Where Do You Write?

The short answer to this question? In a landfill, mostly:

For me, this is a neat day (I’m missing several coffee cups, my laptop, several piles of CDs, and for some reason another two mobile phones). For the most part, I have no idea where the huge amount of crap that I accumulate comes from - it just kind of materialises, beamed down from Planet Landfill. I deal with it by piling everything up into a huge, tottering heap of the end of the day and then swearing loudly as it falls on top of me, covering me in endless back issues of Private Eye and junk mail I’m too lazy to throw away.

At least the Screaming Monkey behind his own personal set of finger drums looks relaxed about it all. The swine.

LoveFilm? Then Don’t Rent DVDs

Arrrggh! I’ll say that again just for emphasis: Arrrggh!

Deep breath – and relax.

There. That feels a bit better.

Right. LoveFilm. Arrrggh!

I was going to wibble on pointlessly about I Am Legend, but the disc conked out after 45 minutes* – either this is shortest Will Smith film on record, or I have been dealt a shonky DVD by the evil fiends at LoveFilm. Don’t they know I suffer from an acute time sickness? I mean, Christ, I could’ve done something productive with those 45 minutes, like browse Amazon for a copy of this CD that doesn’t cost over £50. Sheesh.

So, I rang up and cancelled my subscription, which was starting to become dangerously random anyway. For instance, I’ve been looking forward to seeing the original version of Funny Games for ages now: instead, I get Barbara Taylor Bradford’s Hold the Dream, starring Jenny Seagrove. Where the dickens did that come from? And after watching Death Proof (how can a film featuring so many gorgeous women be so thoroughly boring?), the twisted freaks at LoveFilm go and send me the bonus disc, which for all I know is stuffed with a landfill’s worth of talky old bollocks. Arrrggh!

That said, maybe it’s something to do with my over sensitive DVD player: nothing but the very finest, shiniest brand new DVDs will do. As soon as a disc that has been played in another machine goes anywhere near it, it shuts down and sulks like a Big Brother contestant until I am able to feed it something shiny and new again (even SkyPlus is rebelling against me: I set the series link to record the second season of Dexter on ITV1; except that the damn thing didn’t record the second episode. My wife: You don’t need to watch the second episode, do you? I mean, you can still follow it, surely? Me: Arrrggh! Don’t you understand! I – have – to – see – it! At which point I stopped talking as I was coming across like a petulant Big Brother contestant).

So, to summarise: technology – when it works, it’s great. And when it doesn’t: Arrrggh!
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
* Which was pretty good, I thought.

The Surreal Vortex of Sevenoaks

One of my favourite films is After Hours – not just because it’s one of the best things that director Martin Scorsese has ever done, but because I have the smallest of sneaking suspicions that most people’s lives are but a hair’s breadth away from the uncomfortable, nightmarish ‘comedy’ world that the (generally unsympathetic) Paul Hackett spends the vast majority of the movie attempting to escape from.

Oh. OK. Just mine then.

Over the last few weeks, I’ve had a series of meetings in London. Of course, the first step is to get there. When it comes to travel, I’m pretty well organised – I always allow myself far more time than I actually need, especially if the place I’m going to is unfamiliar. I take everything I think I might want: notebook, pen, wallet, phone, iPod, book, novelty Bender statuette. Lastly I make sure that my shoes are on the right feet and that I haven’t put my jacket on back to front. Right. Off we go.

That’s when everything starts going a bit After Hours.

Take Brighton station: to park in the car park there, you don’t need coins. You simply pick your ticket up at the automatic barrier and pay by credit card in a handy machine when you arrive back some hours later. Nothing could be easier. So, having to catch a train from somewhere other than Brighton, I automatically assume that all station car parks are like this. They’re not. Sevenoaks station is a case in point: pay and display? Jesus: I thought we were living in the twenty first century. OK, no problem, just whip out the old credit card and... Oh. The machine is cash only. Cash? Uh, OK, how much? £4.90? I haven’t got £4.90. Bugger.

