I know someone who knows someone...

zing

2010-02-18T18:38:00.001Z

RT @quantick EastEnders writing "street" dialogue. Like pulling teeth and then using them as nails on a blackboard.

Do's and don'ts in writing - a hipsters guide.

2010-01-14T20:02:00.002Z

New York's bible for jaded hipsters, Vice magazine, have come up with a guide for novelists/writers, pointing out what they see as lazy pathways to cliché land; THE NY TYRANT GUIDE TO NOT BEING A HORRIBLE WRITER IN THE YEAR 2010

Even though this is Vice we are talking about, I still think there are a few good pointers in here somewhere. I could be wrong though. Actually the bits about Star Wars and writing about writers are on the money, so maybe some others are too?

It is also peppered with Brian Eno-esque oblique strategies, like "Drink some water", and "When you think you are about to write something really good, go to the grocery". Shit like this doesn't seem to be working for U2, so I don't know why anyone bothers with it anymore.

Even if you go on to dismiss most, or all, of this, I don't think lists like these are a complete waste of time as long as they get you to sharpen up, to re-think and think harder about what you're writing. It's good to have some doors suddenly lock shut on you - you look for other exits that way.

Here's the list:

If you’re going to write about drugs, please stop.

If you’re going to write about a wedding, please stop.

Stop writing about how weird it is to be gay. It’s not weird anymore.

Please do not write in hip-hop language.

Don’t write about porn. We already have enough of that in our lives and we all beat off a much as you do, so it’s no biggie.

Don’t try to “write what you know.” You don’t know anything. Me either.

If you have to write about drugs, don’t write about pot. Candy is more interesting than pot is. Knives are almost always cool.

Accidents are good, but not car ones, unless everybody in the book is dead or dies at once.

If there is lace of any kind in your writing, you are doomed.

Don’t write about Europe. You were there with a backpack for a week and barely scratched the surface. This does not permit you to have a character called Giuseppe.

Do not open up your story with Bob Seger or John Mellencamp lyrics. Stephen King did that shit to me once when I was small and I’m still recovering.

Mental institutions are a dealbreaker. You can have an institution on your street or near your school but you can’t be in one anymore. It sucks, I know.

If you write by hand, write with the hand you don’t favor.

If you write by computer, and the room has a window, sit by that, and don’t look out it.

Ignore or be rude to the people you love.

Then try to make up for it.

Don’t try to surprise me unless you surprised yourself.

Write a book that will make me want to keep reading it rather than getting head. I can think of 10.

Font is important, both while you are typing the words, and when it is printed in the book.

When you think you are about to write something really good, go to the grocery.

Chekov’s idea that “if a gun is on the mantle in the first act it should go off in the last” has done more damage than any other single sentence in writing. Objects are not road signs. Action in a book should not occur as if Keanu Reeves was in charge.

I’m still waiting to read a really good scene about somebody getting their ears pierced. It can be done.

Never have children.

Study story. Realize you cannot win. Repeat.

If you’ve ever thought about Star Wars or mentioned Star Wars in conversation, or own anything related to Star Wars, or have seen Star Wars, don’t write.

Oh sweet, you went to that museum alone one day and had a tuna sandwich in the cafe? You’re killing me, please.

The subway, huh?

If you listen to the Beatles or Radiohead, or Jay-Z, don’t write.

If you ever put up devil’s horns with your hand at shows, don’t write.

You’re probably in bad shape if you mention whiskey or a beach.

Don’t say “story” or “poem.”

Mothers are better for characters to have than girlfriends. Ditto fathers/boyfriends. If the mother is the girlfriend or the boyfriend, I hope your story isn’t minimalist or narrative.

Abstractions and dreams are good.*

*Unless your dream is about building a tree-house out of honey and glue with your brother who isn’t really your brother but that Brad Renfro guy who died in Hollywood but nobody noticed and the tree-house turns into a bar then a candle then a city. We’ve all had that dream or something equally as underwhelming.

Write less dialogue, unless you are really good at it, which I guarantee you aren’t.

You’re probably in pretty bad shape if you mention any website whatsoever or even a computer for that matter.

When was the last time you ate at an Arbys? If it was more than a year you probably can’t say anything I need to know.

The cute fat Mexican at the bodega and his family who you think you’re such good friends with probably live a much different life than you expect. Maybe don’t start messing around in there.

Are you writing about someone taking a drag off of a cigarette? You might as well be saying, “He breathed.”

Don’t write about skin unless it’s going bad. Acne is always a choice subject. The shame and embarrassment that comes with terrible skin can be a goldmine. I’m talking Acne Vulgaris too, not a goddamn blackhead on your chin.

Don’t conceive of your “central” characters by defining them with a mental or physical “condition.”

If you’re going to tell me about your Mom, do it from your dad’s point of view. I want to know what she’s like in the sack.

Don’t connect with me. Don’t try to pretend I’m not there.

Don’t try to be funny. You are or you aren’t. Or the sentence is or isn’t.

You are neither David Lynch nor Captain Beefheart. You might be Cher.

Cry more, but don’t tell anybody either. This is the way crying is like rap.

I used to say you can’t write about serial killers, but they work sometimes, if they are described in the way one would a washcloth or a doll.

Remember your asshole is a tunnel.

If you’ve ever read Bukowski, please stop.

Please, God, no characters who are musicians. There is nothing worse than trying to describe music, or how someone plays it. Leave music to douchebags.

Stop writing about rich literary boys in college. I hated you people when I was in college and I still hate you. Your frat took a shit on my porch.

Drink some water.

Do not write about writing. Have you ever seen a painting of a person painting? No? Well, it sucks.

If you’ve ever told someone they are “misreading” a philosopher, eat a cock.

You are not Andy Warhol.

You probably don’t really listen to black metal.

Can I reiterate the one about not writing about musicians?

If you are more aware of your own dick or vagina than you are of what your breath sounds like when you are asleep, please go get a job in marketing instead.

The guy who lives upstairs from you is probably really cool. You should introduce yourself instead of imagining him doing weird shit with hooks and rope all the time and then writing it down. Get a hold of yourself, the guy’s probably just playing Wii.

Oooh, prostitutes. So you’re into that. Awesome. I’d rather hear from them about you.

If there’s never been a book that made you not want to leave the house again, don’t try to make your own.

Stop being in bars all the time. Man in Bar = Man in Life. We know.

If you’re angry, go outside. Please do not put words into things. Not to keep the anger away, but to keep the Rage Against The Machine out of my ears.

Own your advice in the same way you once tried to suck your own dick. By that I mean: everything is true.

If my cousins on my dad’s side of the family know who you are, or feel interested in reading your book when told what it’s about, you might be dying.

Any critique of the social or emotional will go unnoticed. Pity.

If you can separate the words and the story: trash.

The word “lovers” always fails on some level.

Don’t just kill your idols; leave them in history.

Avoid L.A. and New York altogether. If you lived in either of those cities, you would have given up writing by now anyway. I don’t believe you.

Have you ever printed out your manuscript and bathed in it?

Right answers are for those who hope.

Tone belongs to music while deafness is holy.

If you or the people in your writing have bought new clothes in the past two years, it’s over.

If you can point out “Action” in a book, why isn’t it a movie?

Don’t write about America or Bush or Arabs.

Don’t write about the future.

Don’t write about endings.

Probably don’t write anything at all.

Yeah, Jackie.

2010-01-06T19:02:00.003Z

I'll try and steer this site away from being a TV blog, but...

Even though the rest of the world had it last year, the Beeb, finally, appear to be rushing out all of season one of Nurse Jackie, with an episode every week night, so, if you have yet to tune in - as we once said - you need to get on that pretty pronto.

What I'm saying is, not only is NJ the best medical profession-based TV series since Cardiac Arrest (unless you count Paul Whitehouse's Help), but that terrestrial UK TV has its first best programme [US import category] of 2010.

At least until Mad Men season 3, and Glee season 1 start.

So, you're wondering how good can this show really be? From Wikipedia:

Christian Parent's Television Council, called Jackie "a filthy degenerate" and stating that any good shown in the character "only salves the conscience so the viewer can enjoy the evil parts," adding that "anything approaching the right moral course would completely ruin all the 'black comedy' fun Showtime is having.

Thumbs up then.

Another door opens

2010-01-02T11:35:00.007Z

As I said two posts ago, I'm relieved that the Tennant reign has come to a close, though I may have been unfair about Saint David. I like the man, the cut of his jib, his funny ways. He's a nice guy, right? I just wish he wasn't quite so EVERYWHERE selling himself.

His Desert Island Discs selection proved he was into the same jangly-indie pop as I was in the late '80s when we were both youngsters - he's a bit older then me iirc. Though, unlike me, his interest in music obviously stopped dead when he got out of his teens. But anyway.

Good actor, and there aren't many voices saying different. He's just universally well liked.
I first noticed him in the Dennis Potter-esque drama-musical Blackpool a few years ago, alongside David Morrissey. I thought, this guy is good. Then he was in Rusty's Casanova and that was some rubbish, but then Rusty cast him as Christopher Ecclestone's hasty replacement in the rebooted Doctor Who. Brilliant choice. He seemed perfect.

You know, he kind of almost was. He undeniably brought the show, the character back to the popularity of the Tom Baker heyday. The kids, the grans, the gays, the fangirls... they all adore him. They think he's a righteous dude.

(I know fangirls are fangirls and all, but this nonsense about him being omg squeeable and generally outrageously attractive... What is that about? Plus he must be one of the worst dressed men on the planet. srsly Dave ditch all the fucking velvet jackets and vile t-shirts. For crying out loud, man).

He was a bit hyper-hyper in his first series, though he managed to dial it down a tad from thereon in. Most of the time. There was the occasional skull-grimace, eye-swivelling, but I suppose I can let it slide. I'm sure that's gonna be a load off.

So. The End of Time part 2 was, for the first half, about as full of incomprehensible sci-fi gobbledegook as Nu-Who has got. Any time a sci-fi franchise gets a council of some sort to sit around and talk meaningless guff (see the later Star Trek spin-offs and movies, and the Star Wars prequels with their interminable Jedi council pow-wows - which this Dr Who story explicitly referenced) you know the whole thing is running on fumes. Then it is only talking to - and appealing to - the hardcore geeks in the room.

For all of Rusty's talk of getting the show to appeal to the Strictly/X-Factor Saturday night crowd, do you think any of the Tim Dalton and the Time Lords stuff made the slightest lick of sense to Mr and Mrs average? (Yeah, it did look fantastic though).

I did, however, like the long, drawn-out ending. For once things didn't just get louder and louder and more-blowy-up, instead it just suddenly shoved the Master and James Bond off the screen for whatever gibberish reason, and stopped everything. Then Cribbins tapped lightly on the glass, and it was like... whoa.

Cribbins has been a wonder. That's another thing we can all agree on.

You knew, you just knew Rusty was going to do his fly-past as a way of bowing out. It was okay though. It was good. A curtain call for most of his main players (not really buying the Jessica Hynes playing her character's granddaughter thing, but it was a nice, unexpected callback) and a few of the aliens in the Star Wars-y canteena.
Ends were tied into neat bows, and RTD wound up as he began with confounding expectations about Billie Piper. I was kinda dreading the scene with Rose. I knew it had to come, and right at the end as well.
It did but it was fine. A nice little moment that bought everything full circle.

Matt Smith. Gotta feel for the guy. Those first few moments were cringe-making, weren't they? I'm hopeful about him though. I like the man, the cut of his jib, his funny ways. He's got an innate oddball quality to him, which all but the first four people who have played the Doctor have had to affect, with mixed results.

I'm quite looking forward to series five now. Fresh start, fresh production team, fresh lead, fresh... pair of legs. Sorry but cute Karen Gillan is cute. Got to admit.

Everyone who is interested enough in Doctor Who to have read this far will already have posted the trailer for the 2010 series on their own blog/soc-net site, but anyway. How exciting is this:

Hope he doesn't cry "Geronimo" too many times though.

Happy New Year

2010-01-01T14:16:00.003Z

It is the future. Here's a New Year's resolution for you all: let's make this the best gosh-darnit 2010 there's ever been.

Also: have some pie or something.

One door closes

2009-12-31T12:16:00.006Z

I'm ending the year in the same way I end most years: with a sense of disappointment at chances fumbled and goals unscored, but also a gnawing urgency to push on into a new chapter that must surely come when the calender turns.

Hope is boosted just because of a new day; a day, really, like any other day?

Can't help it though. It gets me every time.

Have to say, as well, that 2009 was a better year for me personally than 2008, and that year, in turn, was better than the previous three.

So, hopes are high that 2010 really will be the year I make contact. Just like in the movies.

Like some damn fool I'm an optimist and a dreamer. Neither of which have rewarded me in any tangible way. Nothing to show for it, but, hey, I'm still here, right?

Had a good Christmas, thanks for asking. A week spent nested on the settee watching the same old films (The Fabulous Baker Boys in particular has become a Christmas afternoon staple for me of late) and gorging.

TV was a let down as it always is, but the showing of The Bridge to Teribithia on BBC1 on Boxing Day more than made up for it. It's a rare thing for a fantasy film, especially one aimed at children, to be as unfussy, un-cloying, and moving as this. That wears its fantasy element lightly, and can turn tragic without being honey-dipped. I'm filing this one next to Let the Right One In and Pan's Labyrinth, it's that good, that affecting and witty. A fantasy that keeps it real.

I long for that day when I can switch on the TV or radio and David Tennant won't appear. He's not one to turn an invitation down. The first part of his final Doctor Who story was an over-egged, overly-rich pudding that stuck to the roof of your mouth and made you feel bilious. Just as all Dr Who Christmas specials passim.
I know he's the housewives-and-gays favourite, but I can say now I never really warmed to him as the Doctor. He's too warm. Too hiya matey. Too yeeeah, oooh, we-e-ell, ye-e-es... Twitch, gurn, googly-eyes, misty-eyes, bottom-lip quiver, Adam's apple bobbing. I'm sorry, I'm so, so sorry.

Hamlet was good though. Tennant copied Kenny Branagh's take on the Dane, and brought out the humour with the surliness. The RSC players were all over the shop though.

Speaking of Our Ken, the UK Wallander is back for some more episodes (can't really call it a series) in the new year. Looking forward to it. I've caught a few of the Swedish Wallanders on BBC4, which have been wonderfully wieghed down with Nordic gloom, though they are as much about Kurt Wallander as Taggart is about that programme's title character.

The final episode was grim and tragic on its own, but what added to the meloncholy was the knowledge that Johanna Sällström, who played the central character of Linda Wallander, committed suicide a few months after the episode was filmed. She had been suffering from depression ever since she and her daughter were nearly killed in the tsunami in Thailand in 2004.

Day of the Triffids? 28 Days Later of the Triffids Later morelike.

I thought it was okay, the second episode anyway. The only major problem for me was the drag factor caused by Dougray Scott. He appears to have gone to the Douglas Henshall school of none-acting, specialising in responding to what would be Earth-shattering events with a kind of dour indifference.

The second series of Survivors is starting soon on the BBC. Kinda odd they are doing these two remakes of '70s cataclysm sci-fi, which are very similar, back-to-back.

Now it's New Year's Eve, and tonight will be spent in some slant corner of some small pub in Malvern, elbow-ing our way to the bar and bogs. What a pain, but I will be with the friends I've spent New Years with for the past, ooh I dunno, twenty years give or take. Cosy.

Can't wait for this year to end so the next one can begin.

Wait, did Alan Bennett really say...

2009-12-16T18:18:00.010Z

.. that Peter Cook may have slept with Jackie Kennedy?

Just when you think someone can't go up any further in your estimation...

This was from:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00p8lgg/Mark_Lawson_Talks_To_Alan_Bennett/

Which is available only until tomorrow (Thursday), if you haven't seen it. Worth a watch for the above revelation, and a typically withering (if also typically fairly soft) sideswipe at James Murdoch.

More Bennett - if you like that sort of thing - on the iPlayer:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00pd945/Bennett_on_Bennett_Writing/

A brief monologue about writing and being a writer: "A writer is only a writer when writing. The rest is marking time".
No doubt this has already been pasted everywhere on the scribosphere, but, again, it expires tomorrow night. So, if you haven't yet seen it, now's your last chance.

Also essential viewing: How Do You Solve a Problem Like Lolita?

Turns out I've been pronouncing Nabokov wrong all these years. Apparently it's Na-boe-kov, not Na-boh-kov, like me, Sting and everyone else has been saying it.
Though the presenter of this, Stephen Smith, seems a little too socks-pulled-right-up pleased with himself about pronouncing it the same way the man himself did. "Na-BOE-kov", "Na-BOE-kov", he keeps over-emphasising the middle syllable.

I don't mind heavily 'authored' documentaries like this, but he is a little irritating. Fortunately, the clips of an indomitable Vladimir more than make up for it.
This is essential viewing for anyone who is a fan of the greatest novel ever written that isn't Moby Dick.

p.s. Just watched this (have watched more telly today than I have in about a month. Well done for saving all the best programmes till December, Beeb):

Hop, Skip and Jump episode 2. The emerging, changing, evolving, and disappearing of children's street/playground games. Some good sociological history and all that, just amazed at some of the really popular boys games (of the '70s-'80s) that weren't featured. It's all a bit "girls played this, this and this, but boys played football or were trainspotters lol". What, no room for break-time essentials such as 'Army', British Bulldog, Acky-Paky, or Off-Ground Tig? Or catching sticklebacks in the canal outflow and then cutting them up, still alive, with a penknife?
Good times, great memories.

Why there isn't a British film industry.

2009-12-05T18:36:00.004Z

An insight into an absolute shambles - aka British films and the people who make them.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2009/dec/05/the-big-i-am-film-hollywood

Just watched Vicky Christina Barcelona for the first time

2009-12-04T17:44:00.003Z

I mean, I know everyone's been saying Woody Allen is now little more than a creep way past his prime but I had no idea. Jesus wept this movie.

I only watched it for ScarJo - who, incidentally, is looking less and less likely too get a role that actually suits her. For gawd sake ppl, stop putting her in roles that require her to ACT. That isn't her thing. Go back and look at her work from the Golden Years (2001-2003, roughly The Man Who Wasn't There -> Girl w/the Pearl Earring) she does basilisk-eyed, expressionless ice-teen and that's it. I speak as a fan. So, yeah, maybe the game's up.

Some good advice for those writing a sit-com...

2009-12-01T17:38:00.002Z

Don't bother sending your script to Peep Show prodco, Objective Productions.

"We have never taken an uncommissioned script and made it into a sitcom – and we get hundreds of them"

says exec producer Andrew O'Connor.

Speaking of criminally unseen horror films...

2009-11-24T17:03:00.004Z

I've just done some sterling work re-writing the opening scene to my horror film screenplay, by the way. Maybe I'm a tad biased, but I've got it tight-as-a-drum and it's now just awesome.
I just thought the world needed to know this. Just so everyone will have an idea of what they're missing when prodcos will say it isn't what they're looking for right now.

Good films you've never seen part 666: The Woods

2009-11-23T18:22:00.009Z

The Woods is one of those low-budget, intriguing little horror films that get a messy, desultory release by an studio who have no idea how to market it, and, as a result, falls through the cracks ending up in bargain bin obscurity.

Sometimes obscurity is the best thing for such a film. Sometimes though the film is a gem. I can see The Woods meaning a lot to some of those that stumble upon it. Mainly, I suppose, a certain stripe of teenage girl - those with Cure lyrics scrawled in curly, silver handwriting on their school bags, maybe.

Me, I was quietly surprised. I thought it was a bit Suspiria crossed with Heathers - the main character is actually called Heather. I'm guessing it might be a reference. But though it falls way short of either of those two main reference points, it has some interesting touches.

Set in an all-girls' boarding school situated deep in New Hampshire countryside in the mid-sixties, it tells of a rebellious teen who is being sent away by her estranged mother. Once accepted into the school by eerily calm dean, however, it begins to dawn on the girl that there is something darker afoot than the usual queen bees and wannabes of school life.

There's a nice blustery, autumnal feel to it, and a constant woody creaking that plays throughout that adds a sinister presence. Despite the best efforts of the silly trailer (posted below), which tries quite a bit to hard to sell this as some noisome shocker, it is in fact very subdued. relying on quiet spookiness and a dreamy unease to unsettle us.
And Agnes Bruckner, defiant yet vulnerable in the lead role, recalls the pouty insouciance of a circa 2001 Scarlet Johansson. No scream-queen this one, I liked her.

Apparently the film sat on a shelf for a few years before getting a straight-to-DVD release. It's a little scrappy and not a great deal happens - no real scares either - but it deserved a better fate than the one it got. Check iiit.

Radio free cyberspace

2009-11-19T17:14:00.003Z

This looks interesting. Next year the BBC is launching its UK Radioplayer (not iRadioplayer? Good).

Inspect our Gadget

2009-11-17T19:13:00.004Z

Had to laugh during last Sunday's Doctor Who Confidential where they revealed the original design for the 'comedy robot' character of Gadget.

Here it is:

^This is where the design is shown to the production team during a meeting and is okeyed there and then by Russell T. Davies. At one point he turns to the director Graeme Harper, shows him the drawing and says "Do you love it? Don't say no. Don't say no now". Presumably a re-design at that stage would've been a set back.

Harper liked it though. "Gadget was interesting. And I thought all the drawings of Gadget, and the conception of Gadget, were brilliant".

One thing that went unmentioned though. Bit of an elephant in the room, maybe, but did no one, at any stage, mention that it looks a teeny bit - well, okay, a lot - like friggin Wall-E?

IT LOOKS LIKE WALL-E U GUYZ WTF???

^Someone should have said at that meeting. Guess no-one says no to Rusty these days. Explains a lot tbh.

So the production team gave it the thumbs up. Presumably thinking Disney would be pretty relaxed about the whole thing. Which of course they famously are regarding this kind of plagiarism . Not.
The BBC lawyers clearly thought better of it, and we saw a completely redesigned Gadget in the episode. Though now it looked like a house robot from Robot Wars as designed by a six year old Steve Jobs. But anyway.

