More Random Linkage (sorry...)

I was going to bore myself (and by extension, you) by wibbling on about my Red Planet rewrite. But you know something? I’m too busy writing it to write about rewriting it, if that makes any sort of sense. In the meantime, for some god-known reason the following by-line from today’s Guardian had me howling with laughter:

Nicolas Sarkozy has reportedly shrunk two trouser sizes after working the muscles of his perineum.

Sorry about that. I must be overtired or something...

In other random linkage news, David Hare has gone off on one again about Play for Today here – the interview also contains some highly amusing swipes at Peter Bradshaw, the Guardian’s film critic, after a one star review of The Reader. Bradshaw has responded in his usually robust fashion here (he still thinks it’s rubbish).

And finally, I heard a superb joke the other day about a blacksmith and a donkey, but it’s far too politically incorrect to post here – so drop me a line and I’ll email it to you.

Random Sunday Linkage

See here for the new show from David Simon and Ed Burns, Generation Kill, which starts on FX on 25th January. Looks most spiffy! Alternatively, you could always try here for the Torygraph’s view of the same thing. And then there's this, which is kinda related but makes for fascinating reading anyway.

There’s a revealing interview with Peter Morgan, the writer of Frost/Nixon, here, who was also responsible for the better bits of The Last King of Scotland I suspect.

(And talking of random links, what’s this Blogger ‘Links to this Post’ thing all about? My last post on Julian Fellowes seemingly generated thirteen random links all by its lonesome, which seems to be something that Blogger has nicked from Wordpress (steal away, guys: the more random the better in my book)).

Finally, my – ahem – my nephew’s essay got a 2:1. Good, eh? (by the way, if you need 2,500 words of randomly generated fluff on Roland Barthes, drop me a line – I don’t pretend to understand any of what the great man said, but that’s half the fun)

Five Things I’ve Learnt This Week, Part 1

1. The word ‘edutainment’ (if it really can be classified as a word) shouldn’t be permitted under any circumstance.
2. Riding a unicyle in an office environment is not the brightest of ideas (especially if you’ve never ridden one before). But then I read this, and everything seemed right with the world.
3. I now know what a hagedorn needle is.
4. My resting pulse is 55 and my temperature is 34.4 C. Jesus – basking reptiles have higher temperatures (is there a doctor in the house? I feel a little peaky).
5. My iPod is possessed, but in a good way – who would’ve thought that songs by Harold Budd, Shellac, Michael Nyman, The Carpenters and Mclusky would sound as if they were meant to be seen in the same room together.

And er, that’s it. Move along now, nothing to see here.

Linkage Mania

Loads of good stuff in yesterday’s Guardian, here’s a round-up of notable links:

An extensive Paul Abbot interview, writer of State of Play and Shameless here.

Nicolas Roeg interview here, director of Performance and Don’t Look Now.

A pragmatic Susan Hill here on why more people write short stories than read them.

Iain Sinclair here on Wyndham Lewis at the National Portrait Gallery until October.