Right: find a cashpoint. There’s a petrol station, they’re bound to have one, right? Wrong. "Nearest cashpoint is at the station, mate." Aware that I have about ten minutes before the Charing Cross train arrives, I traipse to the station (quite a trek as it turns out), find a cashpoint and take out a tenner. Back to the car park. Try to find somewhere in the devil’s parking machine to slot a ten pound note, only to discover that it doesn’t take notes: coins only. Bugger - again. Train leaving in five minutes. Hang on – the machine does take credit cards after all, but only for a weekly ticket, which is £23! Arse.

By now, I am out of time, so don’t have any option but to pay for a weekly ticket and leg it to the station – I make the train with about thirty seconds to spare (on the train someone tries to sell me pre-packed meat out of a Tesco carrier bag: “You want any meat, mate?” “Uh, no thanks: I’m good.”)

I wouldn’t mind so much if an event like this was a one-off. Problem is, it isn’t.

Next time round, I stock up on coins. Pull into Sevenoaks station right in front of a parking machine. Get out, pump £4.90 in change into the machine. Nothing happens. The instructions on the machine appear to be some sort of entry test for The Krypton Factor. After nearly ten minutes of pointlessly re-feeding coins into the parking machine, I decide that it’s broken. Off to find another machine: this one works. Hoopla! I make the train with thirty seconds to spare (on the train I sit opposite a twelve year old Downs Syndrome kid who is with her carer. “Hello”, she says. “Hello”, I say back. “What’s your name?” she asks. Before I have a chance to answer, she says, “Is it Elizabeth?”)

Next time round, I’m fully expecting to be hunted down by a baying posse of crazies in an ice-cream van. I’ll let you know how I get on.

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)

I Bin Bizzy

I’ve neglected the blog for nearly a week now, but I have some absolutely sparkling excuses:

* It’s Christmas – which means I have to do a lot of obligatory last minute shopping (have you any idea how difficult it is to buy a hat for a dog?), and then get bladdered at a variety of respectable locations. The best was a couple of years ago, when I got completely soused on free Champagne here (rumour has it that if the Champagne is good enough, you won’t get a hangover – a rumour that, I can report from extensive personal research, is a complete falsehood).

* Last night I found myself here. Why? Difficult to say really. As I tried to figure out exactly why I was surrounded by 3,000 hippies, Hawkwind came on. I was still none the wiser.

Here’s a picture of Huw Lloyd Langton, possibly the skinniest support act I’ve ever seen.


* Man flu, which as everyone knows, is probably the debilitating disease on the face of the planet.

* This.

* Trying to decide what to finish watching/reading first: the first season of Homicide, or the book Homicide by David Simon. That said, I have the first season of The Shield to watch, plus Dexter and the fourth season of The Wire. There’s just too much good stuff out there that needs to be watched right this very minute.

* Inbetween all this assorted nonsense, trying to find some time to rewrite my Red Planet misfire following some stellar script notes from Script Doc. The problem now is that – even after going down the route of writing a detailed step outline – two of my characters have now decided to sleep together, the bastards. How dashed inconsiderate of them.

What with shopping for dog hats, the odd bladdering, a bout of man flu and standing in huge rooms full of hippies, I’m all tuckered out. Time for another episode of The Shield.

Swish Meeting Room

Day job wise, I’ve had meetings all over (Miami, Paris, Amsterdam, Swindon), usually in so-called “meeting rooms” where the overriding colour scheme is beige. So it made a pleasant change to go to a meeting here last Friday - the café at the Victoria and Albert Museum.

Nice, innit? They do a mean sandwich as well, by the way...

Googletastic

Below is a list of Google search phrases that for some reason bring people to this esteemed blog (I haven’t done one of these for a while now, but these were just too good/random/borderline demented to pass up):

Second hand octaver pedal in Bournemouth – what’s an octaver pedal? And the last time I went to Bournemouth was to see James Blunt (don’t ask).