The Waters of Mars episode itself was also blatantly - lazily, actually - derivative. Like the last few RTD penned episodes this played like a best-of; it was a rag-bag of ideas that he has already used in the series but has given a dusting off and assembled into a kind of hits compilation. The guy's getting as bad as Morrissey for this.
It was one big mash-up of The Impossible Planet, The Satan Pit, 42, Midnight, even Silence in the Library I thought. Plus the whole way of how the crew turned into the 'zombie' monsters was basically the Infected from 28 Days Later. We also got entire moments from that film lifted wholesale and plonked into the episode.

Sure, playing homage to what's gone before and riffing on existing ideas is part and parcel of genre fiction, especially sf. It's fun, even. Not knocking it especially, it's just for it to be done in a way that was... yeah, lazy. Not enough fresh twists, not enough making it their own.

These niggles and more, but, all-in-all I have to say I did still quite enjoy the episode. I suppose Who fans are as forgiving as they are nit-picky. Both at the same time, somehow. And the ending was good. Whets our appetite for what's to come very nicely.

"Unfortunately"

2009-10-28T17:18:00.005Z

Well, at least I won't have to make a trek over to Derby, or wherever the hell it was, this December.

So this theatre group rejected the short play that I sweated over for at least two weeks during the rainy summer. Suppose I should have made the second act less boringy or something. Who knows what these people want?

Rejection letters. Strange how the word "unfortunately" leaps out at you from the second sentence in, like they've done some subliminal highlighting effect on it, invisible to the naked eye. Or maybe it's just that I've become adept at spotting it instantly. And once you've seen the word, the rest of the letter is redundant. Really, all they need to write is:

Dear David,

Thank you for your...
Unfortunately...

Best wishes

(yeah, "best wishes")

Anyway, I'm working on a rewrite of a horror film script at the moment. And by "working" I mean "sitting at my desk, hands poised over the keyboard, chewing my lip and wondering what to write". It passes the time. It's looking good though.

Griffin

2009-10-22T18:28:00.002+01:00

50 Cent will be in the BBC television centre tonight, recording for Tonight With Jonathan Ross. Would that Nick Griffin, on his way to the studio where Question Time is to be recorded, would bump into Mr. Cent in one of the corridors. What larks.

So.

Deny them the oxygen of publicity. vs. Hand them a rope for which to hang themselves.

vs

Make a matyr of them by attempting to shut them out. vs. Give them a platform to air their rancid views.

Yeah. BNP, eh? Brr... scary.

Don't let anyone tell you they're a terminally inept, hilariously amateurish fringe party of boggle-eyed weirdos. No, they are literally THE WORST PEOPLE IN THE WORLD. And they've come for your uncool niece.

I won't be watching tonight. Only because I have other things to attend to. I probably won't even get to see it 'till Sunday or Monday at the latest, long after the sky has cracked open and the world has been drowned in angels' tears.
Bummer.

At least I can keep up with realnickgriffin's Twitter feed, which has been keeping me entertained (RT: "Making my way across London to the Question Time studio. Closest tube stop is White City (if only!)" #bbcqt).

The rest of you can join in with the Question Time Drinking Game.

Enjoy. And please - don't have nightmares.

Button

2009-10-21T11:37:00.003+01:00

BBC to shut News Multiscreen on Freeview.

So this means we'll be stuck with only the Federer and Williams' et al matches on BBC1/2 during Wimbledon?
ffs

Back.

2009-10-19T11:08:00.005+01:00

Some sleep would be nice, but before that I've been catching up with the fallout from The Daily Mail's 'Gatelygate'.
Sheesh...

Tabloid watch: Will the Mail react to Moir as it expected the BBC to react over 'Sachsgate'?

Brooker: Why there was nothing 'human' about Jan Moir's column on the death of Stephen Gately

I didn't read Moir's article myself, but let me tell you I'm outraged that she may have written something that I would find offensive, which is why I've complained about her to the Press Complaints Commission.
I mean, that's how these things work, right?

Oh, BBC RIP, btw, if - when - the Tories get in: We'd abolish BBC Trust, says Tory culture secretary Jeremy Hunt.

Great.

Seriously, I'm going back to bed.

Busy

2009-10-14T19:18:00.002+01:00

A bit snowed under right now: work, social engagements, playing Fifa 10 on the XBox, watching the whole of The Beatles Anthology and the first series of The Twilight Zone on YouTube, that sort of thing. You know how it is.

Other than that I just haven't been around. I'm off again early tomorrow, first to Shepherds Bush for a few days for one thing and another. When I'm done knocking around London I'm hopping on the train to Paris, just for laffs and ooh la la.

Before I go, I'll leave these fine finds. Movie Theme Song Music Parody Homages are exactly that, but are better then you think. Check 'em:

Now Lucy really is in the 'sky'.

2009-09-30T15:58:00.003+01:00

Lucy "in the Sky With Diamonds" Vodden has died. As the article states, this follows the recent death of Manson murderess, Susan "Sexy Sadie" Atkins.

Watch out, Lovely Rita meter maid - you're next!

The new Derek and Clive

2009-09-21T16:08:00.003+01:00

"Dyer again has a dream that comes true, and all that"

Nick 'Clive' Love and Danny 'Derek' Dyer react to the negative press for their film, The Outlaw.

Clive: "People go to the cinema these days, they don't wanna fink"
Derek: "I scratch me 'ead sometimes"

"Tags: cookin old guy"

2009-09-19T10:55:00.003+01:00

Who to get to appear as a chef in a brief, dialogue free cameo in toddler T.V. phenom, Balamory?

How 'bout an infirm, cancer stricken Keith Floyd, in what, I guess, would turn out to be his very last television appearance, that shameful Keith Meets Keith thing from last week notwithstanding.

And, yeah, Floyd is merely tagged as "cookin old guy" by the person who uploaded this vid to YouTube.

"I Love To Cook With Wine - Sometimes I Even Put It In The Food"

2009-09-15T13:08:00.006+01:00

Pour one out for Patrick Swayze. No doubt Pauline Calf, and millions of other women for whom Dirty Dancing - 'Star Wars for girls' - and Ghost constitute some golden era, are dabbing away a tear today.

Clearly a good guy who appeared to be aware of the ridiculousness of stardom and never took it too seriously. Unafraid of gently making fun of his own image at times as well.
No doubt his tough upbringing, coupled with the emotional scars left by the death of his father and, later, the suicide of a sister, gave him some hard-won perspective on fame.

His battle with pancreatic cancer is an inspiration to us all. His quiet defiance led him to continue to work on the T.V. show, The Beast.
"How do you nurture a positive attitude when all the statistics say you're a dead man? You go to work."

And pour a large one out - and then another, and then another - for bon vivant Keith Floyd. The only TV chef I've ever really had any time for.

One of the many memorable moments: attempting to rustle up a wild mushroom omlette under the watchful eye of Madam Moulanne - "the old dragon" - who chunters away in French behind Keith, whose skills she finds wanting. It's one of the rare cases where Keith gets a taste of his own Merlot, so to speak, though he still gets the last word:

His stage has long been stolen by charmless, one-note dolts like Gorden Ramsey, but it's still Floyd that influences my cooking, and, I daresay, the current shower of TV cooks. His recipes were easy to follow, tasted great and were a lot of fun. He really demystified the art of cooking. I make a mean terrine because of this guy, and his roast beef and mustard is the bomb.
I mean look at this, oh man, this is how you do it:

Uncorking a bottle in your honour, big man.

Fucking cancer.

I hope it doesn't come to this...

2009-09-14T11:19:00.002+01:00

In his open letter to licence fee payers, Sir Michael Lyons, the chairman of the BBC Trust, says that the Beeb will need to become "more efficient" and "smaller" in the future.

The Daily Mail claims that the first casualties of this will be expensive U.S. imports like The Wire, Heroes, and Mad Men.

Well, The Wire has already finished its run in the graveyard slot on BBC2, and Heroes may not go on for much longer if it continues to suck. BUT HANDS OFF MY MAD MEN.

(I'm pleased by the surprising amount of Real Talk in the reader's comments section of that Mail story, tbh).

I Always Give Them My Money

2009-09-12T18:25:00.001+01:00

"Is Paul dead? Turn me on, dead man".

Yeah, I'm the mug who shelled out two hundred sheets for the Beatles in Mono box set. Eleven platters that matter from some caterwauling long-hairs who won't last five minutes if you ask me.

The way I justify it to myself is this: I didn't take a summer holiday this year, so instead of heading off to sunnier climes, I am heading off to sunnier climes - BUT IN MY MIND DO YOU SEE?

What a rip though. It's so, so disappointing that the stereo and the (superior!) mono mix discs couldn't be packaged together. Or at least include the stereo-only Abbey Road and Let it Be albums in with the Mono set, if only for completion's sake. Especially considering that the mono set costs more, for less albums, than the stereo box.

Ringo's gotta eat, I guess.

Saying that though, these do sound very good indeed. I mean, they are incredible. A veil has lifted. A wall has tumbled. The clouds have parted. A new galaxy forms; teeming with bursts of thunder, flurries of iridescent sparks, spectral echoes and lost bells.
And that's just Ringo's Octopus's Garden.

Nah, I'm not gonna zing on Ringo. He finally stands tall thanks to these CDs. I've just listened to Dear Prudence (for the millionth, but then again for the very first time, you dig?), and, by christ, he's bringing some apocalyptic rumble to the finish of this track - who even knew?

Believe the hype. Or don't believe the hype. Hell, do what you want, all I know is that the sound engineers have done a stand up job in remastering. So often 'remastering' means compressing the sound, making it louder, pushing everything up in the mix until it is all but a slab of noise.
Not here. There is so much clarity, the sound of each instrument, vocal and handclap is clean and clear, but not antiseptically so: vocal fluffs, intakes of breath, the creaking of a piano stool have all been kept - and, as a result of remastering, made more audible than before. So now you have the pleasure of hearing the spittle on Paul McCartney's lips when he hits the 'f' of "far away" during Yesterday.

Oh yes.

Listen! to George's nimble solo's, especially on the A Hard Day's Night LP - quite the jangliest, guitariest album ever - how they ring out.
Hear! the switch between malevolence and throat-tearing anguish in John's voice on No Reply. Then his close-mic drawl on Cry Baby Cry - once so muddied, buried, now unearthed and next-to-your-ear intimate.
Witness! Macca's Birthday, once an also-ran rocker, become incendiary, blistering and urgent.

All the talk from the billionaire filmmakers and moguls about the new 3D process in movies currently is that far from being a fairground gimmick to win back dwindling audiences, it will instead give depth to the image. It won't be things 'flying out of the screen' at you, apparently, but it'll be a way of experiencing movies in a new and different way - you will feel like you are 'there', in that world onscreen.

That still remains to be seen, but I'm getting a comparative sensation listening to these Fabs remasters tbh. Experiencing the albums through headphones, especially the later ones, you are able to immerse yourself in the music more than you ever were able to beforehand. As I've said, each instrument, each sound can be picked out.
I suppose the most startling example of this is the musique concrète sound collage that is Revolution 9. Always something of a cacophony before, but now it's like taking a trip (arf) through a city and being hyper-aware of every sound that surrounds you.

Then again, sod the headphones lark. I've cranked out the Help! LP on the stereo and filled the room with its noise. Such a grin, let me tell you. It was for a long time my favourite Beatles album, and I think it might be again. It hits the sweet spot right between the Beatlemaniac early pop years, and the later we're-serious-man, darker, more introspective stuff.

While I'm stanning for the over-priced product of the ever cash-grabbing Apple Corps, I may as well throw the BBC yet another bone. Their recent Beatles week (night, really) proved that I will sit through any amount of Beatles related documentaries in the hope I may see or learn at least one scintilla of information that I haven't already discovered. What can I say, I enjoyed it all. That's the kind of idiot I am.
But Albert Maysles' 1964 film, The Beatles: The First U.S. Visit, literally blew my brain out of my fucking skull. Literally. I mean it physically, actually happened. In real life.

The incredible access this guy had. This was eye of the hurricane stuff. It's the A Hard Day's Night movie made real. You get a true sense of the "a room, a room, a car, a room, another car and another room" whirligig life of the Beatles, trapped and herded from hotel to hotel, studio to studio.
For some reason the part that has stuck with me is when they are mid flight and Ringo is acting the fool for the attendant press, then it cuts to a subdued McCartney - who is such a ham throughout otherwise - and he says quietly "I'm not even in a laffin mood". That phrase has been in my head all week now.
That and the bit where they go to New York's Peppermint Lounge club, Ringo immediately throws down his coat, gets on the dancefloor and very soon pulls an attractive, modish 'beat girl'. Well in!

btw. U.S. based music webzine (or are they not called that anymore?) Pitchfork is running some great reviews of all the Fabs' newly remastered LPs here.

Pro screenwriter has something to say to all you budding writers...

2009-09-11T18:03:00.004+01:00

"I will not read your fucking script"

Well, that's saved me the cost of a stamp at least.

Harper's: bizarre?

2009-09-08T18:14:00.008+01:00

"My mask of sanity is slipping away"

When I watched the first few episodes of the now enormously successful and critically acclaimed serial killer series, Dexter, a year or two ago, it struck me how quickly it had taken Bret Easton Ellis' American Psycho to filter down into the mainstream.

Well, maybe you don't consider fifteen years, or whatever it was, as very quick. But Ellis' novel was considered strong stuff when it was published back in 1990.
A vicious, furious, none-more-black comedic satire on the morally bankrupt, grasping, soul-dead materialism of 1980's YUPPIE culture, American Psycho quickly gained notoriety for its shocking scenes of pornographic violence.
(I always read it as one man's impotent fantasies about power and sex. It's all in his head).

By the time it came to the inevitably de-clawed, neutered and meaningless movie adaptation in the late '90s, the main character, Patrick Bateman, had become an anti-hero to rank alongside other cuddly, fictional psychopathic murderers, Hannibal 'the Cannibal' Lecter and Freddie Kruger.

I suppose it was all this, and not the original novel, that paved the way for Dexter: he's a serial killer - but wait! - he's a good guy who works on the side of the police. This helps him get away with butchering people - but don't worry, all his victims 'deserve it'. So that's alright then.

I gave up watching Dexter after the first few episodes. Not just because it is morally dubious, but more that it is complete and utter rubbish.

Anyway, now we're getting Harper's Island, which is basically Dawson's Creek with a body count (I guess those of us who suffered Dawson's Creek thanks to dippy ex-girlfriends are finally getting our wish).

The first couple of episodes of this aired on Beeb's yoof (does anyone still say that?) channel, BBC3, last Sunday night. I suppose it's a bit of mindless fun?
Well, it beats Monarch of the Glen for Sunday night cocoa and biscuits fare, but I was slightly surprised how far they appear to be taking it. It is a slasher movie in glossy, soapy, episodic form. A video nasty with teeny-romance sub-plots.

Hey, this is what happens when TV execs realise that the young, female demograph that they have to skew all genre programmes toward these days, also make up a fair proportion of the audience for horror movies and especially novels.

Harper's Island hasn't been especially gory as yet. There was one swift decapitation in episode two, but that's the stuff of kiddie comedy these days. There was one quite grisly murder though: a ditzy blonde - an obvious stand-in for Paris Hilton, complete with annoying yappy lap dag - fell into a tiger trap in the forest. The mysterious serial killer then doused her with gasoline and tossed a match down onto her. She screamed as she went up in flames and burnt to death.

Perhaps I should have put a spoiler warning there.

I notice they didn't have the guts to fry the little doggie though.

It is just another variation on Ten Little Indians; a post-Lost (and everything else listed above) emo-slasher whodunnit. Aside from some still quite sketchy characterisation, and an increasingly irritating desire for the writers to feel that they need to have a false 'shock' to make the audience jump every five minutes (knock it off will you, it doesn't work if you keep having them at regular intervals!), I thought it was okay. It looks great - a heavily wooded island off America's Pacific North West coast makes for an excellent location. I'm not entirely sure I'll make it for every episode, but it's a watch.

While I'm about it, I may as well fill you in on my own horror film screenplay. So far so good, I suppose. I've got the opening scene written. I had that down before anything else. It came fully formed and inspired the story that will hinge on it.

I think I've got the story structure all worked out now. Finally. It's been through some changes, I can tell you. It's like some fiendish puzzle - bridging plot holes, eliminating coincidences, trying to clarify, and make plausible, the motivation for, well, all the horror.
Broadly speaking horrors are quite fantastical, when you get right down to it. Mine is, at any road. I would describe mine, I think, as a psychological slasher nightmare. The trick is to keep it grounded in some basic believability, without losing the strangeness.

It's a fine balancing act. The problem I'm struggling with still is that my attempts to justify everything ended up pushing it towards being a more conventional story than I set out to write. That's fair enough in some respects, but it was almost turning into a police procedural. I had to go back and remind myself of my original... erm... uh... *cough*vision*ahem*.

Yeah, well, anyway. It continues.

So what was the most "wait, WHAT??" moment of James Murdoch's speech?

2009-09-05T10:02:00.004+01:00

From that speech the spawn of Rupert gave at the Edinburgh TV festival. You know the one. It was enough to make a dog laugh:

"The problem with the UK is that it is unhappy in every way: it’s the Addams family of world media."

The bit where he appeared to compare himself to Charles Darwin.

lol "creationism" lol.

The part where he goes on about granny-friendly mobile phones or some shit.

"Often the unique position that the business of ideas enjoys in a free society is used as a justification for greater intrusion and control. On the contrary, its very specialness demands an unusual and vigorous… stillness."

"the 1950s... banana export industry"

"Talking of bananas brings me neatly to our own authorities and their interventions in the all-media marketplace. "

The inevitable plug for Sky.

"The land grab is spear-headed by the BBC. The scale and scope of its current activities and future ambitions is chilling. "

"The only reliable, durable, and perpetual guarantor of independence is profit."

Oh... the rest of it. Can't be bothered anymore because the answer is probably the Addams Family reference.

This was Murdoch's own "they should be more like the Waltons and less like the Simpsons" moment. Reaching for a cultural reference with only having a superficial, and incorrect, understanding of it. As a result he ends up saying the opposite of what he originally meant.

I mean, wasn't the whole point of the Addams Family was that they were actually cheerful and comfortable with their selves and their quirks? Meanwhile the jittery normals who encountered them feared and wanted to destroy them.

'The-opposite-is-true' rule rings throughout Murdoch's speech. "[the BBC is] a threat to independent journalism" apparently, and not the Murdoch empire like you all thought.

The only thing "chilling" about any of this is the staggering hypocrisy of Murdoch, and the irony of him evoking the name of Orwell to warn about "a near-monopoly of information [by the state] is to guarantee manipulation and distortion."

That's right mate. A monopoly of information, because that's really feasible in this internet age.

And there's nothing Orwellian and power-hungry about the Fox network/News Corp either. They are the true supporters of independent journalism.

You couldn't make it up.

(Oh, Brooker!)

"Of course London's a big place, Mr Shadrak.. "

2009-09-04T19:31:00.005+01:00

".. A very big place. A man can lose himself in London. Lose himself. Lo-o-o-se himself... a-LOSE HIMSELF IN a-LON-DON!"

RIP Keith Waterhouse

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/8238795.stm

just fyi

2009-09-04T19:03:00.004+01:00

people who watch The Wire with subtitles are the most disgusting savages on the planet imo.

Two Write

2009-08-31T17:49:00.002+01:00

Now, the story as I knew it went that James Cameron, when starting out, ambitiously set about writing two scripts at the same time.

Setting up two typewriters on different tables, with his chair placed between them, he would set about writing one script on one table, and when he would dry up he would simply swivel round and continue with the other.
On one typewriter he wrote the script for The Terminator, and on the other Rambo: First Blood Part II.

Well. I recently purchased the Alien Quadrilogy DVD boxset. In 2003 it cost around £70. Last week I got it for £7.99. Change from a tenner. Shows you where the DVD market is going, doesn't it?

But anyway, just yesterday I got round to listening to the audio commentary on Aliens: Special Edition.

One particularly revealing moment in the commentary comes when James Cameron briefly touches upon how he wrote the screenplay for Aliens. It turns out that the story above about him writing two scripts at once is false. He didn't write two scripts, he wrote three.

It just so happened that he landed the gig to write 'Alien 2' and 'First Blood 2' on the same day, plus he had to deliver a major rewrite of Terminator. He had just three weeks to complete all three.

On the commentary he explains his somewhat gruelling sounding working method:

"I had a three month period where I had to write three scripts. So I decided that each script was going to be two hours long, so it would be 120 pages.

So I figured out the total page count, whatever that is, I guess 360 pages. I divided the total number of waking hours I had during that three month period by 360, and figured out how many pages per hour I had to write. And I just wrote that many pages per hour. "

Don't attempt this yourself, unless you have the same Terminator-like resilience and drive as Iron Jim.

Aside from Rambo - which ended up being completely rewritten by Sly Stallone to suit his own needs, resulting in Cameron pretty much disowning it - what is remarkable is that the scripts he hammered out in this short period are so efficiently written, and are full of very memorable lines and moments. They're not exactly subtle, sure, but god they work well.

In complete contrast to all that the new biography of William Golding tells of the author's slow, dogged struggle to get his debut novel, Lord of the Flies, into print.
After spending a year writing it, mostly in stolen moments whilst teaching R.E. at Bishop Wordsworth’s school in Salisbury, Golding started sending it out to publishers. Roughly about seven times it was sent out, and seven times it came back. On the eighth go he tried Faber & Faber, hoping for some luck there.

The reader at F&F didn't think much of it either. In green ink she put a circled R for rejection in the top left hand corner of Golding's covering letter, along with her verdict of the typescript:

“Time: the Future. Absurd & uninteresting fantasy about the explosion of an atom bomb on the Colonies. A group of children who land in jungle-country near New Guinea. Rubbish & dull. Pointless.”

Ouch. As luck would have it though, junior editor Charles Monteith rescued the, by now, dog-eared, tea-stained typescript from the slush pile and, for whatever reason ignoring the dismissive note, gave it a read.

He decided it was far from perfect, but he clearly saw something in the story as at the next commissioning meeting with his fellow editors, he managed to argue a case for meeting up with Golding to discuss ways to shape the novel for possible publication.

The fact alone that Monteith even bothered with something that had clearly already done the rounds, as well as being rejected by his own publishing house, speaks volumes about his diligence.

