out ten years ago so could barely remember it - West is West is great on its own, I promise.

Day 108

2011-01-11T20:29:00.005Z

I can’t remember the password, pin number and security answer of the stranger who was sitting in front of me. If I could, I’d share them and we could all have a piece. This was last month when I left London to go back up North for Christmas, and I had packed all my luggage in one of those big backpacks, so when I caught the 7 minute overground to London Bridge and took a seat I was forced by the backpack to lean right forward. If the gentleman in the seat in front of me had looked round, he would have noticed I was about three inches from his Blackberry as he accessed his bank account.

Today, travelling back down to London from Scotland, I didn’t bring a backpack. But I did bring a notepad and pen.

It’s hard not to miss the home comforts of my home comforts at my comfortable home. Oversleeping, baths, open fire, old friends, TV, proper wine. Several instances of me grabbing a cat, collapsing on the sofa, and a family member observing – “that is not a happy cat”, and me tightening my grip on the kitty and drunkenly objecting – “but I love him”. And perfect hot meals that are cooked by this mysterious middle aged couple who share my surname.

Away from the little hills covered in snow and sunlight, and back to ambition, competition, opportunity, missed opportunity, deadlines, sleep deprivation, panic, people and mad energy. And mad energy drinks.

A vicious deadline is looming this Friday and I’ve got loads of work left to do for it, but I’ve already arranged to go out tomorrow evening. I guess it’d be impossible to devote every second to that deadline anyway. Besides, I’ve got a thousand Londony things I want to do, and I’m resisting (most of) them for this deadline. For now, however, I can feel no guilt in trying out my resolution – I’m going to COOK. Every single day FOREVER. In fact, I’m going to go to the supermarket RIGHT NOW and pick up ingredients. Our local Sainsburys is Jamie Oliver’s local Sainsburys too, and he of course sponsors the place – a couple of months ago he was there and lectured my friend on how to select the proper cheese. I hope that doesn’t happen to me. Can’t be having celebrity chefs milling around when I’m trying to get ingredients for all the COOKING I’m definitely definitely definitely going to do.

Day 81

2010-12-15T22:19:00.008Z

"Researchers have reconstructed the face of Henry IV, using the presumed skull"

Researchers these days are amazing if they can tell from the skull that Henry IV was retaining water in his neck, had a squint hairline, Emperor Palpatine’s forehead, Keira Knightley’s pout, a killer ‘tash, and a stiff breeze coming from the right.

This is my last day in London for 2010, and I’ve got lots of Christmassy stuff out the way over the last week, including being frozen to death on multiple occasions, seeing an ungodly amount of Santas in one place, drinking slightly too much for someone coming down with one of those ooh-it’s-that-time-of-year-again head colds, unexpectedly celebrating Hanukah (not too Christmassy then), immersing myself in party hats, crackers and mulled wine, attending two Christmas fairs and a confusing Christmassy street and its Christmassy pubs, building a gingerbread house with the Circle of Trust, and proofreading Christmas decorations (oh that’s right). Also did some carol singing. It’s the kind of stuff that always appears on Grumpy Old Men. Didn’t do a lot specific to London, but there’s always next year. Tomorrow, however, I go home for snow, roaring fire, roast meals, Radio Times, pine trees, Christmas TV, and puppies and kitties (not to be mixed with the roaring fire).

While I’m there, I must remember to steal a new bowl (I broke it) and a new bedside light (I broke it). I’ll also be working on the final draft of my short film script, and the treatment for my long form script, which has turned into a black comedy/drama TV series. It’s been an amazing term. I’m relieved I’m still in the process of being trained for professionalism, though, because I really need the next two terms. My best ideas I scribble on pub menus and never translate to the page, I cower at the idea of competing with friends, and my signature only looks like a grown-up’s when written in condensation. Which is often, by the way. Am really excited for next term, but I’m definitely not going to be wishing hometime away.

In preparation for leaving I’ve made use of Henry the Hoover, who in his student accommodation I believe is designed to hoover up pins, pennies, pizza crusts, shards of glass, shards of china, unidentifiable stains, bits of curtain, specks of wall, receipts, paper, plastic, metal and wire, and what I could’ve sworn was the tiny hand of a stuffed toy. Now all I have to do is pack, sleep, remember to wake up, King’s X (it’s King’s Cross, lazy bastards), Edinburgh, home, and death.