Super scary things to print – happy to be of assistance! Try this, or this, or even this.

Pic of Bruce Forsythe wife – doing what? Knitting? Rinsing out Bruce’s rug? Watching old age creep up on her? ;-) Honestly, people: you have to be more specific.

Genre is rude word – you know something? It probably is. However, ‘arse’ is much ruder and can be used to greater effect.

Pictures of Anna Torv in underwear – I had no idea that Anna Torv was Rupert Murdoch’s niece. Not that it matters in the search for pictures of her in her underwear of course, but I just thought I’d mention it (thank god it’s Anna Torv underwear pictures that bring people here rather than ones of Rupert Murdoch *shudder*).

You are a tit – I think that’s enough search items for one day.

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.

Spooks en Français

It’s reassuring to know that the BBC is able to flog a show like Spooks to our continental chums, thereby assuring that Auntie has more money to throw at quality drama (and I’m not being sarcastic). Problem is, I didn’t see much of the last series first time round, so now it appears that I’m doomed to catch dubbed re-treads in a variety of continental hotels. So, Spooks – in French (and eventually with the sound muted, as my grasp of French is tenuous to say the least): what can be learnt from it with the sound turned off? (by the way, I was watching this episode).

Locations: the first thing that becomes apparent is that the location budget is not exactly generous. A huge country pile, a cornfield, a cemetery, and the by now familiar Spooks operations room, a dim cubbyhole in which various furrow browed boffins tap at keyboards and look perplexed. Oh, and a smattering of satellites rendered in some pretty impressive CGI (the type of satellites that can be controlled by a laptop placed on the tailgate of a Land Rover – I’m not making this stuff up, honest). A fairly limited locational palette, I’m sure you’ll agree, which is why we need:

Visual Style: decidedly angular, with a big side order of wobble. Every now and again, things would tilt dramatically as if someone had dropped the camera on the floor and had forgotten to pick it up. Either that, or it was a series of high powered kinetic wobbles as a couple of slapheads in rather fetching military fatigues chased our heroes through a corn field.

Dialogue: sorry, all in French! I gave up after ten minutes and turned the sound off.

Narrative: without the aid of dialogue, the narrative was remarkably easy to follow, which has to be a good thing. The head baddie (D(F)uckface from Four Weddings) had somehow received a rather stellar promotion which meant she found herself heading up a sinister terrorist group who had a nefarious scheme for taking over the world via the power of CGI satellites (don’t know why though). What’s more, this sinister terrorist group were nicely headquartered in a huge country pile (surrounded by cornfields, always convenient for a quick spot of running about). After a contretemps with Adam (who is armed with a syringe full of nastiness), Ros gets herself captured by the bad guys. Unfortunately, Adam is captured as well and Duckface proceeds to inject the contents of the syringe into Ros’s neck, despite Harry’s protestations, killing her stone dead. The bad guys make their getaway, but the day is saved by Malcolm, who turns up with his magic laptop. The team gather for Ros’s funeral, but – hold on! – she’s not dead (either Adam was bluffing with his syringe full of nastiness or he switched them). Ros miraculously comes back to life and is exiled to the anonymity of civilian life by Adam. All is well. Phew!

So: did I learn anything? Hmmm - given the fact that Spooks is what you might term 'event drama', I was surprised to discover the paucity of locations on display: a globe trotting budget was obviously not available for this episode, which means that even flagship shows such as Spooks have some severe budgetary constraints imposed on them. And as much as I love writing dialogue, the thing that should come first is the visuals, even if in this episode everything did look decidedly wonky.

Apart from the visual jiggery pokery, watching Spooks with the sound down was tremendously satisfying and actually pretty good fun. I think I might start doing this with Doctors.