Golding, now with Monteith's patient guiding, spends several months rewriting his typescript time and again. Each time Monteith has further ideas for reshaping the story: a lengthy expositionary and entirely character free first chapter that tells of a nuclear war is completely excised out and is now explained neatly by dialogue. A detailed section in the middle about an air battle, and then a sea battle epilogue are also removed and “merged into the body of the text”.

Golding also then has to work on a complicated, slightly supernatural Christ-figure character on Monteith's advice, toning the character right down, making them "explicable". Over- elaborate descriptions are also cut, and the use of deliberate misspellings in the speech of the character Piggy are corrected, replaced with deliberate bad grammar instead.

And so on. Bit by bit the novel is tightened, toughened, streamlined. All the fluff and flannel removed. After each time Golding is sent away to work on yet another draft more he reacts with polite, but increasingly weary exasperation.

To his, and his editor's, credit however they stick at it, slogging away until the months of work eventually pays off with a published and - eventually - massively successful novel.

“I think you have done a very clever and helpful piece of work,” Golding wrote to Monteith along with the final draft. “The novel is swift now, with a measure of subtlety and tautness. If it achieves any measure of success much will be due to your severe but healthy pruning.”

As is so often repeated by those in this racket, writing is rewriting. And focus, dedication, and plain old hard work also have their own reward.

2009-08-31T12:14:00.001+01:00

"I leave the myth of inspiration and agonised creative inaction to the amateurs."

- Anthony Burgess

How to be a compleat Basterd.

2009-08-25T19:44:00.009+01:00

So, do I want to write about Inglourious Basterds (again). Not really, at least not until I've seen it a second time, which I'm very keen to do.
Well, that alone should be enough to tell you that, one week after seeing it, it is a film that is still very much in my mind.

I think I said last week that I consider it to be Tarantino's best since Jackie Brown. Yeah, I still go along with that, I think. In fact I'm beginning to think it might be his best - his "masterpiece" as he gets Brad Pitt to tell us on his behalf in the movie. I want to see it again though, see if it holds up on second viewing.

I saw it quite early, and before I read any reviews. I've read some now and it's fair to say the critical reaction has been mixed. Some wholly positive, some very negative. Many though seem to me to have hedged their bets, and um-ed and ah-ed about it, as if nervously glancing about them, testing the air to see which way the wind was blowing. God forbid any of them are seen to be calling it 'wrong'.

So, on one hand the film, admittedly, contains some good stuff, but, hmm... 2 1/2 hours? Bit long that, isn't it? (Actually it flew by). And some of the scenes, they go on a bit don't they? Just a lot of talking, most of them. (Critic meet Quentin Tarantino, I don't believe you've met).

One critic who didn't sit on the fence was Pete Bradshaw the film critic of The Guardian. What he did do, however, was make a complete fool of himself with his vitriolic review. An "armour-plated turkey from hell" he described the film as at one point, and that was one of the more sane judgements he made.
Seriously, this guy. This fucking guy. God knows he's always been a useless, negligible, knob-end of a human being, but that review really slammed the door shut on him ever being taken seriously by anyone with a working brain.
What an embarrassing wank of a review that really was.

That was the paid critics. The paying public, it seems, take a different line. We loved it. Sure, there are the haters. And haters gotta hate. Died-in-the-wool knee-jerk Tarantino haters, the earnest WWII armchair experts wildly missing the point as per, the just plain stupid, and then there are those for whom this just wasn't their cup of tea. That's fair do's.
Overall, I'd say, the reaction is very positive. So much so that there is a chasm between the crits and the punters. Just for instance, check the score over on Metacritic - the aggregate score for critics is 69. For the general moviegoer it's 80.

I really think the critics have misjudged this movie (hey, if they can do it to It's a Wonderful Life, they can do it to this). I think eventually it will be seen as a tour-de-force by QT, and, yes, maybe even his masterpiece.

One thing is for certain though, a week after the first viewing and there is still a much that that lingers in the mind. Not even so much the infamous Tarantino "chatty" dialogue - not quite so many stand-out individual lines as say Pulp Fiction or Reservoir Dogs maybe, but I would argue that here it is at its most consistently good - but the imagery. From the framing of the farmhouse in the French countryside, to the amazing shot of the laughing face being projected into that plume of smoke at the end - stunning. Just stunning. That was one unforgettable and really quite beautiful image to take away. (That would be the face of Mélanie Laurent, who is superb it should be noted. Especially as - understandably - Christoph Waltz is taking all the acting plaudits for the more showy role).

So yeah.
It's done the business, too. A $37 million opening weekend - a personal best for Tarantino. It's also one of the top grossing August movies of all time, which is good news for the currently beleaguered Weinstein Company.

What else? Well... there's this, I guess:

One 'theatre's' idea of a joke. From here.

And then there's this wonderful blog, on how IB as a 2 1/2 hour movie only has about 16 scenes in total, as opposed to the usual 60 or so. Take that, script structure Nazis! (not sure that joke was entirely appropriate, after the image above, but anyway).

Back to the grindstone.

2009-08-24T18:57:00.004+01:00

I took a little break, but I'm getting back into my writing again. Currently I'm resurrecting an old, abandoned radio play of mine. It's been stewing a while now, and I've decided to go at it afresh.

Tell you what though, aside from overhauling the plot, punching up the story and so on, what is really gives the writing some fresh impetus is finding new and stronger voices for the two main characters.
Once you've got those distinctive voices going things really begin to motor. Ever have characters seemingly take on a life of their own, pull in unexpected and surprising directions?

Or maybe I've just done gone lost it. Either way's good, I guess.

And then, last night as a matter of fact, another idea struck me. A whole new and different project. Something much more ambitious: a horror movie.

I know.

But, look, I wouldn't bother normally, not if I didn't have something original in mind. Not if I didn't have something exciting and new to offer.
I think I do, though. I think I do.
Okay, nothing's original. Nothing new under the sun. I know that, but I swear, I've got two ideas for this that I don't think have been fully or successfully explored before. To be fair, on the face of it the basic premise is fairly standard stuff, but given a twist. And believe me the twist is... interesting.
It's got my mind racing... can I do this? Can I pull this off? Dare I?

The other new thing is the setting, I suppose you'd call it. Or the 'gimmick', if you will. The hook for the whole thing to hang on, the central point for all else to revolve around. It's what goes on the poster.

And trust me when I tell you - it is brilliant, it is new, it is old, it is even obvious, but, staggeringly nobody - nobody - has done this... before.

I CANNOT BELIEVE NO-ONE HAS DONE THIS I MEAN IT'S STARING YOU IN THE FACE WHAT THE FUUUUCK!!??

One last thing though - why do I have to make all my central characters so unlikeable? Why do I get bored writing 'ordinary bloke' characters (ie the ones that are basically the writer projecting themselves onto the page)? I just can't get to grips with the Dudley-Do-Rights. I can only deal with the misfits, the weirdos and the cold-hearted sons of a silly person.

"Don't make your protagonists unsympathetic". Fat chance of that, my friend. Fat chance.

Random GawpVids

2009-08-22T18:26:00.004+01:00

It's a Saturday and there's nothing doing. I might nip out in a bit and get some beers in before settling down for tonight's film noir night on BBC4.

(funny how these things turn out - I've been on a films noir tip just recently. Rented a bunch of Bogart movies from Lovefilm, picked up a couple of the new retro-cover hardback editions of Chandler. So I'm well up for tonight's movie marathon and hour long doco).

That's not why I'm here though. I'm here to post a few weird and wonderful vids that I've been watching on YouTube. Here goes:

The clips of Turkish Star Wars are quite well known, but there's a whole raft of similar knock-offs out there. Cheap laffs, I guess, but this is something different. I mean, what the hell were they thinking with this 're-imagining' of E.T.?
Spielberg went with a fugly-lovable design for his alien critter. Whoever directed this though favoured a kind of unsettling, creepy looking squat beast, like something out of an early David Lynch film, or a Chris Cunningham video. It's nightmarish!

For the best results, watch the next one in full screen in the dark.

If you ever wanted to know what it would be like to fly past 10, 000 galaxies - and you know damn well you have - this gives a little taster.

Finally, here's some philosophy for your Saturday. Matt Stone and Trey Parker of South Park fame, provide animation for British "Zennist" philosopher's wise words.

Fab (BBC) Four

2009-08-21T16:50:00.004+01:00

Ain't gonna lie, psyched for this:

BBC Beatles Week

A new documentary featuring never-heard-before fragments of conversation, along with interviews and rare footage of The Beatles in the studio, will form the centrepiece of a season of programming as BBC Two and BBC Four join forces for Beatles Week.
The joint season, celebrating the Fab Four's enduring legacy and continuing influence, begins on BBC Two on Saturday 5 September 2009.
In 1962 an unknown group from Liverpool entered Abbey Road Studios to record their debut single. During the next eight years they created what is arguably regarded as the greatest collection of studio recordings of the 20th century.

Now, if I can just convince myself that spending £200 on the upcoming box set of mono remastered albums (okay, or £170 on the stereo set) will be a wise investment...
(release them on vinyl and I'm sold).

Going to the pictures.

2009-08-19T21:01:00.006+01:00

It used to be you could buy a cinema ticket by asking for a seat in the screen it was in ("two for screen three, please"). Now there is no way of knowing what screens the films are showing. That information isn't posted. At least not at the cinemas I visit.

No, you have to state which film you want to see to the teenager behind the counter. Most times this is no problem, occasionally it may be a problem. Why? Who knows. Maybe it's a foreign film with one of those ker-ray-zee foreign long words in the title. Or maybe it has a title that just has an unfamiliar word with a tricky pronunciation (Synecdoche, New York anyone? What, sin-ect-eh-kay you say? How 'bout that?)

(Reminds me of that story about the pseud who rolled up to his local art house cinema wanting to see L.A. Confidential and asked to buy a ticket for "La Confidentiale")

Anyway, today I had the small, strange joy of loudly stating "INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS" to a complete stranger, and was even met with a smile. Get that.

Just got back from seeing it, actually. Damn, I really, really enjoyed it. For me, I'm thinking it may be Tarantino's best since Jackie Brown. I think it might just have the edge over Kill Bill vol.1. Script wise I think he's really back on form, which is odd as when I scanned through the script that was put online several months back, I don't remember thinking much of it.
But, y'know, I am on that immediate post-movie high, so who knows? I did enjoy though, and more than I honestly thought I would.

The only complaints I would have would be in the casting. First there was Mike Myers stinking up the place with his mugging to the camera, then there was director Eli Roth in the role of a supposedly fearsome, Nazi-clobberin' Jew. He was just inept, I'm afraid.
Coulda been worse - Tarantino could've cast himself in the role. Thank god he's grown out of that habit.

101. Smile, straighten your cuffs and punch him in the face.

2009-08-18T18:35:00.008+01:00

Season three of MadMen started last Sunday night in the States. It probably won't air here in the UK until early next year, so many Britisher 'Maddites' will, of course, be downloading the series. Which is, I'm afraid to inform you, illegal.
But that isn't why I am not downloading. I never bother dl-ing TV programmes in any case. If I were to make an exception, it would be for MadMen, but I've decided not to bother. I do actually enjoy making a date for each weekly episode as it airs on TV. It's an old fashioned thrill, but old skool is just how I roll, yo.
I'm patient, I can wait. I might actually pick up a blu-ray player shortly, and get the first two seasons and feast on those in the interim.

Nevertheless, for us UKer refuseniks, the internet has become a hazardous place of late. Avoiding S3 spoilers is trickier than you might think. Obviously I can't go on the usual MadMen message boards and facebook fan pages et al. But even so I still keep stumbling on nuggets here and there, on Twitter feeds and so on. Gotta keep your wits about you.

Any-old-road up. There's still MM related fun to be had. Regard:

(^click to enlarge, obv)

This is me (well... sort of. Hair's a bit too shaggy, but anyway) holding court, waxing lyrical and chugging down the first tumbler of rye of the day in the offices of Sterling Cooper, whilst Peggy and Joan look on. Imagine that if you will.

Yes, you may have stumbled upon the MadMenYourself site already, or have noticed your facebook friends (etc) have changed their profile picture to a '60s style cartoon representation of themselves. It was everywhere you looked (on the internet, natch) a couple of weeks back. A neat little site where you can use templates to make up a MadMen style drawing of yourself.

And this is me if I worked in 'creative':

The site was created by artist Dyna Moe who also creates a weekly drawing inspired by a scene in each episode of Mad Men. These can be used as desktop wallpapers (though I haven't done so - my current one is the Joan promo pic at the top of this post). They can all be found collected on her Flickr page here.

What Would Don Draper Do? is a clever tumblr feed of authentic sounding musings, aphorisms and bon mots from Mr. Draper - from which the title of this post is taken. I don't think anyone from the show is responsible for it, though I wouldn't be surprised if they were, it is quite cool. Much better than all of the official Twitter feeds of various characters that are out there.

Which Mad Man Are You? is typical of these kind of pointless 'which are you?' type quizzes, in that it doesn't really work. It's quite meaningless. That said, it turns out I am Roger Sterling! Result!

Finally, a quick Q&A with showrunner Matthew Weiner.

Cap'n Save-A-BBC of the week.

2009-08-15T17:15:00.002+01:00

In case you missed it, here's AA Gill's piece from last week's Sunday Times on the subject of the current growing resentment against the BBC:

"It was another of those summer hiatus weeks for telly. Not just difficult to find something you liked, but virtually impossible to find anything you could bear to watch. There were more calls for the evisceration of the BBC — some Tory shadow person said the Conservative government ought to sell off Radio 1. No more pop, rap and roll for you, my lad: go to your room and make a model of a Spitfire.

None of the parties seems to understand or care about the culture of broadcasting. They see it only as chav soma and a commercial and subsidised manufacturer of entertainment widgets. BBC bullying is a displacement activity for politicians who want to distract us from the midden of their own institution. In many ways, the BBC is parliament’s doppelgänger, an example of a large, publicly funded institution that sits at the heart of national life and changes people’s lives. The difference, of course, is that people like and trust the BBC. If they were given a democratic choice between getting rid of either Westminster or the Beeb, Jonathan Ross would win by a landslide.

So, politicians snipe and sneer and throw dung of their own making to cut a remarkable and unique institution down to size, to make it weedy and nebulous and cash-starved, just like independent production companies. Tories who defend the excellence of grammar schools and private medicine want to take apart a beacon of excellence simply because it’s too good for the competition. And the Labour party? Most recently, that insufferable toerag Ben Bradshaw wanted to decimate the one publicly owned institution that is better than the commercial alternative and makes money.

It’s in weeks like last week that you realise we don’t want less BBC, we want more. Much more. More drama, more comedy, more entertainment, more documentaries and more politics. For God’s sake, the problem with the BBC is not that there’s too much of it, it’s that there isn’t enough; and why would we want to give away to commercial enterprise the best thing we own? "

Have to say he's on the money here, especially concerning politicians using this argument as chum to be thrown to the rest of the media as a way of distraction. You'd have thought with the indie stations currently fighting for survival in this economic downturn, that this anti TV licence argument would have been lost. But I guess some people find it hard to let their agendas and prejudices go.

It Felt Like A Kiss

2009-08-13T20:18:00.003+01:00

Adam Curtis' new "experimental" film, It Felt Like A Kiss, is available to view here. So you won't have to travel to whichever art instillation it plays at next.

If you're already familiar with Curtis' work then you'll have a rough idea of what to expect, though for this film he doesn't provide a commentary, the images and music (and occasional subtitles) are left to tell the story.
What story? Well that during the post-war period the Western (specifically USA) populace was being turned into passive consumers while their leaders were embarking on a series of ruinous escapades overseas sewing discontent, which would come back to haunt them. That and everything turning to shit, basically. And Rock Hudson.

For me the blame-America tone grates and seems quite lazy and simplistic. Are the likes of Osama Bin Laden, Saddam Hussain, and, er, Lee Harvey Oswald responsible for their own actions, or did AmeriKKKa make them do it?
I roll my eyes at conspiracy theories, and there are a few of old favourites being nudged at here - heigh ho - but I enjoyed this best as a fascinating collage of image and music, mainly from the 1950s and early '60s, which builds a sense of nameless dread and unease all of its own.

No really, it is fabulous. As Charlie Brooker tweeted the other week, turn off the lights, don the headphones and be transported.

No replacement for Tranter at BBC

2009-04-28T10:20:00.002+01:00

BBC will not replace Jane Tranter in controller of fiction role.

Critics of Tranter, who had the role of controller of fiction before leaving to join BBC Worldwide in the US, had complained that her position was too powerful and that a variety of high-level voices commissioning drama, comedy and film projects within the BBC would have been better for the creative community.

Live Bloggin' the Baftas!

2009-04-27T17:22:00.003+01:00

Updated : Now with pics!

Phew - the 2009 Bafta television awards. Not really live, but I'm blogging it as it is broadcast on BBC1.

Sun shines on the red carpet. I wish they would move the film awards back to the Spring/Summer, and stop having them as a spoiler for the Oscars. It's depressing to see the visiting Hollywood actors sploshing up the damp red carpet under their official Bafta umbrellas in the dark days of January.

Dot Cotton's gonna win something then? She's been featured in the red carpet montage a few times, "it's an honour just to be nominated etc".
iirc Jean (Hilda Ogdan) Alexander won for a similar 'talking-head' one-hander in Corrie years back.

Graham Norton’s snarky opening monologue echoes around the auditorium. The audience fix their grins. I'm not mentioning Botox.

Jonathan Ross laughing slightly too uproariously at a mild dig at his suspension.

A year-in-TV exciting montage! (wow, Devil's Whore is one of the lesser profile progs seen. As is - yes - Mad Men).

Phillip Glenister looks sweaty and subdued. Nerves? Or sad that he's become trapped in a one-dimensional role in a series of diminishing returns. No-one mention Demons.

He announces Best Drama: Wallander / Dr Who / Spooks / Shameless.

Could it be Dr Who again? Hoping for Wallander. Shameless = why is this still 1. being made, 2. being nominated? lol Spooks.

Yes!

Kenneth Branaaaagh accepts the award for Wallander. Promises there will be more soon (just as soon as he's made some thick superhero movie in Hollywood).

Good start.

Adrian Chiles and the pinhead woman from the One Show present Best Factual: The Family / Blood Sweat T-Shirts / Ross kemp Afghanistan / Amazon.

Didn't see any of these. Bruce Parry wins for his Amazon travelogue. I think I did see some of this now. He took some mind-bending tribal drug, which he does quite often, apparently. He and his crew come down to the sound of The Cure's Close To Me for some reason.

Robert Webb presents Best Entertainment Something: Fri/Sun Night Project / X-Factor / QI / TV Burp.

TV Burp to win? Or QI. Not Project, pls.

Oh. Haha. X-Factor wins to audible lack of enthusiasm.

Louis Theroux, in audience, looking bored with hot date.

Huh, they have an award for Best Sport? Is this to give an award to the Olympics, because we 'won' it?
Wimbledon Men's Final (yes!) / UK wins LOLympics / some horse race / F1 Grand Prix annual boring boring boring car procession.

F1 wins?!?! !!!!!!! F1 guy, with his hands in his pockets and bad posture, looks as stunned as anyone.

Norton makes a continuing drama/soap joke. otm. Can't understand the inferiority complex soap stars have, and the axe they have to grind about not being taken seriously in the industry etc etc. Just look at the ratings, ppl. You've won the culture war! You need a pat on the back from peers also? stfu already.

Patsy "fried eggs" (© Liam Gallagher) Kensit presents (I said, I'm not gonna mention Botox, okay?): EEnders / Casualty / Bill / Emmerdale Farm.
Accompanying clips show there's some really weird (read: unfunny) sitcommy comedy going on in soaps. Especially in The Bill. Like broad, dated slapstick. srsly wtf?
The Bill wins. Jesus. Next.

Best News next. Shot of some guy in the audience reading his programme or something instead of pretending to laugh at Norton.
Andrew Marr and Kirsty Walk (still would) present.

News at 10 - Chinese earthquake / Sky - "canoe man" (lol wtf?) / Sky - Mumbai bomb / Ch4 - Cholera.

News at 10 wins. Now, seeing as The Daily Mail owns 30% or more share in ITN, could this be seen as a peace offering from the BBC to ITN/TDM to get them off their backs a little?
(update 27th: Daily Mail front page: pic of J.Ross, headline "Ross Snubbed by Baftas" or whatever. Snubbed as in didn't win. Olympics snubbed! Sunday Night Project snubbed! Emmerdale Farm snubbed! In what way is being nominated for a Bafta a snub? Fucking hell).

Interesting that the winning story consisted of mobile phone footage taken by a member of the public. Looks like they didn't receive an award.

After a clip of Wallander and Skins for the public vote, Norton makes a "Wallander: Inspector Norse" joke. Then pauses for about five minutes while the audience try and summon up the enthusiasm to chuckle. Would have worked better, that joke, had it not already been used as a Radio Times front cover headline last year. BBC be recycling.

Entertainment performance award, or something. Jools Holland presents: Ant & Dec / Jonathan Ross / Harry hill / Stephen Fry.

No way will they give this to JR. Still, the nom is significant.

Harry Hill wins. I don't suppose Ant & Dec could've won it either, due to the recent scandals etc). Good joke from Hill about winning for a clip show.

Another shot of someone reading their programme. JR grinning gamely.

McNulty and Stringer Bell from The Wire to present an award! Strange to hear their English accents. Haha. Stringer reads stiltedly from the autocue but saves it with "I knew I shoulda read it in an American accent". Good catch.

They present Best Single Drama: Hancock & Joan / Einstein & Eddington / White Girl / Shooting Thomas Hurndell.

Didn't think much of the Tony Hancock thing myself.

White Girl wins. Never saw it. The young actress in the main role (Holly Kenny - thnx IMDb) dressed in '80s-look vivid pink skirt/skinny belt. She cute.

David Tennant in audience rockin' the jacket and t-shirt look. Oh dear.

Rob Brydon brings the lols. Presents Best Comedy: Harry & Paul / Peter Serafinowicz / Mitchell & Webb / Star Stories.

Anything but Star Stories. Would kinda like to see Serafinowicz win, but fat chance I suppose.