Day 80

2010-12-14T20:40:00.007Z

Because for some reason I observe my own meaningless self-made rule that I can only blog in the London blog while in London, when I’m back up in Scotland on Thursday I won’t be blogging at all until I return in a few weeks. This means I have to get some rambling about TV shows and movies out of my system.

All the American TV shows I watch have stopped now for their “Christmas hiatus”, including House (I wish I could stop watching it), The Office, Dexter, and Desperate Housewives. You’re always in safe hands with Desperate Housewives. Great background fodder. Though this week it got promoted to full screen with its mid-season big ‘un – the character stories all took place in and around a raging riot on Wisteria Lane. Brilliant Episode.

Although Desperate Housewives does seem to have an iffy “All Men Are Evil, Even Gay Ones” message, but fair enough, it’s the century of revenge. Sorry, I mean the millennium of revenge.

I also made my way through Flashforward, which I’m quite late to. They cancelled the second season. I checked it out because it’s got one of the funnest premises I’ve ever heard: everyone on the planet blacks out for 2 minutes and 17 seconds, during which they have a vision of their future. The scenes in which everyone on the planet falls unconscious at the same time are great fun to watch, and the repercussions hard to resist. Planes fall out of the sky, cars collide, swimmers drown, all that stuff. And it had Jack Davenport and Dominic Monaghan in it! Unfortunately, none of the characters were in any way believable or sympathetic. The best story was a very simple one about the concept of soulmates. Sickening? Yes! But! I thought it was the best bit about Flashforward.

Bizarrely, I felt slightly short-changed by the child-friendly content of the show. It’s supposed to be about the human race’s darkest moments – where were the drug abuses, sex scenes, bloody violences? Not that that’s what I look for in a TV show, but c’mon! It was a kid’s script written for adults.

Like everyone else in Britain, I’ve also been watching The Walking Dead, AMC’s zombie TV series.

Think a zombie TV series is an original, clever idea? Watch Charlie Brooker’s Dead Set. Much more interesting, funnier, gorier, cleverer. The Walking Dead was fine, but, again, generic characters that had no impact. Loved the way it looked, though. Like I Am Legend but sicker.

Back on British TV, I’ve been watching The Trip, which I recently cannonballed against my better judgement. It’s simply Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon on a little trip, and it’s got some funny moments. However, each episode ends with a Steve Coogan Sad Scene, which is a bit embarrassing. There’s no plot or structure or resolutions – it’s just two blokes doing impressions and talking about roads and things. There’s a few laugh out loud moments, like when Steve gets trapped halfway along some stepping stones and Rob yells out “you’re trapped in a metaphor!”, but it’s in-jokey entertainment, and I’m sure it’s okay and everything, but... BUT THIS ISN’T THE WAY I’M BEING TAUGHT TO DO THINGS ON MY COURSE!

I’ve also been watching Miranda, for Miranda Hart, who is endlessly fun to watch and hear and experience.

Lastly, I’ve been watching Misfits every week – brilliant British TV series on E4. It’s about a group of community service kids with superpowers. It’s a grim, hilarious, fast-paced series, and if you start watching it you can’t get enough of it. It’s got wildly credible characters in it, each with stories well worth following. Big fan of Misfits here.

Speaking of superheroes, I did go through a slight superhero movie phase a couple of weeks ago. Which is mad. I think someone tricked me into it. I watched Spiderman. And Spiderman 2. And Spiderman 3. I also watched Kick-Ass, which I didn’t like, and Unbreakable, which I very much liked. Unbreakable is the most subtle superhero movie I’ve ever seen – and it stars Samuel L Jackson and Bruce Willis. It’s delicate and strange, and the only problem is that it never seems to begin properly; I suppose because we’re so used to superhero movies being full of epic cityscapes and shooty shooty moments.

Right! That was a good ramble. Back to real life.

Day 75

2010-12-09T20:42:00.004Z

Amazing experience today. It was the first time I'd ever worked with actors - three very professional, lovely, fun actors, who came in to do a table read of our short film scripts.

It was a day-long event consisting of two readings of seven scripts. The first reading was one throughout which I felt terror and dread. Other people enjoyed my script, but I didn't (the actors were fantastic - the problem was my writing). Over lunch I nicked my scripts back from the actors and cut out the entire first scene, but this meant that the new first scene of the short film -- a comedy film -- wouldn't be comedic, but depressing. So in a mad rush to try and make a depressing scene funny, I began it with the description "depressing as fuck". That did the trick. Er, I'll work on it over Christmas.