Dead Slow and Stop

My broadband connection ground to a halt on Friday (the AOL browser I use is essentially a virus, as it’s now decided to corrupt about a million drivers on my PC). What I’ve learnt from being completely internet free for the last few days is that the internet is a giant repository of sparkly things designed to pleasantly waste your time whilst giving you the impression you are being productive. I can get lost for hours in Wikipedia looking up obscure mental illnesses, all the time kidding myself that it’s all valuable research – that’s when I’m not stocking up on cheap CDs from Amazon or putting band posters up for sale on EBay or reading blogs or checking out what the hell happened to Danny Lloyd after he starred in The Shining (answer? Not a lot). I love the internet and I wouldn’t be without it, but when AOL decides to function, the temptation is always there to tinker, to read one more blog, to buy one more CD, to check one more fact.

Coupled with AOL’s all out war on my sanity, the deadline for the treatment I’m writing has just been pushed back to the end of August, so I now have the time to try and make it as bright and shiny as I possibly can. Ordinarily, this would mean a huge festival of procrastination, but as the internet is down, I’m forced to concentrate. And it’s actually going pretty well, partially due to the fact that I don’t have all the alluring bells and whistles of the web to tempt me. I’m in the fortunate position that I have a job that enables me to work from home a little bit, which means on the odd occasion I can shut down Outlook and actually hear myself think. Maybe there is some merit in trying to slow down a little and having an internet free day a week – but I’d like it to be on my terms rather than when my positively fundamentalist ISP dictates.

By Tuesday, my PC will be fixed and normal service will be resumed – which means more prevarication and the purchasing of more crap I don’t need. Hey ho.

Oh, I saw Nick Cave in Woodingdean on Friday morning... which was nice.

Off on a Tangent, Part 16 - I Am Being Stalked by Myleene Klass.

Much in the same way that I was stalked by Stanley Tucci over the Christmas period, I am now experiencing the same with Myleene Klass (which is why there is now a photo of her on my blog – I mean, Jesus, she’s everywhere else, so why not here as well?). Not exactly an unpleasant experience you might think, but every time I see her, she is trying to sell someone something (all quotes taken from Myleene’s website):

Released under a multi-album series 'Myleene's Music' is compiled from the EMI Classics catalogue, with the tracks on each album united by a particular lifestyle theme. Each 2-CD set carries the added bonus of at least two tracks performed by Myleene herself on the piano to complement the theme of the album.

I love the mention of the ‘at least’ in the second sentence (as well as the dubious phrase ‘added bonus’). Doesn’t make me want to buy the album though, although people on anti-psychotic medication would probably like it.

With Myleene’s new born baby Ava came the opportunity to create a collection of clothes and accessories for children aged 0-3 years named ‘Baby K’. Myleene takes a very active role in the project testing zippers, fabrics and ensuring the highest quality on all product. This range is Myleene’s second baby and has been made with love for all to enjoy.

I don’t have kids (thank the Lord), so this passes me by as well. However, the thought of Myleene testing zippers is highly suspect. But wait!

Each month in Classic FM magazine Myleene brings you the new faces to watch in classical music. Singers, instrumentalists, composers and conductors – no-one escapes Myleene’s critical gaze as she combs classical music for its freshest, brightest talents.

With Myleene’s work in quality control and zipper testing, I’m surprised she’s got the time.

My Bump & Me is about everything Myleene did ‘wrong’ during her pregnancy, how her hormones turned her into a woman she hardly recognised, and how incredible it feels to be expecting a baby.

Pregnancy as a business opportunity: you gotta admire the girl and her get up and go attitude to rampant capitalism.

Myleene's natural charm on television caught the eye of the directors of M&S who quickly signed her up to be the face of their 2007 and 2008 advertising campaigns. Myleene now adorns billboards and M&S windows across the country as well as appearing in their TV advertising campaign...