Harry Enfield wins his first Bafta(!). Fair play. He looks odd these days. Like he really is finally turning into Dick Emery.

Best Specialist Factual Programme (Norton: "programmes we genuinely intend to watch" <- his first real lol of the evening).

Jon Snow, in sparkly bow tie, presents: Lost Land of Jaguar / Blood + Guts / S.Fry Gutenberg press / Life in Cold Blood.

Re: the Gutenburg Press prog. For once I agree w/Lawrence Miles in that it seems the BBC will let Fry make any programme on any subject that he has any interest in. This was worthy but a little dull. I mean, fair enough, make it, but a Bafta nomination? You're kidding me, right?

Obviously Life in Cold Blood wins. David Attenborough launches from his seat and hobbles swiftly down the steps.
Even as he thanks his producers etc he sounds like he's deescribing the first sighting of the mating ritual of a pair of pink Mongolian ocelots.

The Montage of Death.

In amongst Patrick McGoohan, Charles Wheelan and Pinter was Jade Goody. The subtitlers went with "television personality". Be still, fist of pain.

Now an award called Features. ???
The Apprentice / Celeb Masterchef / Top Gear / The Choir - Boys Don't Sing.

No Come Dine With Me = no cred.

Clips of last year's Apprentice puts this years into the shade. Such good comedy. Hopefully this or Top Gear will win (quit frontin' haters - Clarkson is so easily one of the best presenters on television. ADMIT IT).

The wooden actor from the Beeb's 39 Steps presents. The Choir wins.

One of the winners is wearing full Scottish trad uniform. Scottish nationalism is always an embarrassment. What makes them think it's any less pathetic than English nationalism? Ppl who wear kilts are cunts, imo.
Michael McIntyre = why is this man so popular. Why? He's here to present Best Sitcom with some embarrassed looking lady.

McIntyre's tortuous "who needs a pee?" gag is bombing. Christ, this is seriously horrific. Agonisingly, wretchedly unfunny. Even the Outnumbered kids look as if they're wishing for a nuclear holocaust to hit.

The IT Crowd / Outnumbered / Peep Show / Inbetweeners.

V.good line up. Caught up with Inbetweeners recently - it's Skins as written by Peep Show writers. So many wannabes writing sitcoms are going for a Peep Show rip-off. Give it up, ppl. But the scripts for Inbetweeners are up to the level of Peep Show, and even the crude teen humour isn't as bad as (name of any BB3 sitcom here). Outnumbered will win though, surely.

The IT Crowd wins! ??? Wow. OK. Shades of Gavin & Stacey missing out last year. Crazy times.

Little girl from Outnumbered looks heartbroken :(

Andrew Garfield presents Best Drama Serial: Criminal Justice / House of Saddam / The Devil's Whore / Dead Set.

What is Dead Set even doing here? Drama serial?

So want Devil's Whore to win this. Or Crim Justice, obv. I think it will be Crim Justice.

It is Crim Justice! Good that Devil's Whore was nominated though.

Peter Moffat hangs back while producer makes the speech. Good to see good writer gettin the props though. Deserved win.

Shot of Phillip Glenister looking bloaty and depressed.

The Bafta Special Award. Tennant is wearing a velvet jacket, his t-shirt has what looks like a diamante stormtrooper on it. Stay classy, Dave. Could be worse, he coulda turned up in a kilt again.

Tennant presents the award to Jane Tranter. Another well deserved win. Nice speech.

Phillip Glenister looks as if he should be put on suicide watch. What's up with this guy? I know Ashes to Ashes is bad, but jeez...

Tranter mentions being thrilled in winning the Alan Clarke Award. Which isn't what they're calling it this year (?).

Another shot of Glenister! He now merely looks morose. I think he'll be okay.

Loius Theroux comes onstage, makes a confusing joke, and presents the Best Single Documentary Award: Thriller in Manila / Chosen (True Stories) / The Fallen / Boy Called Alex.

Didn't see any of these. the Chosen wins. Pretty powerful speeches to go with it.

From the sublime... Chris Moyles and Davina McCall. Yes.
It's the Audience Award thing, as voted for by the great unhosed.

Wallander / X-Fac / Corrie / Outnumbered / Apprentice / Skins.

Obviously Wallander has no chance in this. X-Fac and Apprentice are the obvious choices. Unless the online Skins community has mobilised itself.

Haha. Skins wins!

Much like when Belle & Sebastian were surprising winners in a similar vote at the Brits some years back, it looks like the young, tech-savvy Skins fans have organised a black vote, probably via Facebook or Twitter or something. Good work.

I've only seen one episode of the new series of Skins, but I enjoyed it (in fact I missed the second series completely, the first was surprisingly good though). Youngest writers in TV, which makes you think. Makes me bloody well think, anyway. Damn the two actresses from it are cute.

Sorry.

Oh dear, the Outnumbered kids are looking well fed up.

Sarah Alexander is also v.pretty. Presents Comedy performance: Claire Skinner / David Mitchell / Sharon Morgan / Rob Brydon.

Further calamity for the Outnumbered crew as Skinner loses to Mitchell.

At least it wasn't to that woman from Pulling. Claire Skinner looks sad. Many noms, no trophies for the chattering classes fave sitcom.

Nesbit.

Wait, come back.

Confusing joke from he before he presents the Best Actress award: Anna Maxwell-Martin / Maxine Peake / June Brown / Andrea Riseborough.

June Brown big favourite for the Tony Jordan scripted solo Dot Cotton episode of EE.

Anna Mazwell-Martin wins for Poppy Shakespeare. Audience is taken aback.
It is pretty surprising, it looked like a shoe-in for June Brown. She's featured heavily throughout prog, the camera cutting to her almost as regularly as it has Jonathan Ross and Phillip Glenister.

To be absolutely honest though, Poppy Shakespeare/Maxwell-Martin >>> EEnders/June Brown. Sorry but true. Bafta voting with head, not heart on this one. Very surprising though.

Maxwell-Martin not even in attendance! (which at least says that you don't get an award for just turning up - see Angelina + Brad earlier this year).

Lindsay Duncan presents Best Actor:
Jason Isaacs / Stephen Dillaine / Ben Whishaw / Ken Stott.

Someone must have really liked that Hancock & Joan programme. I preferred the Alfred Molina's portrayal of Hancock in a similar biopic some years back. Jason Isaacs was better as Harry H. Corbett, though Galton & Simpson called the whole show inaccurate.

Stephen Dillane wins for The Shooting of Thomas Hurndall. I was half expecting Ben Whishaw, if it wasn't gonna be Stott. Another unexpected (disappointing?) win.

Richard Curtis, fresh from the success of his misogynistic movie, The Boat That Raped (aka lol women=sluts amirite?), presents a Fellowship award to '80s funny-ladies French & Saunders.

Oh wait, now Helen Mirran is going to present a Fellowship award to '80s funny-ladies French & Saunders. What's going on?

The clip of Dawn French/Vicar of Dibly falling into a puddle is the new Del Boy falling through the bar?

Audience shot of Justin-Lee Collins seemingly wearing a ginger woman's wig. The wag.

French & Saunders popular recipients. Their speech is kinda funnier than anything they've written in about ten years, but I don't wanna be mean. Clips from the early days are still A+ comedy. Whither Raw Sex though?

That's it! Norton was a poor host overall, but not horrendous. Needs the return of Stephen Fry, or someone new perhaps. (Peter Serafinowicz? I'm serious!).

Gah. Amongst the awards we didn't see, apparently, was Mad Men winning Best International Award (beating Wire and - thankfully - Dexter)! Goddamit, BBC.

J.G. Ballard.

2009-04-20T16:02:00.011+01:00

Seriously, best opening line ever?

“Later, as he sat on his balcony eating the dog, Dr Robert Laing reflected on the unusual events that had taken place within this huge apartment building during the previous three months.”

- High Rise.

Just popping by to give a hastily cobbled together mini-tribute to the great man.

This might be of interest: J.G. Ballard: How I write.

Ballardesque! My Spotify playlist of songs inspired by JGB.

J.G. Ballard: "Why I Want To Fuck Ronald Reagan"

Further reading: Like many I would say his best work was contained in his short story collections. Surely he was the master at this form. I would choose The Atrocity Exhibition and The Voices of Time as my two picks, though I haven't read them all. The Garden of Time, from the latter collection, and The Terminal Beach have to be my favourite short stories of all.

As for his novels, the early ones would feature an environmental cataclysm (A steadily increasing wind destroys everything in its path in The Wind From Nowhere; global warming turns London into a tropical swamp-land in The Drowned World; a jungle crystallises into a surreal, bejewelled paradise in The Crystal World). Then he became more concerned with urban alienation and technological catastrophe (A man becomes stranded in the nowhere space below motorway flyovers in The Concrete Island; the tenants of a tower block turn on each other in High Rise; a group of people watch and participate in car crashes in order to get sexual kicks in Crash).
These are the novels that have cemented his reputation. Not big on character development - there are no warm, identifiable protagonists here - in fact a rather cold, detached prose style, which suited his stories that invariably were filled with fractured realities, breakdown of societal structures, psychological disintigration, violence, bland urban stretches, wreckage, empty swimming pools, tropical vegetation...
The coldness was tempered by an hallucinogenic surrealism, and black humour (see the opening line to High Rise, above). The imagery is also haunting and beautiful, it lingers long in the mind.

I haven't read anything after 1994's Rushing to Paradise. I need to.

JG Ballard RIP

2009-04-19T22:20:00.002+01:00

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/8007331.stm

Just got this news of the passing of a great man.
I'd say he was my favourite living author. High Rise, Crash, Concrete Island, some of the most unique and interesting books I've ever read and am ever likely to read.

Must get round to reading his autobiography.

Oh man.

RIP.

"When television history is written..."

2009-04-19T08:42:00.004+01:00

Wrote about five spiced rum and coke fuelled pages in the early hours last night (uh, this morning, whatev). Just tore right through it. No idea how they read in the cold light etc, but damn...

Now watching this cool interview with Wire creator David Simon:
http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/04172009/watch.html

Check iiiiit.

Graham Linehan on BBC3 comedy:

2009-04-15T20:08:00.003+01:00

‘ I do not think you have to chase a young audience by talking down to them and that's what BBC Three seems to do. It is like watching your granddad break dancing. It is just embarrassing. I think what you do is talk up to them, and you let people catch up.’

OTM, but then goes on to praise the depressingly crude - and now mercifully axed - sitcom Pulling, and says that Curb You Enthusiasm is overrated. Gasp. He certainly has Opinions4U.

Oh yeah, the link?
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/media/tv-radio/lets-ditch-the-boring-sketch-shows-1667815.html

Sheesh...

2009-04-09T18:10:00.002+01:00

Can't believe how long it's been since I last posted on here. To be fair, it is kinda my lowest priority at the mo, what with.... y'know. Everything else and stuff.
It didn't help that I received an XBox off my friends for my birthday a couple of weeks back. Since then it's been all "bye-bye hopes, dreams, ambitions. Nice knowing you but I have a new life now. It involves near photo-realistic, pixilated destruction and pulse-quickening speed".

Need to get my stuff together to do some writing. I'm slowly, but slowly, plotting out something. I need to step up the pace now though. Things are a bit mad currently, but I could still clear time for serious writing sessions if I make the effort.

I'll try and keep popping back here every so often a bit more as well. Updates and all that. Get things ticking over nicely.

ps. Mad Men - this show is now on some next level brilliance or something. Untouchable.

The Apprentice - feels played out this series, imo. btw iPlayer people: putting the face of the person who got sacked on your front page kinda spoils it for those of us who didn't watch the programme on the night. kthanx.

Robin Hood - Have only seen episode one of the new series so far. Had high hopes for a reboot to this, and for a good portion it looked rejuvenated. Then it returned to form with a 'rescue someone from the castle under the eyes of the sheriff' denouement. Again! Jeez, try something different guys.

Come again?

2009-03-17T10:23:00.008Z

Long time no see. Work had me busy with 14hr shifts + w/ends. That and every weekend it seems it's someone's birthday (next w/end it's my turn).

Oh, and all the free time I have left over has been dedicated to Spotify. How good is this site? Yeah, sure, it will help hammer the final nail into the coffin of the music industry, but so what? srsly f'realz, I've been compulsively compiling definitive decade-by-decade compilations. I call it scratching the autism itch. It's strangely pleasing and absorbing, and a complete waste of time.
These lists are based on my own likes, the tracks that are significant to my life, with a few canonical choices thrown in, if they meet my giddily high standards, obv.

If you haven't registered, do so. Do it now. If you're already on it - high five. Also check out my:

Awesome 2000s mix
Awesome '90s mix
Awesome '80s mix
Awesome '70s mix
Awesome '60s mix
Awesome '50s mix

Still works in progress, especially the '50s and '60s mixes, which I haven't yet sorted by date like I have with the other lists.

I haven't been doing much writing, is what I'm saying. I did finish the first draft of Project Talk. This requires a good deal of thought before I embark on further drafts, I feel. It's just not gonna fly as is. In the meantime I'm prepping something else, a radio play script kinda based on an old idea but given a major reboot. Unlike Project Talk, which is a play 'about' silence, and is minimal and sombre, this new thing is all the other way. It's quick moving, funny and quite scabrous. How much can you get away with on Radio4 these days? Ah, who cares. I'll write it and worry about it later. Actually I'll let them do the worrying for me.

A full and detailed review of the 2009 Oscars

2009-02-23T18:25:00.005Z

^this, basically.

(oh, and the bit where Sophia Loren mentioned that Meryl Streep had been nominated 15 times and Meryl mouthed "that's not enough!". And Michael Douglas talking about Frank Langella's portrayal of Nixon, "all other versions slip away", when he was standing on the stage next to Anthony Hopkins. And the swoopy camera moves used to jazz up the boring old in memorium montage. Idiots. And Anne Hathaway. And, er, that's it)

Mad Men, Flight 1 recap

2009-02-21T21:45:00.007Z

Mad Men
S02E02: "Flight 1"
BBC4, 17/02/09

For fans asking "what went on in '61?", a few clues were scattered at our feet in the second episode.

At the end of season one (1960), we discovered Peggy was pregnant by the oleaginous Pete. Season two (1962) starts and the ad men mutter about Peggy returning from "vacation", and a few pounds lighter. If any have put two-and-two together yet, we don't know but I think some may suspect. One of those may be poor old Pete himself, though he's in denial about it, clinging to his favourite theory: "Fat farm. I thought we had confirmation?".

But in this episode we at least find out what happened to the baby. It wasn't aborted like you all thought. It is being raised by Peggy's God-fearing sister and mother, living out in the sticks. An agreement that means Peggy can enjoy her high-flying career in the big city, but will have to carry with her the gnawing guilt of making such a pact.

Did you see the way she reacted when - and only after being prompted - she looked in on her sleeping child? It reminded me of Jack Nance and the Eraserhead baby. A kind of frozen terror. And the awkward way she bounced the baby on her knee in the church during Communion.

Clearly there is a disconnect between Peggy and her family, including, now, her own son. She wants to be the single career girl, and doesn't want the shackles of her more old fashioned family. But what can she do? Especially now.

As interesting as Peggy's reaction to a birth was Pete's reaction to a death, namely his father who he learned was one of the passengers on an American Airlines plane which crashed into Jamaica Bay leaving no survivors.

This was a disaster that actually happened, btw. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Airlines_Flight_1. Which puts the day of the episode as 1st March 1962. Its another example of real events having their effect on the seemingly cocooned world of Sterling Cooper.

Pete is a really interesting character. When he was introduced it seemed like he was set up to be the obvious nemesis for Don: a brash, on-the-make, brazen go-getter. A little weasel of a man who will step over anyone, and betray what few principles he has to get ahead - remember the business with him taking and opening Don's mail, and thereby discovering Don's true identity? Kinda didn't buy that as even something he would do. It just seemed a bit illogical and from left field. Saying that, it sure set him up for a glorious fall didn't it!

Anyway, perception of him has changed slightly. Sure, he's still a corporate-climbing cock, but his reactions to things give him a complex edge. Here he had to deal with bereavement, and it was like he didn't know how to feel. He was searching for the right way to react. Naturally, as always, Pete sought out father figures - Don and Duck - to try and gauge from them what the correct response should be. It's like he's morally askew, or unformed. Emotionally incomplete. But still the reaction to the tragic news was so well played.

What's eating Betty Draper? Okay, we know, from S01, that she is the classic early '60s model housewife - on the outside. Inside she's frustrated - not just in general, but sexually as well. The Draper's marital problems at the end of that season appear to have been patched up, for now at least. Paying for her to have riding lessons, as seen in S02E01, being one such appeasement strategy.

Also in the last episode she bumped into an old friend at a party who was clearly now working as a courtesan. Betty later bitched to Francine about the "tacky" jewellery she was wearing and everything else, but the encounter seems to have given her food for thought. The later scene where she pleads with a mechanic to fix her car after breaking down when she had no money was fraught with tension. Would she... ? No, but this issue is clearly a little time-bomb being planted.

I love January Jones' nuanced portrayal of Betty, who could so easily have been a stock Doris Day type. Naturally, it starts, and some might say ends, with the writing, but Jones adds so much detail and depth to the role, many nice subtle quirks and shifts in expression.Her character looks rightly to be one of the major players again this season. This time, though, it looks as if she might be a less sympathetic character than before. There's a darker tone to her already, especially in this episode.

Fractures are beginning to show in the patched-up Draper relationship. There is resentment building up from Betty towards Don; she tries to drag him into an argument but, for whatever reason, Don backs off stating he doesn't want to, and won't, fight with her. She goes outside and lights a cigarette, Don watches her through the window. The scene ends with that obvious divide between them.
There was also the scene where Betty witheringly criticises her son, Bobby, for tracing a picture of George Washington and passing it off as a drawing at school. But we quickly realise that this is merely another way of getting at Don. It's interesting that, as we are being made to feel sympathy for Pete, we are seeing a colder, nastier side to Betty, who we felt affinity for throughout last season. I'm intrigued to find out where this season will take her character.

As for Don, the scenes where his idealism and honourable, old-school moral obligation to Mohawk airlines were forced aside by Duck's/Sterling Cooper's rather more rapacious profit/prestige chasing were again examples of phenomenal work by Jon Hamm.

Don is such an enigma. He carries a quiet alpha-male aura around with him, yet, at times is quite brooding and dark. There's an itch there. Something unsettled inside. Perhaps connected with him living under a created persona, but odd temptations keep coming his way, and when they do (ie the beatnik party chick in S01, the exotic allure of the waitress (hooker?) in this episode) he pauses - seemingly a moment too long - before demurring. Where will it lead him?

Other really nice moments in Flight 1 :

Don instructing his young daughter, Sally, how to mix cocktails. And the two Draper children sitting on the stairs, listening in on what the adults were saying at their parents card game evening.
^both of these struck a chord with me about similar situations in my own childhood. Both providing exciting glimpses into the curious world of the grown-ups.

The scene that most people have picked up on, however, was face off between Joan and Kinsey. Joan being such a mega-bitch ("go ahead, what part is wrong?") which would be funner if she wasn't being racist into the bargain. Ouch. Where's this heading?

It got a tiny viewing figures on its BBC4 showing. Around 250 thousand or something like that. The best thing on television and nobody watches it, not here or the US. Apparently, in the States, its run as a loss leader for its network, AMC. It gets them good critical notices and hoovers up the statuettes come awards season, that's about it. And yet the writing in this show makes British drama writers look as if they're asleep at the wheel.

The wretchedly low viewing figures are depressing, and you might probably say evidence that most telly watchers are little more than simple-minded reality-show gawping goons and there's no place for drama, especially drama that is dark of tone, where the dialogue is so beautifully weighted, so rich with subtext, so funny, so affecting, never commonplace or obvious or dull. Where the attention to detail, style and accuracy is immaculate...

The good news is that Mad Men creator Matthew Weiner has recently signed a two year deal with AMC, where he will continue to showrun Mad Men for, at least, the next two seasons, continuing his story arc (and, unlike JJ Abrams with Lost, he appears to have one).

Who knows, the ratings might pick up over time (the ratings for the finale of S02 in the US were the highest it's ever achieved)? Until then people are mad to pass this by.

Another day, another Day of the Triffids.

2009-02-17T17:54:00.007Z

A few things.

Okay, so you know about the current trend in TV for remaking - hush my mouth! - I mean re-imagining old TV shows. We've had the so-so Survivors and a couple of others, we're apparently having Martin Clunes in some Reggie Perrin updating, and The Prisoner is returning with a big name cast (well, Jim Caviezel and Ian McKellen), only now it is no longer set in Portmeirion as the programme makers have decided that it was too parochially English and would therefore alienate important US audiences. Portmeirion is a Welsh village famous for its Italian Palladin architecture.
The new Prisoner is now set somewhere we can all relate to: the Namibian desert.

Anyway, I've only just caught sight of the cast for BBC's latest take on The Day of the Triffids. The title role of Dr Bill Masen is played by Dougray Scott, who started off in Soldier Soldier and the fairly decent Iain Banks adap, The Crow Road, and then disappeared off to make some unremarkable movies, though he did turn up as the baddie in the best - imo - Mission: Impossible movie (the second one with the John Woo slo-mo and the doves).

But it seems The Graun, and everyone else, is making a big thing about Eddie Izzard in the role of the antagonist, Torrence. It smacks a little of stunt casting to me, but we'll see. Better news is that Brian Cox is in it.
Hopefully it'll be sufficiantly different to the BBC's other recent "cosy catastrophe" series, Survivors, with which it shares many themes.

The Triffids reboot is written by Patrick Harbinson, a British writer/producer who defected to the US to work on ER, Dark Angel and Law & Order. Bet he wishes he never left Blighty now. QUITTER!

A gem from the Guardian comments section:

renaissancemoron
12 Feb 09, 9:54am
Patrick Harbinson is a class act as well, having built a career in America thereby dodging the mill of Holby/Casualty training that's destroying the souls and sensibilities of an entire generation of British TV writers.

I lol'd.

In other news:

Family Guy gloriously respond to the Christian Bale freakout:

"I don't get why we need another Terminator"

^^Peter Griffin otm.

I like how they got round the problem of the lengthy process of producing animation in order to get this on air asap.