So the second reading was wildly more enjoyable for me, and during we were joined by a few more people who had come to watch, including our course coordinator, straight off the plane from LA (glam), who we were grateful to have there. He runs the long form side of the course, so this was the first time he'd seen anything of our short films. Interesting crossover moment. World-hopping.

Great day and entertaining evening, and a possibility that the lines between fiction and reality are beginning to blur; but that might just be because I've not got my contact lenses in.

Tomorrow, a lecture with Phil Parker, about whom so many people have spoke with esteem (that's the right grammar, isn't it?). Looking forward to it.

Day 74

2010-12-08T14:59:00.004Z

Isn't it annoying when you have a dream about getting up and going to class, and then you get up and go to class. I think that kind of thing explains why we're alive. Descartes says we "am" because we think, but maybe we "am" because we have dreams as stupid as that one, and write things as stupid as what I just wrote.

So yesterday I got up and went to class. It was a brilliant class. A day-long lecture with Linda Aronson, who somehow had the stamina to be as engaging at the end as she was at the beginning. Among many other things Linda talked about how to work with actors as writers (don't let them improvise or they'll make their characters start bickering over nothing or have an inexplicable sexual encounter), pointed out the gaping plot hole in Cinderella (lots of women would have the same shoe size as her) and screened the opening of Galaxy Quest as an example of how best to introduce a group of characters.

Today I went into campus even though I didn't have to go into campus, which is always upsetting. There's a billboard on the way in that calls Billy Connolly the "Godfather of Comedy". Okay, I don't follow. I suppose the idea might have been to have a tagline that would emphasise how long Billy Connolly's been in the business, but they couldn't call him the "Father of Comedy" because that's enormous, and they couldn't call him the "Grandfather of Comedy" because he's not old enough, and they couldn't call him the "Uncle of Comedy" because then he'd only really see Comedy about once a year. But "Godfather of Comedy"? Does that mean he'll take over for the parents of Comedy if they die, or does it mean Billy Connolly is being played by Marlon Brando? Which is it?

Why not just call him the Billy Connolly of comedy. People understand that.

There. Get it done.

Day 68

2010-12-02T22:28:00.006Z

... okay, yes I regret wishing for snow. “The Big Chill” reached London on Tuesday and tormented everyone, including the otherwise so snuggly Circle of Trust. It followed us in to campus, it blew through the closed window in class, it froze our hot food at lunch, it crystallised the windows in the pub, and it followed us all back to our respective homes, and I appreciate so much the value of an included heating bill. Most of the pieces on the BBC news site are called “snow causes more chaos” or “snow causes more fun” or “why we hate snow” or “why we love snow” or “gosh snow is awfully snowy isn't it” or “Serbian Film becomes most cut movie in 16 years”. I realise that last one has nothing to do with snow, but it’s turned up in almost every conversation I’ve been a part of in the last week. Don't continue reading this blog post.

The Serbian film in question is called “A Serbian Film”. Don’t look it up, don’t, ever, don’t even read about it, never think about it again, never look it up, don’t. Don’t. Ever. But I made the scarring mistake of following the chain of articles and reading the plot of this film. It’s the most hideous film I’ve even known existed, and it’s being banned all over the place for crimes against morality. Crimes against morality.

The idea is that A Serbian Film is symbolic, but its metaphors are so harrowing that they absolutely usurp their original meaning. For instance, I could say what A Serbian Film was designed to symbolise, but it's pointless, meaningless, lost. Yesterday, while he was cheerfully grating potatoes to make latkes for Hanukkah, my flatmate made the point that the concept of rape is wildly over-used as a symbol. These days it’s used as a symbol for absolutely anything and everything.

The same can be said for A Serbian Film, but it can be said for the reviews too. One reviewer said that watching the film felt like his “soul was being raped”. Well done, Tim Anderson, for validating A Serbian Film’s revolting use of symbolism.

However, Anderson also said “You don't want to see Serbian Film. You just think you do”. Perfect. That confronts my curiosity about this inexcusable horror, and at the same time ensures that I genuinely will never watch it.

Hopefully writing this down means I never have to talk about A Serbian Film ever again!

You can tell it’s a dark Winter’s night, can’t you.

I’d better watch Danny the Champion of the World and have some jammy dodgers.