I'm wondering if South Park will also comment. The Simpsons probably isn't "zeitgeisty" enough [anymore] to bother.

In other other news:

I dreamt of a new Indiana Jones story last night. I actually dreamed the central idea. The core - well, the pip at least - of the plot. Why I was dreaming about Indiana Jones, at this stage of the game, I have no idea. Nor do I have any idea what use it is to me, or another Indy movie is to anyone at all, tbh.
But, if anyone is interested - Mr Spielberg, anyone - then I've got a McGuffin to chase, a rough plan, and even a character who is a dirty double-crosser, and probably in league with the Nazis - I hate those guys. I'm calling it Indiana Jones and the Sleepy-Go-By-Byes.

If you're from Universal Pictures, please use the comments box below and I'll get back to you (fyi: I'm not cheap). kthnxby

Please Hammer Don't Tweet 'Em.

2009-02-12T17:01:00.002Z

Just an update to me hatin on the microblogging phenomenon that is Twitter, just a couple of posts ago.

To underline just how overground Twitter has become, last night it held it's own awards ceremony - Baftas Schmaftas! - in Brooklyn, New York (I know).

At The Shorty Awards, as they're calling it, acceptance speeches had to be a tweet maximum of 140 characters, and the whole thing was over and done in an ADD-friendly 90 minutes. Even so, the crowd found it hard to concentrate on anything but their precious tweets.

According to the NY Times:

"Fueled by an open bar featuring vanilla and turquoise martinis (the latter named a “fail whale” martini after the turquoise graphic that shows up on Twitter when the site is overloaded), the sneaker-clad crowd kept talking — and sending Twitter messages through their iPhones — as the winners got up to give their 140-character acceptance speeches. Even the hip-hop artist MC Hammer, who arrived to present some awards, couldn’t quiet the crowd down"

"Even the hip-hop artist MC Hammer, who arrived to present some awards, couldn't quiet the crowd Even the hip-hop artist MC Hammer, who arrived to present some awards, couldn't quiet the crowd Even the hip-hop artist MC Hammer, who arrived to present some awards, couldn't quiet the crowd"

One notable winner, it seems, was 'Peggy Olson', the character from Mad Men. I'd heard there was an - obviously fan-run - Twitter site for Peggy, but have avoided it due to spoilers. And also because, y'know: "The twittering Peggy Olson turned out to be a bubbly marketing consultant from Portland, Ore., named Carrie Bugbee".

Which leads me on to rhetorically ask : how bloody good was Mad Men S02E01 the other night?

Okay, at first I thought, hmm, solid if unspectacular opener. Should've known better. This show is never sweet on the lips; it slides down slowly and burns.
Beautifully written, and played, character stuff: Peggy taking a tough stance with the girl now in the position she was in S01E01, the tense scene where Betty asks a mechanic for help after breaking down, Don's eloquent speech about how advertising is/should/can be about craft not cheap thrills.
None of which would have the same, if any, impact if you hadn't followed their character arcs, and all the reveals and subtle shifting interplay, throughout season one.

We are getting now - not for the first time, but maybe more noticeably than ever - TV that rewards patient and dedicated viewing. The Wire, The Sopranos, Mad Men; daunting, labyrinthine, and baffling to the outsider. The casual channel-hopper who happens to alight on any random episode of one of these - or even to someone who thinks they might 'give it a go' to see what all the fuss is about - could easily find them too slow-moving. Nothing appears to be happening!

Many newcomers could quickly end up feeling alienated, especially if they've come to the show after hearing it being endlessly eulogised by fans. They turn up ready to be blown away - instead they get a lot of nice sets and people talking, about... what? Nothing much, it seems. This is where the 'style over substance' and - worst of the lot - the 'Emperor's new clothes' accusations come from (btw those that trot out the emperors new clothes trope, for anything, deserve death imo).
David Simon has said of casual viewers: "fuck them. I don't want them". Unusually, this kind of TV makes large demands on its viewers. Ideally you need to be there from the beginning, you need to keep with it, you need to trust the writer and be in it for the long haul.
TV that is hard work and requires concentration might not be many people's - or, ideed, TV studios - idea of fun, but those that do go with it end up loving the programmes with a passion. Often vocally so. This can sometimes seem like self-congratulation and in-crowd smugness or whatever to the uninitiated, but y'know what? Simon's right, fuck 'em. They're wrong, and if they've missed the boat, tough. Let them cry elitism if they want.

But, really, anyone who still clings to the idea that Mad Men is all about sets and costumes and sniggering at outdated mores, and not about character character character (as well as historical/social changes that impact in various ways on those characters) hasn't been watching, end of.
But, saying that, yeah, it is also as stylish as hell, and I'm all for getting off on that as well.

Well... I wasn't going to talk about Mad Men at all in this post. But what started out as a lazy snark about some silly Twitter awards bash, turned into some waffle around something I could actually give a damn about, which, I suppose, teaches me a lesson.

A full and detailed review of the 2009 BAFTA film awards.

2009-02-09T17:42:00.006Z

^^^For those that didn't watch it, this is all you need to know. srsly. I'm not even joking.

Mamma mia, here I go again

2009-02-08T17:45:00.005Z

It's my mother's birthday weekend so I've been over her house for the past couple of days. Drinking tea, mainly. You know how it is.

Had an interesting day today, I sat with her and we watched a Mama Mia!/ The Sound of Music double bill.
I'm not gay or owt. I mean, if a a mother and her grown, bachelor son can't enjoy a couple of musicals and a shared packet of chocolate Hob-Nobs without clouds of doubt appearing over the man's sexuality then I don't know what this world is coming to, I really don't.

fwiw The Sound of Music's a bit dull really, isn't it? And I don't get Mama Mia! at all. Though I do want to rep for Pierce Brosnan, who has taken some stick for his singing. He was the best thing in it imo. Sure, he sang like a deaf person on Mogadon, but I'll take that over the weedy, reedy falsetto of Stellan Skarsgård and Colin Firth any day.

What an odd film Mama Mia! is though. And I speak as an unapologetic, un-ironic fan of Abba. Though, to be fair, the Abba in Mama Mia! isn't, strictly speaking, my Abba. My Abba is the one of glacial, Scandinavian melancholy, of disintegrating relationships and soured dreams. Mama Mia! is the dance-on-tables, hen party Abba. Call me rockist, but it's for those who have only Abba Gold in their collections, not the albums. Nothing wrong with that. I'm not saying, I'm just saying.

But still... strange film. No story to really speak of, none of it makes a lick of sense and it acts as if it doesn't matter, and, in a way, it gets away with it on sheer brio alone.
Funny thing is, I thought the songs were used surprisingly badly, except for, maybe, Slipping Through My Fingers and The Winner Takes it All. Those were the only moments when the film gelled with me tbh.

Anyway, too much weirdness for me to unpack at the moment, I just want to flop out.

But if we're talking about weird films...

I'll leave you with this routine by excellent US comedian - and sometime Hollywood script-doctor/voice artist/actor/etc - Patton Oswalt. He's talking about an actual B-movie called Death Bed - The Bed That Eats People, and in doing so he covers the topics of screenwriting, the 'notes' given by wacky prod-cos, and the whole wtf-ery of shitty ideas that somehow get written and even made. Check iiiiit:

No-one cares about your Twitter updates

2009-02-02T15:37:00.005Z

People who actually think Facebook has anything positive going for it are, no exaggeration, the worst humans ever to have existed. That much we can all agree on.
But Twitter... ?

I dunno, what's the big deal here? Maybe I'm just not that interested in other people['s self-obsession], but do we need microblogging? One thing I hate if ever I'm out with anyone who is under twenty-five, or anyone who is just a general gadget-fiddling d-bag, is their constant checking and re-checking and texting on their mobiles. You could be at a gig or a show or just knocking back the Pedigree down the local ale house, and every two minutes they'll be all head bowed and blue-faced before the alter of the mobi.
Having a tedious, stilted conflab via SMS is one stupid-ass thing, being constantly sent tweets updating you on what the sender thinks about the woman in the advert they've just watched, or what their dog is doing, or that they're tired and off to bed, or whatever, I mean, that is just nuts. Right?

Or maybe I'll be a late adopter and will be tweeting with the best of them - ie showbiz bestmates and Twitter advocates John Cleese, Stephen Fry, Jonathan Ross, and Russell Brand (etc). Thing is my friends are almost as antisocial as me, so there is little need to keep updating, or be updated. Is it worth bothering with another social networking tool I'd barely use? I think that is what's key to my reluctance.

Anyway, I haven't been around for a while due to overtime overdrive at work. Four hours extra per day last week, plus another eight on Saturday. And the last thing I felt like doing after a 12 shift was writing. At least not a posting a blog. I did manage a tiny bit more to my 'Project Talk' (as I will code name it) radio play (then there is Project Blood, my mini series horror thing as previously blogged). Tragedy struck, however, when I accidentally managed to erase 45 mins worth of jotting. Don't know how I did it, but I did it. It was there and then it was not there.
But still, it doesn't matter too much as I had something of a eureka moment during writing it - I'd been doing it all wrong! I realised in writing it the main protag was too sympathetic. The fate that was about to befall him would be too cruel and the outcome of it all couldn't work as effectively. Obvious really, but I didn't see it. Now I'm happier - I have a better handle on the guy, the story and every damn thing. I can get my teeth into it.

Going back to social networking gizmos for a minute: BBC iPlayer head honcho Anthony Rose spells out the developments he has in store for the player this coming year. Seems they include a twitter-like friend updating service, so you can enthrall all your mates with news that you've just had a Trexx and Flipside series catch-up marathon.

Mixtape '08: My Top 20 Tracks of the Year

2009-01-24T13:22:00.007Z

As it's a Saturday, and no-one's reading, I thought I'd kill time with a[nother] list of the best tracks of what historians are already calling "last year".
A little light, musical interlude then.
Hit it!

20. M83 - Kim & Jessie

It took a while to grow on me, but grow it did. The video should appeal to aficionados of High School movies like Bring it On and Napoleon Dynamite. Also watch out for the Big Lebowski steal.

19. Hercules & Love Affair - Blind

No disguising the distinctive vocals - it's Antony Hegarty from Antony & The Johnsons. The band appear to be a loose collective of New York hipsters from the DJ/dance/art scene - wait, come back!

18. Nine Inch Nails - 1,000,000

Once we had to wait for years on end between albums - five years between the massive selling The Downward Spiral in 1994 and the coke bloat of '99's The Fragile. Then six years before the back-to-basics With Teeth.
Now Trent Reznor is so prolific with his music that he can't give it away. Well, he can because with The Slip that's exactly what he did do.
Coming just months after the instrumental double album Ghosts I-IV was released online, out slipped The Slip onto the net with no fanfare, and for free. It was "a gift" for the fans.
It's a tough, sinewy, 'live' band sounding album, less overtly electronic. Many fans - which I suppose I'm still one - would like to hear a return to the wholly industrial dance spastic sound of Pretty Hate Machine and the Broken ep. Even so I thought The Slip - surprisingly - had his best songs in years, one of them being 1,000,000:

17. Half Man Half Biscuit - Bad Losers on Yahoo Chess

They've been knocking out sardonic 'novelty' indie music since the mid-Eighties. The band's actual sound has barely risen above bog-standard, unadventurous, toilet-venue guitar din, but then it's really only a scaffold for Nigel Blackwell's lyrics. Probably one of this country's - and therefore, the world's - best lyricists, but his incisive swipes at popular culture and sociological minutiae are probably dismissed as being jokey. Running Order Squabble Fest, Joy Division Oven Gloves, Trouble Over Bridgewater, Achtung Bono... These aren't jokes, there's too much bile coursing through his veins. He means it, maaaan.

"Deep Blue / In ‘97 I voted for you / As Sports Personality of the Year"

16. School of Seven Bells - Half Asleep

They came, seemingly from nowhere, to be one of the finds of the year. School VII Bells - as fans refer to them - are so mysterious they don't even have any videos. Good tune this though, starts off as polite motorik indie-pop, then develops into a My Bloody Valentine-esque bit of FX pedal-drenched shoegazing/dreampop.

It says here : "The band is named after the School of the Seven Bells, a legendary pickpocket training academy.". Huh??

15. Wiley - Wearing My Rolex

Wiley's Life of Grime album was more of a grime mixtape than an album proper. Wiley went on to disown his later studio album, telling fans not to buy it because it was "crap". He also assured everyone that the reports of his death in November were greatly exaggerated. Phew!

14. Air France - Collapsing At Your Doorstep

Air France are actually from Gothenberg on Sweden's west coast. Confused, you will be.
They play a sort of blissed-out, Balearic, indie-ambient house, reminiscent of some early Saint Etienne and the bucolic doodlings of Boards of Canada (<-from Scotland). Collapsing at Your Doorstep, presented here complete with fitting dreamy-scape film of wind turbines, is typical of the album: summery, playful, and it makes you feel nostalgic for a childhood more perfect than the one you actually had.

13. Dizzee Rascal - Dance Wiv Me

"xXHardcoreGronksXx (11 hours ago) Show Hide

it sounds gay at the start.
But i like it when that guy comes cause its like just when ur gonna turn this shit off that man comes and yooh go "Fuck this song is catchy""

12. Lykke Li - Dance Dance Dance

Another Swede, Lykke Li (pron: licky lee. Friends just call her licky, I presume), is one of a number of sweet-voiced Scandinavian songbirds with a slightly breathy, thin, cooing vocal style. Clearly a part of the Swedish indie-pop mafia, the I'm Good, I'm Gone single she featured alongside Robyn, El Perro del Mar and Peter from Peter Bjorn & John.
This video for Dance Dance Dance was filmed in what looks to me like Cophenhagen central station. It definitely looks familiar, anyway.

11. The Hold Steady - Sequestered In Memphis

I mean, if you're going to do bar-room blues pop... don't. Just don't. Okay? But if you are going to do bar-room blues pop, then... still don't. But if you really really are absolutely no stopping you going to do bar-sodding-room blooooze-bloody-pop then... well, still don't because The Hold Steady have already done it better than you ever could.

A friend said they remind him of Springsteen - it's that intelligent, blue-collar, yearning, small-town America thing. I dunno, I don't hear any similarity with Springsteen, and yet... the analogy holds. (For the record, I liken them more to under-rated nineties band The Afghan Whigs)

Lead singer, Craig Finn, is one of the best lyricists going - if you're into vitriol-flecked, bar-stool philosophising (and who isn't) - but the snarled vocals tend to obscure the words. Have a song-sheet handy.

So, what are The Hold Steady all about, then? A group of 'middle-youth' men with hair loss and shirts that pull tighter around the middle more and more each year, sit around and see that they don't, and won't ever again, fit in to any new 'scene', but to heck with it, pour out another and do you remember that summer way back when, remember that girl, and remember all those times... ? Good times, my friend. Whoo, good, good times. Let's have another drink and let's tell some more stories.

10. Ladyhawke - Dusk Till Dawn

For many '08 = '80s. MGMT, The Black Kids and many other groups were on an early-'80s tip. Likewise Kiwi singer/songwriter Pip Brown, aka Ladyhawke, dragged out the vintage synths and AOR hooky guitar riffs and goes all out for that Bangles/Laura Brannigan vibe. And not only does she have a non-more lol-'80s looking, Thriller/video-nasty inspired video, but is named after a cult 1985 Michelle Pfeiffer-starring fantasy flick.

09. TV On The Radio - Golden Age

I got into these a bit when they dropped their last album Return to Cookie Mountain (narrowly missing the chance to call it Return to Cookie Monster for shame).

They're a brainy, NY art-rock band so, naturally, they have the critics eating out of their hands, but are they actually any good? I reckon so, and with Golden Age they almost border on Earth Wind and Fire territory, of which there can be no greater compliment.

As an aside, guitarist David Andrew Sitek produced Scarlet Johannson's recent wierd album of Tom Waits covers. But, y'know, Scarlet Johannson... fair play to the man. Fair play.

08. Goldfrapp - Eat Yourself

With the album Seventh Tree, mad Alison and chums eschewed the glam-stomp that categorised their last two releases, and headed in a more reflective, pastoral direction, more akin to their debut, Felt Mountain.

Weirdy Wicker Man, clown imagery and owl symbolism abound inna hazy late-Spring come-down sound. Yeh!

07. Q-Tip - Gettin' Up

From the hip-hop album of the year, The Renaissance. Q-Tip was once the leader of the pioneering Tribe Called Quest and has since been an in-demand producer, as well as having a hand in tracks by De La Soul, The Beastie Boys, Groove is in the Heart, and also supplied vocals to The Chemical Brothers' Galvanise. Despite all that, he couldn't get arrested when it came to his own material. His 2003 album remains unreleased. But sod it, he's back now n' full effec'.

06. Headless Heroes - The North Wind Blew South

Strike another one up for MySpace. Heroes vocalist Alela Diane's MySpace page was discovered by a New York A&R man and was subsequently picked to front this assembled band of musicians, in order to record an album of cover versions a la that Mark Ronson thing last year.

It sounds a bit clinical all that, but Diane is a truly great find and the album, The Silence of Love, is one of the best of the year, easily.

The covers range from "lost" classics to songs by Nick Cave, PJ Harvey and The Jesus & Mary Chain, that were then given a different spin - from a drone rock take on I Am Kloot's To You, to a countryfied version of JAMC's Just Like Honey. So, this was no cynical, Pop Idol-style run-through the same old tired standards. The North Wind Blows South itself is an obscure English psych-folk song from around 1970.

No video, as such, but someone has put the music to some Super-8 footage (a common theme to many vids this year, as the more eagle-eyed amongst you will have spotted) of time-lapse comings and goings in a harbour. How nice.

05. Elbow - Starlings

Northern drizzle monkeys who stink of fish and chips finally come good with heavily garlanded album of hearty, affecting bar-stool anthems. If their sentimental, heart-on-sleeve, manly tear, ordinary-blokeness schtick got a bit wearing, the album remained unfuckwithable. I mean, if it's down-to-earth poeticism you're after, you can't argue with the likes of Weather to Fly, The Loneliness of a Tower Crane Driver, and One Day Like This. Then there was this opening mini epic, Starlings, that reminded me of the fuck-it grandeur of the Boo Radley's magnificent Lazarus. The song is one of Elbow's best. Minimal, yet huge. TRUMPETS!:

04. Ida Maria - Oh My God

This mad-hatted shouty lady is a Norwegian - for a change. But is still, confusingly, based in Stockholm. Here they tear shit up on Later... With Jools Holland.

03. Santogold - Lights Out

She was once a singer in a punk band, but has since moved onto the next step: new wave pop. Blondie, Siouxsie Sioux, and Grace Jones are your watchwords here. Don't, whatever you do, call her an RnB singer. She hates it. Also, it's factually incorrect and a bit racisty.

02. Portishead - The Rip

I'm guessing Third was the Portishead album that wasn't used as insta-style background music during middle-class dinner parties. Though, who knows, it may have formed the unwitting soundtrack to some city boy's mental breakdown as he watched his career circle the plughole in Broken Britain's Credit Crunch year.

Dark, creeping and ominous. Blues and greys, a tremulous vocal, a wavering howl of Theramin, and sudden, pounding industrial motorik drum patterns. I mean, if you are going to slit your wrist, and you fancy putting some music on so that the mood is just yay, then, sure, this might fit the bill. Knock yourself out. But at the same time you can fuck off with all that rote 'this is depressing, slit-your-wrist music' mantra. People who say that are the ones who depress me. Not that this was what you would call 'life-affirming' exactly, but it wasn't life-denying either. It wasn't the sound of a dead end, just heavy times, heavy weather. We go on, finding the light in amongst the gloom.

01. Estelle Feat. Kanye West - American Boy

It’s Estelle, who had a hit with 1980 a few years back. I saw her at the time play at a radio roadshow concert thing in Stockholm and she bombed so so bad. Thought that would be the last I saw of her, guess I was wrong.
Kanye West's been hyped to fuckery all year, but he got sonned by Hammersmith's Estelle who slipped him some dodgy English references (Ribena??) to put into his rhymes and stole the show from under him.

The official video keeps having the embed function disabled by the stupid bastrds at the record company. So we'll have to make do with over-long live versions.

"just the number one champion sound"

Initiating Radio Silence

2009-01-22T17:31:00.004Z

DavidM fans will be pleased to know that I've started work on a new piece of writing.
It's a radio play about silence. It's very minimalist; there's very little in the way of dialogue, very little in the way of anything much. Okay, it's sounds like a counter-intuitive idea to have a radio play without much talking, but I've got a quite cute idea for it, and I'm hoping to make it work. Somehow.
It does have a plot, of sorts. Actually, the plot is an interesting one. I'm not wholly satisfied with the ending I've got though. That needs work.

Writing it is proving difficult. I want the dialogue to be very spare, but it just builds up and up as I write it. It isn't quite forming on the page quite the way I sense it in my head. I'm wondering what I've taken on.

Ideas. I think this stuff up, mainly, on my half hour walk to work early each morning. It's dark and quiet as I make my way through the housing estate to where I work, on the edge of town. There's little in the way of traffic, and hardly anybody about, save for the odd cluster of gangling Polish workers - forlorn figures in camo trousers and hoodies, trudging their way to the cake factory up on the hill there.

But this is when I get my best - and worst - ideas, and zingiest dialogue. Throughout the day I cogitate on the latest idea. Chew over the plot strands and beats and all the structure stuff, trying to get my ideas to flow. On the way back home though, clouds of doubt gather, but the best ideas stick. Then, at home, I have to try and write what I've been mulling over, and the whole thing changes shape once more. I'm tired and fed up and usually bored and disenchanted with everything on the screen. So, I'll guess I'll just write a blog about it and wait 'till tomorrow.

I've had another brilliant idea, btw. I don't know what form it's going to take yet. It's not a radio. It might be a film. Probably best as a TV serial. Unfortunately, it's horror. Fortunately it's a potentially funny and interesting premise. It also has a fucking amazing title. I mean... this is one good, good title.
It was the title that came first, actually, and the idea just threw itself out from it. "It practically writes itself!". I kinda want to push it onto the back burner for a while, because it could overtake my 'radio silence' idea (maybe it should?). But there's still a lot of brainstorming to do on it. I'm wondering if it would work best as a comedy-drama (horror), but the thoughts I'm having about it are quite broad, comedically.
I'm a little bit excited by it though. It'll be quite fun to write, I think. And what a title!

______________________________

TV News

Hands down best drama of the year so far - and not without decent competition from Unforgiven and Hunter - The Diary of Anne Frank is being repeated, in compilation form, on BBC2 this Saturday, presumably to tie in with Holocaust Memorial Day on Tuesday.

I didn't mention before how good Lesley Sharpe is in this. I don't remember Petronella van Daan being quite as monstrous in the diary, though the dialogue is word for word what Anne transcribed herself, iirc. One of the best scenes in the entire serial was where Mrs van Daan, having had enough of Anne's precociousness, turns on her with the speech about Anne not being brought up "properly", and being a 14 y/o jaded know-it-all: "You already know all there is to know in theory. But in practice? That's another story!". In the diary its another one of her windy harangues, when Sharpe delivered the lines though, it was close to vicious. But still she keeps the character the right side of grotesquery, and is even, in the end, sympathetic.

Also on this weekend is Being Human, which I seem to mention in every other blog so far this year, for some reason. Anyway, it finally gets going this Sunday night on BBC3.

New Procrastination-B-Gone tool

2009-01-18T13:19:00.004Z

Write or Die is an interesting little website. It hosts an application that allows you to write in a text box, with consequences if you pause for long enough. It's like the movie Speed but for writers - if you stop typing, the bus will explode. In a manner of speaking.
There are three settings you can write to:

Gentle Mode: A certain amount of time after you stop writing, a box will pop up, gently reminding you to continue writing.
Normal Mode: If you persistently avoid writing, you will be played a most unpleasant sound. The sound will stop if and only if you continue to write.
Kamikaze Mode: Keep Writing or Your Work Will Unwrite Itself

It may be a gimmick, but could also be useful for those sluggish days where you spend most of your time gazing blankly out of the window sucking on a pen top, or just sit there feebly wondering what to write. It gets writing done. If it's rubbish, worry about it later.
My problem is that I write a bit, then I uhm and arr for a while over what I've just written, and I try and edit and refine as I go. Except, with this method, I don't get very far. I inch along like an arthritic slug. This Write or Die device also has a word count target, and will cut out that kind of faffing about.

"This text box is not a word processor, it is not for editing, the way to save is to select all of the text, copy and paste into your own text editor. The idea is to separate the writing process and the editing process as much as possible.
This is aimed at anyone who wants to get writing done. It requires only that you recognize your own tendency towards self-sabotage and be willing to do something about it. If you're sick of saccharine writing advice that no one could honestly follow and you want a real method to getting work done."

Neat, huh? Like I say, it's a fun gimmick, but it could be a real pep tonic and will shoo away any 'writer's block' nonsense. No more excuses!

Saturday and Sunday

2009-01-12T16:52:00.009Z

I'm full of flu at the moment. It's really laid me low, it's easily the worst I've had since... I don't know when. I don't normally get bad colds, just one bout of the sniffles per year and that's me lot. But this... yeesh.

btw I don't get "man-flu" either. Why do women love this phrase? It refers to a phenomena that doesn't exist: in my experience men aren't the malingerers.

This was the weekend I decided I would get back on the horse and try and get some writing going. Fat chance. From Friday night 'till now its been dizzy heads, internal shivering, and total body tiredness. Everything past my lips had been lemon flavoured.

So, Saturday and Sunday were spent on the settee under a duvet, dozing on and off throughout Total Wipeout, TV Burp and Demons.

(Total Wipeout is a right laugh. A Takeshi's Castle knockoff whereby women who would describe themselves as 'bubbly' and 'up for a laugh, wooooo!', and men who think they are kind of a big deal down their local Lloyds on a Friday night, are hurled in glorious slo-mo into mudpits. And there are always a couple of "extreme sports" loving, strapping Aryan poshoes and general fitness freaks who are there to earnestly battle their way to the end of this absurd obstacle course, to give the whole thing some sort of point).

Anyway, I was going to start figuring/writing out the story for my next magnum opus. I didn't have the energy in the end, but my brain was in scripto gear as I was giving Demons another draft over in my head as I was watching it. Actually, this is something I occasionally find myself doing: re-writing lines of dialogue on TV dramas. I suppose, conceitedly, I like to think I'm improving the lines, just twisting them so they work better, or what have you.
The only line from Demons I can remember changing was during a bit where Luke is on his mobile to someone who is asking for directions to somewhere. Our intrepid - if not very charismatic - hero has no time to explain: he's jumping into his car on his way to defeat some CGI thing that's about to pop up for the final anti-climactic few minutes.

The dialogue goes something like:

Person on phone: "Blahblah, but how will I find my way there?"

Luke: "Use the satnav!"

Luke clicks phone off, gets in car, drives away.

My 100% new and improved version:
Person on phone: "Blahblah, but how will I find my way there?"
Luke: "Satnav!"
Luke clicks phone off, gets in car, drives away.

I think you can see right there how I've turned something mundane into a lump of golden ice.
Well, my reasoning was, was that Luke has to quickly be on the move, he's gotta go go go go go. No time for flannel. So, he just barks "Satnav", off goes the phone, revs up the car, pouts a bit, he's gone. Bang.
The "Use the... " bit maybe seemed a tiny-weeny bit extraneous and tension slowing. We're peddling hard towards the endgame at this point, it's got to be as lean as can be.
Though my version could come across as a little too curt, too cocky. The character is a nicer nice guy. Too nice, imo, he needs some spicier lines - hell, they all do.

Not that it matters, that's just a small example. It's just something to do to get the brain cogs a-turning once more.

On Sunday, just to cheer myself up, I watched the BBC's new adaptation of The Diary of Anne Frank. I watched one, just to check it out, ended up watching all five episodes that are stacked up on the iPlayer, followed by the Anne Frank Remembered documentary.
If you haven't already watched this series then do so. I'm not asking you, I'm telling you. Made in conjunction with the Anne Frank-Fronds charitable organisation, it boasts being the first dramatisation that has been given permission to use the words in the actual diary/ies. It may be the most authentic version yet, but it is also the best.

Screenwriter Deborah Moggach does an incredible job in condensing it into five 30-minute episodes. It keeps the all the humour and vivacity of the writing, as well as the quiet, but ever rising, hum of terror.
Spot-on casting too, but it wouldn't mean a damn if it wasn't for an unbelievable Ellie Kendrick, perfect as the mercurial, stroppy, and wise beyond her years Anne. From a couple of bit parts here and there to this... ??

I swear, if she isn't BAFTA'd up sometime soon, I'm outta here...

I'm only human....

2009-01-09T21:40:00.008Z

Of flesh and blood I'm made.

In my nail-biting, random-Googler ensnaring, list of favourite 2008 TV dramas in my previous post, I may have come across a bit sniffy and Doubting Thomasy regarding the upcoming full series of BBC3's Being Human.

Hey, I may be proved right and they will have spoiled a potentially good show. But since writing about it I've begun to get a bit curious as to how the series will shape up.

A tantalising trailer has turned up on YouTube, as has some interesting teaser prologue things. And, yeah, I'm liking the look of it, tbh. It doesn't show us much (which would be too much), but check it out - the cast look good together and it seems like they've done a classy enough job on the look of the thing:

Have they toned down the darkness, though? Has it gone all stereotypical BBC3y? Not by the evidence of this promo teaser for the ghost character of Annie (formerly Andrea Riseborough, now played by Sugar Rush 'star' Lenora Crichlow). Spookiness abounds:

Here's Russell Tovey, who has something highly watchable about him, and was excellent as the werewolf in the pilot... er, what was I saying? Oh yeah, he's talking about his character:

More Being Human: the series YouTubery here, and someone has uploaded the pilot (in the usual 10min chunks) here. No date for transmission yet.

If you had to colour me, then colour me psyched. Shoot, let's go into this sorry year with some optimism, shall we?

My Top Ten TV of 2008

2009-01-07T21:10:00.010Z

Because I must be semi-autistic or something, I've now come up with a list of my top ten fave TV programmes of last year. It's a list solely comprised of fictional drama, there aren't any sitcoms in here, for obvious reasons - there really weren't many that were much cop. Gavin & Stacey, Outnumbered and Lead Balloon all deserve a mention, but not enough of a one to merit a place in my list.

It's difficult to remember even all of the notable TV dramas over the past 12 months, but these were the obvious stand-outs for me. I may point out others I remember en passant. Here goes nothing...

10. The Children

Three part child murder whodunit drama, co-starring misery-magnet, Lesley Sharpe. Sadface sadface sadface. Superior ITV audience button-pushing, from a taut script by Lucy Gannon (of Soldier Soldier fame), that only came unstuck in the final episode where the reveal of the killer was muddled and the whys and wherefores were left unexplained. The build up, and the tug-of-war between the dysfunctional adults in their broken families, however, was well done. Also nice to see Kevin Whatley getting his fuck on. Okay, not that nice.

09. Mutual Friends

I remember this comedy-drama being fairly disliked at the time, but searching back through the reviews and viewer reaction in forums, the reception was luke-warm to moderately good. It's fair to say, though, it didn't capture the audience's imagination the way Cold Feet - the com-dram this was most likened to - had. The problem being the characters were all pretty much unlikeable; selfish, self-centred and whiny. It also starred poor Keeley Hawes, who no-one seems to like in anything, though she was much better here than in the disappointing Ashes to Ashes. Not matter, I kinda dug it. It was surprisingly dark, with the series unfolding following the suicide of a - oh yes - mutual friend, and, naturally, hilarity ensued. It was a rom-com where romance was dead and the comedy was bitter and twisted. Which is partly why it stood out for me. I don't think I ever saw the final episode, thinking about it.

08. The Things I Haven't Told You

Back at the start of the year BBC3 showed a 'season' of six one-hour pilot episodes, with the potential for one to be commissioned into a series. Which of the six would get the commission wasn't put to the public to decide, that decision was left, presumably, to controller Danny Cohen and various BBC3 bods. Except it didn't quite turn out that way.

Danny Cohen (lampooned on the website Secret Blog of a TV Controller (aged 33 and 3/4) ) would probably like BBC3 to be known for Casanova, The Mighty Boosh and Little Britain, as opposed to notorious DOES-THIS-SHOCK-YOU? fare as Sex... With Mum and Dad, Fuck Off I'm Fat and a seemingly endless torrent of the worst 'edgy young-person's comedy' sketch shows mankind will ever witness.
Here, then, was the rare chance to introduce new and upcoming writers and get some good one-off drama onto the channel. They then had to go and spoil it all by immediately giving the commission to Phoo Action: an unbearably zAnY, cartoonish "action-dramady" inspired by animae cartoons and 1970's nostalgia fave, Monkey. Now, if you've read my films of the year post, you'll know will know that I'm someone who thinks Speed Racer was somehow one of the best films of the year, and even I thought Phoo Action was some hipster douchebag wank of a programme.

Recently, however, the plug has been pulled on Phoo Action, citing budget costs, though the cancellation reportedly cost the BBC £500,000. In its place - thanks, largely, to the usual Facebook petition - is the 'horror-dramadey' Being Human, about a house-sharing group of young people who happen to be a vampire, a werewolf and a ghost.
It was okay, in a 'let's do a sitcommy British answer to Buffy, ten years too late' kind of way. I had a vaguely similar idea for my unreadably cack Red Planet application. Fortunately, due to me not being one of Danny Stack's online friends, it was never going to get shortlisted, so I didn't have to worry about it.

Fans of Being Human have a caution: of the rising stars that appeared in the pilot, only - perhaps surprisingly - the always good value will return. The series will now comprise of a BBC3-friendly multi-culti cast, and will be "less gothicy" and more fun. Sounds like they may have killed it in it's cot, but who knows. We'll see.

Most of the other dramas broadcast were fairly forgettable. One was Mrs Inbetweeny, an excruciating trans-op/Mrs Doubtfire type comedy by one of the writers being mentored by Paul Abbott, another was a standard Noel Clarke penned LDN fing, but the best by far was The Things I Haven't Told You.

Written by 26 year old Irish playwright, Lisa McGee, Things... was black-humoured, twisty-turny thriller set in a High School where everyone, it seemed, hid a dark secret. Typically for the work of a burgeoning writing talent, it was a little overstuffed with stuff; overly ambitious, convoluted, and tangled-in-knots, but it was also intelligent, intriguing and the sharply written dialogue just sang. It clearly owed a large debt to US High School classics like Heathers, My So-Called Life, and Brick. Even a touch of Twin Peaks in there somewhere.
The superb camera work, music and editing all added to the deliberately fractured narrative structure making the drama boldly stand out from the pack, but it's ambiguity and inability to treat the audience like thicky durr-durrs was a bridge too far for Danny Cohen and BBC3, so we won't be seeing a series of it any time soon.

Still, McGee is a name to watch, and, Paul Abbott - your boy got sonned. lol.

07. Tess of the D'Urbervilles

One of the few costume dramas not adapted by Andrew Davies, which made a nice change. The "lavish" take on Thomas Hardy's penultimate, second-greatest novel was instead written by Starter For Ten and Cold Feet scribe, , who is currently working on another Hardy, Far From the Madding Crowd. I'm down with that, as his Tess was some top notch bonnets and corsets shit.

Hardy is a bugger to adapt. His novels are about landscape and heartache, and not twittering idiot Austen women, which makes it difficult to capture, and doesn't go down well with the Sunday night bored housewife crowd.
Tess took liberties, watered down the misery, but got the mood generally right. Biggest bones of contention on the Hardy forums were the already ambiguous rape/seduction scene - which was filmed complete with billowing Hammer Horror dry ice, which I rather liked - and Hans Matherson's portrayal of the dastardly Alec - which I had issues with, but women fancied him anyway.

It was a nice bonus for the serial to get this year's Bond girl, , in as the heroine, and she was suitably luminous and spirited as Tess. It may be the best interpretation of the role, actually. Pushing out Nastassja Kinski.
I gotta give props, however, to the excellent handling of the final Stone Henge set piece; mistily atmospheric and sad, as it should be.

06. Doctor Who

I suppose what is generally regarded as the biggest surprise about the fourth, madly uneven series of nuWho, was just how good Catherine Tate was as a companion. In her previous appearance in The Christmas Bride, she was one of Russell T Davies' hysteric female creations. In the end she turned out to be a good foil for Tennant's erratic Doctor, often acting as his moral compass, and Tate showed some decent acting chops in doing so. I never thought I would be writing this, but Catherine Tate was consistently the best thing about series four, along with Bernard Cribbins, who played her dreamy-eyed grandfather.
The stories were the usual grab-bag of overwrought, overly weepy melodramas, knockabout capers and the occasional strikingly impressive, daring piece of Saturday night entertainment.
This season stood out for not having any real out and out stinkers (though the rather weak-plotted and cringe-makingly unfunny Fires of Pompeii and Unicorn and the Wasp came close), but there was a whole lot of mediocre or messed-up stuff: The Doctor's Daughter was daft, though I was endeared to the the low budget old school Who monsters; The Planet of the Ood was drippy nonsense in the end, only saved by a brilliant scene involving a man falling into a giant brain. And the Davros finale was a typical RTD end to [his final full] series: at times gobsmaking, but in the end veering towards overblown, noisy and wearing.
Aside from great, if not quite stone-cold classic, two-parter, and Helen Raynor's highly enjoyable Sontaran runaround (though even that wasn't near as good as Raynor's other work last year: the Sapphire & Steel-homage stand-out episode in the improved second series of Torchwood, for which she has my lasting respect), it was RTD who managed to write the series' highlights.
Partners in Crime was the only fully successful 'comedy' episode, other than the superb Love & Monsters; Turn Left may not have been quite as good as the fanboys made out, but had an intriguing premise; and Midnight was a successful experiment in slowly building tension, paranoia and frayed emotions. Horror, especially psychological horror, and fear of the unknown/each other, is greatly missing from today's children's television. Midnight showed how it can be done.

This series showed both RTD and Tennant at their best and worst, but I'm glad both are stepping down. There was a sense of over familiarity with a lot of this series, and the show feels in need of a revamp. It is time for a change ~~my dear, and it seems not a moment too soon~~.

05. Apparitions

Bored with the usual roles of tecs, cops, judges and so forth he was being offered, Martin Shaw made it known he would like to play an priest who performs exorcism. Enter writer/director Joe Ahearne and, God's your uncle, one Doyle vs Satan series.
But after the failure of the bizarre Bonekickers - which also flirted with religious mythology - things didn't bode well for Apparitions. Despite the outrageous premise, however, it turned out to be surprisingly entertaining and intelligent.
It played to it's strengths and played up the spookiness inherent in all this religious guff. The Omen, The Exorcist, even for a godless sinner like me, these stories carry with them a strange freight. Part of what made it so good though is that it was like nothing else on television. It looked, felt, different. More than that, it seemed daring for some reason.

At times it was Bible-black dark. It wasn't afraid to get it's hands bloody either. It brought the gore, for sure. The abortion episode in particular felt like it was mainlining some Cronenbergian body-horror psychodrama. I lost my shit during that one. There was some deeply weird stuff going on in this.

Sure, it was silly. Utterly daft. As bonkers in the nut as I always expected it to be, and more. But it was sincere and unironic and it told some good stories and so I bought it. Simple as.

It didn't exactly set the ratings alight, however, which may put a dampener on any expectation that it will return for a second series. But checkin' the forums, the reaction to it was actually quite positive. The only dissenting voices coming from - whaddayaknow - devout, fundamentalist atheists who called it "religious propaganda". It also drew flak from armchair-expert Catholics who were either content to nitpick it to death, and/or were pretending to be all outraged by what they saw as another example of BBC anti-religious bias(!). Ho, and, if you will, hum.

04. Wallander

First of all - best opening titles (UK) of the year. Cool, clear, simple, effective, stand-out-y. Thankfully the programme attached to them managed to live up to their quiet, enigmatic promise.
Secondly, Wallander also had the best opening scene of the year: a seemingly edgeless field of vivid yellow rapeseed sways in the breeze of a Swedish midsummer. In the middle of it a teenage girl self-immolates before police inspector Wallander can reach her. Flames shoot up into the wide, pale sky.

On the face of it, Kurt Wallander is not much different from other sour sleuths that have shuffled morosely across our screens; from Morse to Rebus, Tennison to Fitz. Wallander's home life is a mess: he's a deadbeat Dad with a broken marriage behind him. Work and drink keep the loneliness temporarily at bay.
Yup, another messed up 'tec who can ingeniously solve improbable murders, yet is easily defeated by personal demons. Is there any more room for such a character? Needs something else, something more.

Sweden is the gimmick here. Specifically the broad, open, blank beauty of Skåne county and the clearly crime-ridden metropolis that is the sleepy fishing port of Ystad.
Filmed on some new-fangled Red One digital camera, which has a cinematic 35mm resolution, this three part series was able to make Sweden a character itself. The Scandinavian light, the picturesque countryside in the hum of summer, the rugged shoreline; all were captured perfectly. Whilst the stylish interiors were forever moodily masked in a typically Nordic gloom.

Whilst it looked immaculate, the first story, Sidetracked, didn't exactly tax the viewer in how it would play out. Who could be the serial killer? What is TV's Nicholas Hoult doing in a relatively minor role? Can the two things be in some way connected? No shit, Sherlock.
Heigh-ho. It didn't seem to matter for those of us enjoying the leisurely pace, the striking landscape and the impeccable acting. Kenneth Branaaargh, who can me a bit muggy and smuggy but here was A-gaming it, particularly impressed as the low-key gumshoe; all stubble and mumbles.
The only thing that niggled slightly was how the all-English speaking cast occasionally jarred somewhat amid the Scandinavian half-timbered buildings, especially when they would mispronounce town names and such like.

If the first story didn't amaze, the remaining two made up for it, especially the staggering final ep, One Step Behind, which came like a gut punch. A powerful end to a stylish, absorbing, if too, too short series.
A second series was planned to be filmed this year. However, Branaaaargh has decided to go the US to make a super-hero movie instead. I suppose it's sort of fitting that it is about a character based on Norse mythology: The Mighty Thor.

03. Criminal Justice

Being a former barrister himself, the writer Peter Moffat was able to inject some authenticity into his crime/courtroom/prison drama. Fine. But the real reason why Criminal Justice worked so well, though, was that it was simply a good story, expertly told and finely acted. It sounded standard issue stuff, but watching it made you realise just how rare it is to find a cracking great miniseries on the box these days.

Starting at the end of June and running over five consecutive nights, Criminal Justice made for instant addictive television for those not foolish enough to go on holiday. I get the sense that, as it hidden away in the traditional TV slump of summer, it never quite got the audience it deserved. But those of us that were hooked witnessed a production where everyone was at the top of their game, especially the actors.
Who was you're favourite? Ben "Pingu from Nathan Barley" Whishaw as the poor, mop-haired indie-spod being pulled through the justice system for a murder he can't remember committing? Or was it uniball Pete "maybe he was Keyser Soze all along, and not Kevin Spacey. Ever think about that? Hmm?" Postlethwaite, quietly devastating as ever as the old lag in prison who takes Ben under his wing. Or, if you were me - and, who knows, you might be - it was stage actor Con O'Neil as the shambling, wheezing, itchy mess of a solicitor. Unorthodox but straight-talking and pragmatic, and just who you'd want covering your back if you were in the shit.

02. The Devil's Whore

The chill skies over England rumble, grey and ominous. Dead leaves are picked up and sluiced about in sudden winds. Leaden clouds hang heavy over the dark hills. It is the mid 1600s, and the country is at war with itself. The world turned upside down.

The only giveaway this complex and impressive series was filmed in sunny South Africa was the orangey dust that flew up in dusty billows as the horses hooves raced over the not-quite-green-enough fields. Other than that, the damp, dank, wild and windy exteriors looked as seventeenth century English as beer and roses, as Puritans and Cavaliers, as subjects and Sovereigns.

To make a 12 part drama about the English Civil War would be a huge undertaking, and one that would need to compress a lot of history into a relatively short amount of airtime. That though, with his serial, The Devil's Whore, is just what writer Peter Flannery attempted to do ... in 1997. After the BBC, and then everyone else, turned it down (well done all round, there), Flannery then went about compressing it even more, jettisoning major players and events, simplifying, refining, re-designing, until it was down to a mere four episodes. Only then, ten years later and on the understanding it could be made relatively cheaply (£7 mill) by filming in SA, was he able to get his pet project finally made. Rare kudos goes to Channel 4 here. BBC - what the fuck??

Historical niggles be damned, it was all worth it. This was remarkable; a sweeping yet nuanced and intimate tackling of a subject that has been overlooked for years by TV and filmmakers. No bog standard costume-drama this, though it did invent a female character - Angelica Fanshawe - to do some bodice-ripping in order to sex-up the story, and to give viewers an in on the movers and shakers of the time, as we followed her on her turbulent journey between the enemy lines.
It was inventions like this that drew criticism from historians, but, for Flannery, this was no dry exercise in lecturing history, he knows that the best way to get ideas and information across is in the broader brush strokes of story-telling. I'd say he got the balance right, too. This wasn't the The Tudors this was proper grown-up, wrap-up-warm television. It didn't spoon feed you, it didn't lead you by the hand through an ABC guide to the Civil War; it required you to keep up! For that, though it was easy to get lost amid all the shenanigi, it was all the richer.

So much to say on this really. From the painterly look of both the huge landscape of an unspoiled England, and the black interiors from which pale and interesting faces emerge, to the spectral visions of the dead souls floating up from a battlefield, and the visitations by the Devil himself. It was stunning to behold.
It's true success perhaps boils down to the performances again. Peter Capaldi as Charles I, Dominic West as Cromwell, Michael Fassbender as Rainsborough, John Simm as Sexby, Tom Goodman-Hill as Lilburne... I can't put a fag paper between them, all excellent. And then, as Fanshawe, was Andrea Riseborough, without doubt the face of the year. A ghostly Annie in Being Human, a mesmerising Margaret Thatcher in A Long Walk to Finchley, and here, keeping her head while all about her...

Stormingly brilliant drama. Imagine how good it would have been as a 12-parter?

01. Mad Men

I sort of knew, maybe even hoped, it would happen. Everyone seems to be hooked on one sprawling, US import drama series or another. Try and shut them up about The Sopranos, or The Wire, or Lost, or The West Wing, or 24, or Ugly Betty, or (etc etc etc). You can't. To them it is absolutely, positively, without a doubtly, The Best Thing Ever... Ever!

"Have you seen it? You must! Season four wasn't that amazing, but season five it got right back again, and then season six... wow! I just spent all weekend watching the entire DVD box set. Oh God, so brilliant. Have you seen it? Brilliant, isn't it? Isn't it The Best Thing Ever? Isn't it? Isn't it... ?"

Yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah. Yes, alright. Yes. It's brilliant, it's really good. It's great, it's just...
I dunno. The Sopranos? Not really into mafia stuff. Lost? Yup, it """"lost""""" me - GEDDIT???? - somewhere in season 2. West Wing? Meh. 24? What, Keefer Sutherland? lololol. Ugly Betty? Hey, have you noticed, right, in real life she's not ac-tu-ally 'ugly' at all? It's just, like, her wig and braces and things? True story.

I mean, I really like The Wire. A lot. It's incredible. I agree with every frothing, burbling, wibbling, gushing word that has been said about it by critics and square-eyed enthusiasts alike. I admire it enormously, it's just that I don't... I don't love it. I don't l-o-v-e it. Luv luv luv luuurve it. I don't. Not really. Not in that way. Not in the way everyone else seems to. "The best programme ever"? Maybe. Maybe it is, on some technical level. But it wasn't mine. it wasn't me.
I didn't have a series that was me. Really me.

Well... you know what's coming next, you've seen me say Mad Men was my favourite programme of 2008.
In fact, it's the only US drama in my list. This is down to the usual time lag, me not having sky+ (yet to see Generation Kill, and I've seen only the pilot episode of Fringe, for eg), me working my way slowly but surely through the box sets, sent one DVD at a time via Lovefilm (currently somewhere in the middle of season 4 of The Wire, and at a similar midpoint in Battlestar Galactica), or just me not being overly impressed (Heroes, Sarah Chronic Conicles lol).

I'm kinda skirting the issue here, avoiding talking about Mad Men. I don't know what to say, really. You know what it's about: a Mad-ison Ave. ad agency in 1961. Hats, pencil skirts, Martini breakfasts, and the thirtieth Lucky Strike cigarette of the day. Ah yes, the smoking, lol the smoking and the drinking and the sexism and all that stuff.
Where the series drew critisism was in the way it appeared to subtextually take a lofty, sneery and self-congratulatory look down at its nose at these naive twits who aren't anywhere near as enlightened as we are about the evils of everything from drinking and driving to butter. I can see what they're getting at. There were times where we, the sophisticated 21st Century audience, were invited to laugh or shake our heads in wonder at the era's attitudes and social mores.
On the other hand, give me a break. Seriously - why the po face? Have you seen how cool this all is? And funny and heat-breaking and exhilarating and human? These people are as flawed and foolish as we all are. They just look cooler being so, which gives them the edge. And by a huge margin, imo.
The characters in Mad Men are products of their cultural norms, just as we are, it would be dishonest to pretend that they weren't. I read one blog that tried to take the show to task for not having any strong black characters, he was all "hey, you notice how none of the ad men are black? In fact I only saw one black person in the show - and he was playing a cleaner! Racist or what?" I was like, dude, I think you're missing the point here. Hey, notice how all the men sexistly assume that women are only good for being secretaries, housewives and easy lays? And they act all shocked when Peggy has a good idea for an ad! I mean, what are the programme makers playing at??

Yeah well.

Phenomenally good writing here as well. Even the flashbacks filling out the backstories refused to be the usual pointless padding. On the contrary, the scenes showing Don Draper's childhood during the depression, and the bit where it showed just how he got his adopted persona, were some of the more memorable moments in the first series.

Season two aired in the States last year. NO SPOILERS, I've only seen the first season. I've avoided the forums and any discussion on the follow-up season, which is slightly unusual for me. I'm not all that prescious about spoilers as a rule. I sometimes go on a snoop in the Doctor Who, or whatever, forums and such, picking up on the goss about future episodes and series. Not here. I want to know nothing. I want to go in blind, I want to experience it fresh. I don't want it spoilered and spoiled. That's how much it means to me. Good show.

Oh yeah, and best opening titles (US) of the year as well.

Doctor Who Jr

2009-01-04T13:59:00.011Z

So it's a foppish, posh-school prefect they've cast as the 11th Doctor.

He's like a young Bill Nighy, with a bit too much going on with his face and hair and stuff, and if they'd given it another ten years or so, he'd be perfect.

Still, Matt Smith is much better choice than all the other candidates that have been banded about in the recent months, Chiwetel Ejiofor excepted. Also his casting wrong-footed many people, as it was assumed that Paterson Joseph was 'already cast'. Clearly the Joseph rumour was some BBC viral marketing for Survivors.

Still, a rare thing in this day and age, the Beeb successfully managed to keep the casting of Smith a secret, though if you were keeping tabs on who the bookies' favourites were, the game was given away 24 hours before the announcement when the odds on Smith suddenly shortened and he overtook Joseph to became their fave.

Gotta give a shout out to Lawrence Miles who, aside from the usual grinding of axes and acting all butthurt about Steven Moffat for one reason or another, has a typically insightful and lolicious take on the news. His new blog (another? Sheesh, not exactly countering his aspie shut-in image), Randomness Times also looks v good.
Obviously tl;dr but from what I've scanned it's an interesting idea: a spoof Radio Times listings page which allows for some truth bombs to be unloaded on today's television. It's also, more or less, the same idea that Charlie Brooker had several years ago with TV Go-Home. As it happens Miles has a pop at Brooker on the blog, rightfully skewering him for Dead Set, but basically tries to lay the old 'critics = eunuchs in a harem' meme on him. Bit lame. Yeah sure, Brooker tried and failed to turn groundskeeper with Dead Set (though I quite liked the Nathan Barley programme he did with Chris Morris, though that was less warmly received), but, as critics go, I've generally got his back on most things.
And, let's face it, Brooker's attempt to see if he could do better than those he rips into was way more successful than Book of the World, the unworkable Doctor Who script that Miles posted online last year.

Ah well. So, anyway. He may have a face like an emo Easter Island statue, but here's looking forward to seeing Matt Smith as the Doctor, anyway.

VICTORY!

2009-01-04T13:14:00.004Z

In a popular recent poll on this page, readers of this blog (a whopping average of 15 per day) were asked to choose which supernatural baddie they were the most sick of seeing: vampires, zombies or both. Those with short memories may have just taken it as a kind of Twilight vs Dead Set - which is the most shit, poll. Which would have been fair enough.
Anyway, here are the results:

Now that is what I call a landslide. Not just that, but a victory for common sense. Though, if I ran that poll today and added the option of 'Whatever the monsters in ITV1's Demons are supposed to be', then I feel the new kid on the block would have taken it. But whatevs, you know.

(btw what the effing eff is going on with Blogger re: publishing an old, unfinished draft of my TV of the year list, and deleting the finished version. No idea what happened there, but I'm going to have to write about
¼ of it again and put it up at a later date. Sorry if the messy, half written blog made you all o_O )

Where's Wall-E? (My Films of 2008)

2008-12-27T13:37:00.001Z

Well, exactly, that's what I want to know - where is Wall-E? Not on this list, I can tell you. You've got Lovefilm to blame for that, not me. It's been on my high priority list since its release, instead they keep sending me something from my medium priority list.

^See? Don't know if you can make that out, but In Bruges and Kung-Fu Panda are on there as well. So that's a couple more you can forget about seeing in my Top Ten of the year. Sorry if that's ruined your Christmas. If it has take it up with those mothers at Lovefilm. And ask them why it's currently taking two days to process my order each time while you're at it. The slags.
So...

TOP TEN FILMS OF 2008

Shall we get to it then?

Here it is, the only movies of '08 list you'll see that won't feature Wall-E - and anything else I haven't yet caught. Unless I thought it was bobbins. This list is going by general release dates in the UK. Because that's where I live. If you think about it, it kinda makes sense.
So...

In reverse order, because the slowly escalating tension and fevered anticipation as to what has made this year's coveted #3 slot is all important.
So...

10. Hellboy II: The Golden Army

The problem with cinema today is the glut of lazy, cynical sequels and pre-packed comic-book franchises. No imagination, no risk, no depth, just throw them together and the bovine populace will herd themselves into the cinemas. Ker - if you will - ching.

The Golden Army, the follow-up to the 2004 comic-book adaptation - what a film! Roly-poly Mexican writer/director, Guillermo del Toro, applies his signature mix of dark fairy-tales and mordant humour, with splashes of steampunk and sentimentality. He's basically making the kind of rich, funny, visually arresting films we would've expected Tim Burton to be making by now, as opposed to the weak-ass old tut he's come out with the past decade. And how much of a good fortune was it for del Toro to find someone with a massive enough face to play the titular hero? And Ron Pearlman is perfect.

________________________________________

09. Iron Man

If it wasn't movies based on bloody comic -books (oh, I do beg your pardon, I mean graphic novels. Hush my mouth), then it was movies based on 1971 Black Sabbath songs, like this action movie which played a bit fast and loose with the story contained in Ozzy's lyrics.
(Well, according to whoever it was who has written the track's wiki page, the Sab's song was based on the superhero character. No mention of Ted Hughs' novel, The Iron Man, anywhere. I'm guessing metal fans aren't big readers.)

The success of Iron Man the movie, what elevated it above the pack, can be summed up in two words: Robert Downey Jr. Or is that three words? Studios realised that casting edgy/indie character actors in the role of the superhero, instead of big jawed lummoxes or the current industry darling, resulted in a more satisfying watch. This year we also had the scrawny Ed Norton playing the Incredible Hulk. I didn't see it. Who did? But it was an intriguing casting choice. And in Iron Man it was all about the dead-eyed deadpan from Downey. Sadly, it reverted to type at the end with the trad noisy showdown with the bad guy, which was markedly less interesting than what went before.

___________________________________

08. The King of Kong: a Fistful of Quarters

I'm kind of loathe to include documentaries in a movie list. I may have seen a few docos on telly that I preferred to KoK - that one about the boarding school boys boxing, for instance. Or that rather poignant, and life-affirming one with the singing pensioners. Whatevs. This deserves it's place as it was made memorable for the same reason others in this list are: namely an absurd, brilliant antagonist. Here it was Billy Mitchell, who had an immaculate mane and tidy beard, a day job running his own hot sauce company, and, of course, a wealth of record scores at old school cabinet video games under his belt. Painted as a preening, narcissistic irritant, whose somewhat niche achievements are fawned over by a coterie of cartoonishly cliched saddoe-innadoe video game bodricks, Mitchell was a gift for the filmmakers. Especially when they had a protag in the form of lovable loser Steve Wiebe. Classic David vs Goliath stuff ensues as wet Wiebe challenges the black-clad one for the crown of who can get the highest score - ever - at Donkey Kong. Incredibly, it's completely enthralling.

___________________________________

07. The Dark Knight

The only problem I had with it - aside from it getting draggy and heavy as it grinded it’s way towards it’s second hour, ie that whole thing introducing a second arch-nemesis, Two-Face, just got in the way - was the same problem many superhero movies suffer from. In comics, muscle-bound masked vigilantes work well on a visual level. In live action movies, however, they look instantly ridiculous. Having men dressed like that, and expect to be taken seriously, is plain ridiculous. It can sometimes sort of work. In Tim Burton’s fantastical Gotham, Batman makes a kind of sense. At least he fits in with the aesthetic. In Christopher Nolan’s none-more-gritty, ‘realistic’ approach, the arrival of “The Bat Man” onscreen just looks deeply, well, batty. And as for his Sgt Throat-Cancer growl, well…
Push all that aside though, and this was very nearly as stone cold classic as it was made out to be. And Heath Ledger’s ODing was a masterstroke for publicity and as a push to nab himself an Oscar.

___________________________________

06. There Will Be Blood

In common with other top flicks this year, this is all built around a central, brilliant performance which explored the darkest depths of the human psyche. Day-Lewis all but obliterates everyone else off the screen in this, so total is his presence. His role has been talked and talked about every bit as much as Ledger’s Joker, and all I can do is boringly concur, except to say that his misanthropic antihero unloads some truth bombs that had me - inwardly, natch - cheering.

___________________________________

05. The Orphanage

I guess I like my ghost stories told straight, with all the conventions present: old gothic pile; long, dark corridors; mysterious whispering, murmurs, footsteps; dead children. You know the drill. What The Orphanage added, thanks to incredible sound design, was that this time things went BANGBANGBANG in the night.

___________________________________

04. No Country For Old Men

Best villain of the year by miles. An unstoppable force - somewhat akin to Michael Myers in Halloween, and even the Terminator - with a you‘re-not-from-around-here indefinable accent, Javier Bardem’s softly spoken psycho tracks down his quarry with an improbable weapon and an even more improbable barnet. But then there’s our hero, who is a morally questionable arse himself, and also Tommy Lee Jones’ sheriff, arriving too late and helplessly surveying the slaughter with weary heart. Again, a bleak and black as you like examination of the hopelessness and futility of it all. Friendo.

___________________________________

03. [.REC]

There was only one ‘found-footage’ shaky-cam film to fuck with this year, and it wasn’t one about a Godzilla-esque, Twin Towers high, walking analogy of post 9/11 anxiety either (Though, fair enough, Cloverfield did manage to be quite effective for a good half-hour in the middle of it somewhere).
But this was Spain’s year. First of all, beating Germany to win Euro 2008, obviously. Then there was Javier Bardem stalking the desolate landscape of middle America. The Orphanage became the best ghost story movie possibly since Robert Wise’s The Haunting in 1960. Then there was [.REC]; the best no-budget, no-nonsense, shake-‘em-up & scare-‘em out there. So good the US couldn’t wait to ruin it by hastily throwing together an English language remake called Quarantine. The girl in it is nowhere near as supercute and smashable as [.REC]‘s Manuela Velasco, so it’s not even worth a cursory watch.
Olé.

____________________________________

02. Son of Rambow

A British film that doesn’t have you craving to see a vast CGI skyscraper exploding, sending a street full of cars flipping over each other in the resultant shockwave.
Even the ‘80s nostalgia doesn’t seem tired. Maybe because director Garth Jennings gets it right: the English comprehensive school life, the wasted summers, the utter alieness of the visiting French exchange students, the unreachably aloof cool of the goth/romo 6th formers. It’s sentimental about an ‘80s childhood in the best way; there’s no smugness here, no chuckleheaded ‘hey remember Rubick’s cubes? Remember Knight Rider? Remember Rick Astley’s Never Gonna Give You Up’? Remember mullets? Remember Roland Rat Superstar? What were we thinking, hey? Haha!’
Because that would’ve been wearing and obvious and just wrong. Even the fact that the story is about two boys making a short film based on First Blood in order to win BBC’s Screen Test competition, it never feels as if the filmmakers are nudging you in the ribs every five minutes, saying “lol ‘80s amirite?”.
It’s called Rambow on orders from Stallone, as he was also releasing his own new Rambo film this year, hoping to get in on that ‘80s nostalgia dollar and resurrect his career. Wasted his time, Son of Rambow features a cameo by Eric Sykes who plays Rambo himself, and does a much better job.
That’s right, Eric Sykes is Rambo.

____________________________________

01. Speed Racer

The $120 million mega-flop garnered a ton of catastrophic reviews, many of which echoed The New Yorker’s verdict, which damned the film as being "of no conceivable interest to anyone over the age of ten" before calling it “pop fascism”. Rotten Tomatoes ranked the film as "Rotten" scoring it 37%. Similarly, Metacritic calculated an overall critical score of 37/100.

Film of the year, then? Piss easy.

The critics didn’t get it, and the kids it was aimed at didn’t want to know either. Tough. Speed Racer is nothing more than an avant-garde masterpiece of bleeding edge technical wizardry that - whatever else - will be sending special effects boffins back to their drawing boards (didn’t like SR? Bet you’ll be cooing over the nth generation facsimile in the future though).
But what of the cheesy, none-more-cornball script? Loved it. Knowing and cleverly arch, it and the comic-strip-come-to-life careful framing of every scene echoed the playful pop art of the Adam West Batman series, and the droll kitsch of the 1980 Flash Gordon movie. It’s pitched precisely at that very particular level that stupid people tend to think of as being really, really stupid.
But it’s in the mad, dizzying, dazzling, kaleidoscopic action/race scenes where the film really revs up notch. A head-on collision of Wacky Races and the podrace from The Phantom Menace as imagined by the LSD brain-monged ghost of Ayrton Senna as he blasts an F1 car into the centre of a sun that’s going supernova.
Nothing could be as intense for so short a time as the anticipation of 374mph contact with a hyperreal racetrack, the fierce, artificial bursts of delirious colour, the ability to endure impossible torque. Keep up, will you.
Aside from all else, it was simply the best fun I had in the cinema all year. Watching a film, anyway. In 2008 Speed Racer left them all behind.

and the Worst Film of 2008:

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.

A betrayal of all that went before. Even the tiresome Temple of Doom wasn’t this cynical and dead-hearted.
So, after years of being told they were just waiting until the right, the very best, script came along, before Speilberg would even consider making the belated fourth film in the Indy trilogy, it turns out what was actually was going on was a power struggle, a kind of stand-off in which George Lucas wouldn’t budge until he got his Saucermen From Mars idea into the script, even though Spielberg and Ford weren’t interested. Obviously they capitulated with this compromised, messy mess.
Not the very worst film of the year. Not the actual worst, of course. But probably the most disappointing, and in so many ways: half-hearted action, no sense of jeopardy, scenes dragging under the weight of exposition attempting to explain the muddled plot, a silly plastic alien head as a McGuffin, an underdeveloped villain (psychic? really?), too many characters; not just a Poochie like side-kick for Indy, but Ray Winstone, John Hurt and, worst of all, Karen Allen returning as Marion from Raiders of the Lost Ark, only to have to stand around in the background with the others in order to give Shia LaBeouff the room to hog the limelight. Just boring, really. Really, really so-so. This won’t do, George and co. This won’t do at all.

Advent Calenders: rubbish?

2008-12-15T17:32:00.003Z

The days of racing down the stairs each December morning and opening a little flap on a piece of card to reveal a badly drawn picture of a sprig of holly are over, my friend. It no longer ratchets up the fevered anticipation towards The Big Day as it once did.
Plus there was always something religious about it. The whole thing builds up to a picture of the Nativity scene? Big effing wow.

But there's good news for all you bodricks out there: the New Humanist magazine are putting out a series of Advent podcasts where "special guests" talk about the scientists and philosophers they think should be celebrated as well as/instead of Jesus and all his mob, this winteryuletidemass.
Great if your one of those who goes "lol Stephen Fry/Dave Gorman/Alexi Sayle - total National Treasure lol!"

"Once upon a time, not so long ago... "

2008-12-12T18:47:00.001Z

Now I've got a few minutes, I can't let the week go without giving a little mention to the passing of Oliver Postgate earlier this week.

It's remarkable how we carry things with us from our childhood. How we still have an emotional investment to that which we enjoyed in our formative years. Even so, I was surprised how much the death of this 83 year old man affected me. Like many others I was beguiled by the little puppet and animation films he made in his cowshed studio, but more than that, it was his voice, his distinctive, softly rolling, reassuring tones, that strongly evoke a happier, younger time.

The toddlers of today may gawp entranced at the sophisticated, yet sickly twee likes of In The Night Garden, playing in pinsharp HD on a two-foot high plasma screen in front of them. But I'll take the wonky, homespun charm of Postgate's work over the modern, box-ticking, sterile CBBC stuff any day.

Everyone's going to say that about the things from their own particular childhood of course, but there is hardly anything around today that has the same sense of quiet magic, warmth, invention and enchantment that came from Postgate's and Peter Firmin's Smallfilms studio. Possibly only Wallace and Gromit, and Nick Park has admitted just what a massive influence Postgate has had on Aardman Animations. Basically, no Smallfilms = no Aardman.

I'll tell you what particularly captured my imagination was the - and am I alone in this? - slight sense of gentle haunting eeriness that seemed to hang like an ethereal mist over the likes of Bagpuss, Clangers, The Saga of Noggin the Nog, Ivor The Engine, and the lesser known works like Pingwings, and the strange and vaguely unsettling Tottie - the Story of a Doll's House. Something about them being about bygone otherworlds, imagined as comforting yet still surreal places. Maybe that's the ingredient that set it apart, and still does.

Smallfilms was said to be a hotbed of - genteel - radicalism. Postgate registered himself as a conshie during WWII, and took his own small part in left-wing campaigns of the 1960s - not with Molotov cocktails, just pamphlets, naturally.

But still, let's remind ourselves - as if they could ever be forgotten - of the evocative openings to just some of Oliver Postgate's classic children's programmes. To this day as eccentric and unique as they ever were. .

R.I.P.

Re: remakes.

2008-12-02T16:43:00.014Z

Take a few moments to think about the actor Martin Clunes.

No, really think. Think about what he means to you, about what he is, think about all of what he represents.

Picture him in your mind. Have you done that? Good. Go through all of his stock-in-trade expressions (roughly two. Three at a push).

Cast your mind over his body of work. All those persona's; he wore them like a cloak.

Think about the actor Martin Clunes. Think. Think.

Now, what is the one word that sums it all up? What word says to you 'Martin Clunes'?
One word. What is that word?

Have you got the word? You have? Of course you have, it's obvious isn't it?
Say that word with me, after three: one, two, three...

Zeitgeisty.

That's the one. Clunes is so zeitgeisty right now. But more of him later.
Do you know what else is zeitgeisty? Remakes of old TV programmes, that's what. They are zeitgeisty to the max!

This new trend could be said to have started with the hugely successful reinvention of Doctor Who. Then, as part of BBC Four's Science Fiction Britannia season a while back, we got new versions of The Quatermass Experiment, Random Quest, and A For Andromeda.

These were all one-offs though, but currently showing is the enjoyable - if plot/logic hole ridden - Survivors: A major 6-part "re-imagining" - as the Beeb are calling it - of the iconic 1975 Terry Nation TV series and novel.

It's going out in the important 9pm slot on BBC1, Tuesday nights. So it's something of a big deal. Like Doctor Who it's playing to audience's nostalgia, as well as hoping to tap into something a bit, well, zeitgeisty.

Also about to grind into production - presumably waiting on a positive outcome for Survivors viewing figures - is another post-apocalyptic, man-made-disaster series remake (or new adaptation, they might say), of John Wyndham's The Day of the Triffids.
So, more science gone mad, more marauding gangs roaming empty streets, people trying to eke out an existence in a collapsed society... just like Broken Britain of today then in other words haha!!! (<-in before the commenters on the Have Your Say forums).

Hopefully the new version, unlike the one made in 1981, won't feature someone looking like the man from The Joy of Sex books as the lead protagonist. But it's sure to be, as The Radio Times always has it, 'glossy', and edgy and all up in yr face zeitgeisty.

Right, okay, whatever, you're thinking. What was all that crap about Martin Clunes at the beginning?

Ah, well. So far so sci-fi. But it looks as if the zeit may be about to geist on a different genre: sitcoms.
Are you ready for classic sitcoms to be - what was it? - "re-imagined"?

You'd better get ready. The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin is coming back, re-styled, updated and now simply called Perrin.

Who do you think they've got to step into Leonard Rossitor's shoes then?
Bingo. Step forward Clunes. The obvious - the only - choice.

I mean, spot the difference:

(l-to-r: Clunes, Rossitor)

"We are actively looking at whether it could have a role again on the BBC," Jay Hunt, the BBC1 controllor, has said. "It is very zeitgeisty."

There! See? She said it!

"It is very zeitgeisty."
"It is very zeitgeisty."
"It is very zeitgeisty."
"It is very zeitgeisty."
"It is very zeitgeisty."
"It is very zeitgeisty."

I'm telling you, this could be the spark, the start of something fresh: re-heating your youth.
Like a desperate-with-boredom animal in a zoo, circling the enclosure, checking at the same empty food bowls, again and again. Round and around. Padding back and forth, back and forth.

New old is the new new.

Just for fun, let's recast more '70s sitcoms, so this time we can do them better. Clunes will obviously show us the way, but how about:

Porridge: Peter Kay is Norman Stanley Fletcher, with Ralph Little as Godbar. John Gaunt stars as Mr MacKay.

Rising Damp: Robert Lindsay is Rupert Rigsby, with Ralph Little as Alan and Stephen K Amos as Phillip. Catherine Tate stars as Miss Jones.

Fawlty Towers: Manuel Actor Andrew Sachs is, er, Manuel. This time round the lovable racist caricature is running the hotel, and now gets to slap around and abuse a hapless English porter, Malcolm (played by Lee Evans) "He's from Birmingham!" Manuel will explain. John Gaunt stars as The Major.

(btw, isn't it about time we gave Manuel Actor Andrew Sachs a knighthood, ma'am? He is a "National Treasure", after all, and he's a pensioner didn't you know!)

Dad's Army: James Cordon is Mr Mainwaring, with Lee Mellor as Sgt Wilson... (yeah, alright, that'll do).

Dude Runner

2008-12-01T17:24:00.004Z

Something the foax at Den of Geek have come up with. Blade Runner starring The Dude from The Big Lebowski.

Meh. 7/10.

Lost Planets

2008-11-28T18:53:00.004Z

I honestly thought the whole The Red Planet writing prize thing had been and gone, but earlier I received an email from them saying, y'know, "Unfortunately, your submission... not been shortlisted... Take heart from the fact that there was a huge blah-de-blah-de-blah".

Just as well I didn't get through as what there was of my complete episode script I deleted a while ago.
Which is what I've done with all of my works-in-progress.

I'm giving this this whole writing malarkey a rethink. Meaning more what it is I actually really want to write, what I really want to write about, rather than whether I want to write at all. Though that too, I suppose.
So I've cleared the decks. No more chasing down various rabbit holes, after this competition and that. No writing to fit to supposed needs of whatever market, none of that.

See how long it lasts, anyway. I'll come to my senses eventually.

Dear scum in charge of advertising at Sky...

2008-11-27T20:26:00.002Z

Okay, just caught the new commercial for Sky Movies during the half-time break in the Spurs v NEC game on ITV4.

This is the ad, here:

Fucking... wankers.
It's not the hateful pod-people acting as idealised family units enjoying a Christmas more perfect than YOU COULD EVER POSSIBLY HOPE TO HAVE that makes me cross. I mean, that much I expect. I'm inured to it now, I think. This sort of sickening advertising rubs your face into your own inadequacies so often that you're almost numbed to the twinge of despair within your soul that's reminding you of how much further behind in life you've fallen.

No. It's not that. Not entirely, anyway.

But look, they've got these gurgling simpletons lolling about on their couches, positively glowing with smug self-satisfaction at the impossible state of blissfulness they've achieved. On top of that they are braying with easy, endless laughter at the torrent of witless shit that Sky is pumping out (wtf at that Robert DeNiro thing. What happened to you, man? Seriously). All this is set to a soundtrack of Darlene Love's Christmas (Baby Please Come Home).

Now, Sky scum: are you pieces of human plankton so removed from normal experience that you don't recognise the emotions this song conveys? It is so blindingly, violently obvious and diamond clear that it is about LONELINESS and HEARTACHE and DESPAIR. I mean, come the fuck on. Hello?
Not just from the words, either - I know you don't listen to those, I know you don't care - but did the aching, trembling yearning in the vocals not even reach you? Or is it all just fucking noise to you? Just a sound to blot out the silence, because in the silence you would be confronted with yourselves and there there's a danger you might get a scintilla of understanding of just how soul-dead you actually are.

What the hell... why am I even... never mind. But I will say this though, as I was watching that ad I immediately thought of this Bill Hicks routine:

not worth blogging about post of the day

2008-11-22T14:00:00.002Z

Don't know why. but I've got an overwhelming urge to watch The Three Amigos.

"Gonna make it, gonna make it... not gonna make it!
"A sweater!"

Bleak Broadcasting House

2008-11-18T11:27:00.005Z

Fairly interesting interview/webcast thing with outgoing controller of BBC fiction, Jane Tranter.

The Trantmeister General bigs up her involvement in Doctor Who, calls out those who bang on about the good old days of the single play for "fetishising" the genre, and sidesteps the criticism of the BBC taking from a small pool of writers when commissioning, ie; Andrew Davies' domination of the classics adaptations.

Davies is an interesting one. Incredibly prolific writer - usually two major series per year, every year - and no real stinkers among them. Though, to me, they are all much of a muchness.
It seems he's been riding the wave of his standout mid-'90s Pride and Prejudice, which managed to get middle class women all a flutter over average-bloke Colin Firth back in the day.
Since then he's cranked out an endless supply of solid, perfectly serviceable, 'quality' period drama. But the only thing that distinguished them from the meagre competition was that they were sometimes ever-so-slightly more risque than the original source intended, which invariably would = newspaper headlines = viewer spike. Fair play to the bloke.

Sure, in amongst it he would drop the odd Bleak House, which would transcend the genre, but otherwise I don't really get what marks him way above and beyond anyone else. Personally I think the BBC should mix it up a bit more, give commissions out to other writers, people who are willing to shake up the classics, as Davies himself once did. But, y'know, in a different way. Save us from the one-voice rut.

And I'd like Davies to explore more personal projects, like 2007's Diary of a Nobody, which is my favourite thing out of everything he's done. Just so long as he doesn't go back to the likes of mid ''90s Lad' sitcom, Game On (thanks IMDb for that little surprise).

----------

What hath 'Manuelgate' wrought?

Miranda Sawyer sums my feeling up re: the fallout of the ludicrous phony outrage over Russell Brand and Jonathan Ross' now infamous phone lark.
From Brand to bland. Now we have offensively inoffensive, and unlistenable - check those listener figures - radio, well done to all involved. You got what you asked for.

Props to Sawyer for sending a complaint to Radio 2 about Alex Lester though. Me, I'm going to complain in the strongest terms about Alan Titchmarsh's Melodies for You show on Radio 2. I didn't actually listen to the broadcast myself, but I'm pretty sure he must have said something I would have found offensive. I mean, I don't like the guy, so it stands to reason. I PAY MY LICENSE FEE!

I can't stand the fact that someone somewhere on the BBC must have said something that I don't agree with. Heads must roll. I PAY MY LICENSE FEE!

The license fee, oh the license fee, won't somebody think of the license feeeeee... !

Paul Newman RIP

2008-09-27T17:05:00.006+01:00

Fucking cancer.

Surely he was one of the most beloved actors of his generation. One of the final pieces of Classic Hollywood taken by the sands.

"Come ON then!"

2008-09-27T16:52:00.000+01:00

As ice-cold solid gold classics go, Lawrence of Arabia is immaculate. Four billion hours long, no women at all, a nine-hour shot of a camel walking from one end of the screen to the other filmed from 30 miles away, and Anthony Quinn and Alec Guinness in black-face with comedy lol-arab voices. Perfect. The sheer fucking weird majesty of it.

Peter O'Toole is an absolute prince in this. My favourite performance of anyone in anything. Wilful, slightly effete, awkward, bullish, wrong and strong. I have a particular fondness for all the scenes of him in the British officers' mess; he cuts a singular figure, so at odds with his fellow Brits and the home-from-home surroundings, and so perverse! The general can't figure him out at all:

T.E. Lawrence: It's my manner, sir.
General Murray: Your manner?
T.E. Lawrence: Yes. It looks insubordinate, but it isn't really.

General Murray: I can't make out whether you're bloody bad-mannered or just half-witted.
T.E. Lawrence: I have the same problem, sir.

Anyway, Lawrence is slapped on a cover of this months Empire magazine for their 500 "greatest movies of all time" space-filling gimmick. It is one of 100 different covers - collect the set! - from The Gold Rush to Men in Black (don't all rush at once).
The Dark Knight and Empire Strikes Back covers are already sold out (lol Empire readers).

Despite me giving the mag free - if nanoscopic - publicity, I don't think I'll be buying it. On my way home from work yesterday I popped into Tesco Express and flicked through the only copy left on the shelf (The Big Lebowski) and the feature is just a big, magazine-filling list. That said if my magpie eyes catch sight of one of the more interesting covers, I may be tempted.
I prefer the more stark, black&white covers on the whole, plus there's an odd thrill of seeing a film as unlikely as Eraserhead on the cover of the UK's glossiest movie mag.
Of the better, more striking cover designs are where they've used iconic images, from Taxi Driver, E.T., and Vertigo, to Clockwork Orange's poster. Elsewhere they've dropped the ball with odd choice of pictures to represent Raiders, Leon and Spinal Tap.

But it's fun to see covers of movies that predate Empire magazine (est. 1989), perhaps they should do it more often a la the Dad-rock mags (but minus the overuse of the movie equivalent of Bob Dylan (which would be... what? The Godfather?) ).

Anyway, no Kes = no credibility, so forget all this.

"No prisoners! Noooo prisoners!"

Martian chronicles

2008-09-23T15:31:00.004+01:00

And so, as Autumn turns to Summer, a young man's fancy turns to... oh shit, the Red Planet Prize deadline is almost upon us!
I'm not ready, what am I going to do?

I'm thinking.

Okay, I've got a title - it's bad. Hate it. Why did I ever think of it, why did I never come up with another oh it's too late now fuckfuckfuck.

Okay, I've got a polished first ten pages - just realised it's too vague. It doesn't give a good representation of what the episode/series is about, or, more accurately, feels like. It doesn't feel anywhere near enough. It's sketchy. Fine as as intro to a 60 min prog - there's mystery, there's ambiguity, there's... fuck there's nothing there. It doesn't grab, it doesn't grip - where's the gripness? The grabocity? What's it about, all this? What is it? What is this? What is this? What... ?
What? Wait...

I've got the series outline lined out. At least I've got that. Right?
Tell me I've got that...

I got nothing.

fuckfuckfuck

Wait, wait, wait. I have. I have something. Something written out. Written words. An outline, an overview of an idea, a plan. Something about nothing, but something. The possibility of a future (the implausibility... ).
What's it all about? All this? What does it say, what does it tell?
Enough. And that's not enough. fuckfuckfu... wait...
I'm thinking...

I'll go over this again before I print it out. I need to. The one-page outline I have now lacks... it just lacks. I would say passion, if it didn't sound like something from a PowerPoint lecture at a seminar for middle-managers. But I need to boost it up before sending. I don't feel it says what I want, need it to say about what I'm trying to say, about the episode or the series. There's something I'm still not quite getting across: 'I mean this, this is like this'. Like that.

Now I find out the only paper I've got is this thin, near translucent cheapo stuff, with no holes and nothing to bind them with. Faaaack...

Fuck it, it'll have to do. Last-minute Johnny. Always.

As well as that, I've also put in something in answer to a call for ten-minute dramas by some prodco. Again, there I had to quickly rustle up a synopsis and email it off on the day of the deadline. Jesus, why do I keep doing this; end up having to scrabble about at the last minute, throwing stuff together after weeks of sitting on my arse watching Come Dine With Me marathons on More4?

I don't know what else to tell you.

(Mad Men won for Best Writing at the Emmys recently. COME ON. Also won a Best Drama type thing. 30 Rock won everything else... Heigh-ho).

But, yeah, about this Red Planet mess...

I'm still thinking...

[Pause]

2008-09-10T18:31:00.007+01:00

Okay, so why did no-one tell me just how effing FIT AS EFFING HELL Manuela Velasco, who plays Angela in the Spanish horror flick, [Rec], is?

In the words of Michael Bluth, "she's cute. She's a cutie. She's a cutie-pie".

v.impressed with [rec] btw. Using the same tricksy trick as The Blair Witch Project and Cloverfield of adopting a pseudo-documentary, hand-held single camera style, though this was probably the most overall successful of all three movies (Blair Witch, which divides people a lot, though I really really liked it on release, does come unstuck with the excessive bickering, and that stuff about the lost map just goes on and on. Cloverfield had a dull set-up first half hour, a superb, enthralling second, but didn't know where to go during the final third, and petered out/resorted to trad monster-movie form).

Similar to with Blair Witch, the actors in [rec] weren't given much or any forewarning of what was going to happen during each scene, and was all largely improvised. So all of the shocks are for real. It works too, it's a good horror with a few good 'jumps'.
But this isn't about the film, it's an excuse to post gratuitous pics of [rec]'s Angela (sigh)...

anyway...

Big Bang Day

2008-09-09T23:44:00.001+01:00

Meddlesome mad crazy boffin scientists will kill us all with their mad experiments!!!

Or not.

"Anyone who thinks the Large Hadron Collider will destroy the world is a twat."

So said Prof Brian Cox in response to the rumours circulating that when the LHC is turned on it will create a black hole that will "devour the Earth", and other such scare stories.

(I've also heard that there's this thing called the millennium bug. Everything electrical will go haywire, planes will fall from the sky, we'll be sent back to the dark ages. Why? Boffins and their meddling. That's what I heard)

Black holes, gateways to other dimensions, wormholes through time, fire-breathing dragons, the Higgs boson - whatever the LHC conjures up and discovers, I say Bring. It. On.

The very fact that is a step into the unknown, that there is an element of risk, just adds to the excitement of it all. It's like going on a rollercoaster: you know it's safe, but there's still the thrill of the danger.

The LHC will recreate the conditions at the start of creation. Just after the big bang. For why?
Uh... let Science Magazine tell you:

In the quest to unravel the universe's inner workings, the 10 September start-up of the LHC marks the beginning of a new age of exploration. The collider should bag the long-sought Higgs boson, the missing link in physicists' "standard model" of the known particles and the one thought to give the others their mass. It could glimpse a slew of new particles, such as those predicted by a scheme called supersymmetry, or even reveal new dimensions of space. Other colliders hammered out how the standard model is structured; the LHC should answer deeper questions about why the model is as it is, says Gordon Kane, a theorist at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. "The LHC is a 'why' machine," he says.

But answers most likely won't come right away, cautions CERN's Peter Jenni, spokesperson for the 2500-member team working with the 25-meter-tall, 45-meter-long ATLAS particle detector--one of four big detectors the LHC will feed. "People should definitely not take it for granted that big things will happen immediately," he says. If all goes well, the LHC will start smashing particles in October, and oddities could jump out right away. More likely, it will take a few years for the LHC to clinch the discovery of the Higgs or something even stranger. Still, after 3 decades in which the standard model has answered every question asked at particle accelerators, physicists are eager to see something really new.
...
Such studies also set the baselines from which to search for something new, Virdee says. "If you see something [unusual], the first question everyone is going to ask is, 'Do you also see the other things you expect?'" he says. "You have to be able to say 'yes' before you can claim anything new." The LHC should produce a smidgen of data between October and December, when it will shut down for the winter, and experimenters will use it primarily to "rediscover" the standard model.
...
Most physicists say that they are sure to find the Higgs or something even weirder, because without it the standard model again breaks down mathematically at the energies the LHC will reach. Ironically, finding only the Higgs boson would disappoint many, as it would leave physicists nothing to puzzle over. "The worst scenario for me is that you start running and you see no evidence of deviations from the standard model, and after 2 or 3 years you see evidence of a standard-model Higgs and nothing else," Jakobs says. The Higgs would be the last brick in the standard model. It alone would leave physicists facing a conceptual wall and could signal the end of the field.

If that's too long-winded for you, someone at CERN has done a rap and put it up on YouTube. Yes, a rap, yes YouTube, yes lol 21st century ect ect...

"the things that it discovers will rock you in the head." (warning: contains science geeks dancing. And, yes, 'rapping').

Meanwhile, MC Hawking said:
"The LHC... is vital if the human race is not to stultify, and eventually die out"

Tomorrow is one of science/humanity's Great Leap Forwards. 2008: A Space Odyssey.

(update 10/09/08 (<-check that date!):

"You manics, you blew it up! Damn you! God damn you all to hell!"

Oh wait, we're still here. Okay, so they haven't actually started colliding yet, but by all accounts, apart from a short time when it looked like the coolant system wasn't working quite as well as it should, it was a very successful day at CERN. The beam has so far been sent both clockwise and anti-clockwise, in the next week or so they will smash them together, ending the universe as we know it. Well, one way or another anyway.

When future-hating dullards aren't scaremongering about meddling scientists (which has already resulted the suicide of a girl in India who was upset from the persistent "doomsday predictions" reported in the media there), then they are belly-aching about how much this eternity-changing experiment has cost.
Prof Brian Cox (him again - he's the enthusiastic indie-kid go-to guy for boffin-related quotes) had this to say: "we note that CERN costs quite literally peanuts. UK taxpayers spend £80M per year at CERN, whilst in 2006 (the last year for which we could find figures) we spent £120M on peanuts.".
Still, y'know, boo-fucking-hoo :'((((((((( stupid scientists.)

Trod-on guile.

2008-09-03T23:41:00.002+01:00

Mad props to Frank Cotteral Boyce. I dragged my heels over to BBC 2 to watch his worthy but, surely, grim God on Trial. This is good-for-you TV: the kind of stagey, minimalist actorly piece that had the hallmarks of all those Play For Today-type series of the '60s and '70s. One set, a group of ac-tors, and a writer with Something To Say.

I admit, I started watching the considerably more fluffy Lost in Austen over on ITV, but I couldn't have lasted more than five minutes. That's about as much of twittering ladies and swooning over Mr mother-fucking D'Arcy as I can take. I was mildly intrigued by the Life on Mars-ish premise, but... no.

So, God on Trial it was. Set in - as Stephen Fry describes it - "that fucking word, Auschwitz", where Jewish inmates discuss whether God had broken His Covenant with Moses, and to put Him on trial - with hilarious results!!!!

Okay, not really. First impression I got was of, oddly enough, Alien3. This was, I suppose, due to the dreary setting and, of course, playing spot-the-character-actor from under their shaved heads ("Is that... ? Yes, it is. It's Stellan Skarsgard!").

Eventually, though, I was drawn in. Yes, it lumbered about a bit, heavy with melodrama, as you might expect. But the writing was intelligent, the acting top notch, and it all made for a surprisingly quick, absorbing 85 minutes.

This, the second enjoyably quirky episode of Mutual Friends, and Lucy Gannon's The Children on ITV has made this a healthy week for TV drama.