And this is why you can’t get away from the woman. It’s a perfect storm of personal appearances, incessant advertising and compilation albums. Open any newspaper and there she is, grinning inanely back at you whilst trying to flog you travel insurance. I’m sick to death of the woman.

Friday 20th June: Myleene hosts Miss Ireland 2008 competition.

Meh.

Off on a Tangent, Part 12 - UK Subs, Freebutt, Brighton, May 5th 2008.

The last time I saw the Subs, there were a series of almighty bundles down the front, which meant that the band had to take turns to leap into the crowd to separate various tattooed hooligans from knocking nine bells out of anyone in their immediate vicinity. No-one was hurt, and in all honesty, it was more akin to a bit of playground pushing and shoving than anything even remotely violent. Twenty years later, and not a lot has changed – well, apart from the fact that everyone is much more polite. Watching people stage dive off a stage that is about a foot high is always entertaining, but the difference here is that no-one gets a Doc Marten in the face. “After you.” “No, please, I insist – after you.” Oh, that and the fact that the stage divers all seem to be about fifty years old.

That said, no-one is quite as old as Charlie Harper, who was just about to collect his bus pass when punk kicked off over thirty years ago. He spent much of the evening behind the merchandise stall, endlessly available to any old geezer who fancied a handshake and a chat. Well, rather that than having to stand through the bloody awful support bands. Kill Tim play a pointless amalgam of ska, punk, White Riot and anything else that comes to mind during their 30 minute set, 25 minutes of which is taken up by a panicked string change. The lead singer looked about 12. At one point, my brother (gig photographer par excellence) turned to me and said, “They should be locked in a rehearsal room for the next five years.” That was just after I had my bicep felt by the crazy dreadlocked guy who used to work in Dave’s book store making enquiries about the evening’s ‘muscle quotient’ – very low, my friend, very low indeed.

The Subs crashed through their set in a little under fifty minutes – these guys have been doing this for years, so there’s no hanging about. Actually, that said, only Charlie Harper and Alvin Gibbs survive from the ‘original’ line up, but I guess it hardly matters when your stock in trade are three chord thrashalongs (which sounded surprisingly sprightly for a band just about to enter their fourth decade of playing live). Good fun, though.

More Dogs, More Hats

As the covert purpose of this blog is to promote the questionable practice of making everyone's dogs wear hats, here's the third in a completely random series...
That said, Action Man was a bit peeved, but I'm sure he'll get over it...

Random Post

Interesting article here on Hammer’s latest incarnation and foray into bite-sized filmmaking with Beyond The Rave (coming to a MySpace near you on April 17th). It seems that the producers have set themselves an interesting challenge with the ‘webisode’ format, where the traditional three act structure of a feature film is shoehorned into smaller, five minute chunks. It’ll be interesting to see how this translates to feature length when the DVD is released in June this year.

The other interesting thing to report is BBC4’s TV’s Believe It or Not a compendium of surreal televisual lunacy narrated by Sean Lock. Watch as Fanny Craddock castigates a hapless member of the general public over her menu choices (Sean’s comment on the great TV cook’s expression? Look at that – it’s like the entrance to a derelict funfair); quiver in fear as Leonard Nimoy mugs his way through The Ballad of Bilbo Baggins (Sean’s comment? This single attempts to condense the story of The Lord of the Rings into three minutes. I can do better than that: it’s got Orcs in it, and it’s bollocks). As ever, it’s the narration that makes this - watch the full programme here until 8th April.

Off on a Tangent, Part 11 - Everything is Connected

Over the next few months, this blog could turn into a smorgasbord of musical mayhem with a frenzy of gig going, reviews and rampant Question & Answer sessions sprouting out all over like so much damp cress on a warm windowsill...

First off, I wrote this back in August last year about a band called Slab! – the thinking man’s industrial noiseniks. And stone me, the band’s two prime movers – Stephen Dray and Paul Jarvis – have both left comments on the post. I’m trying to arrange a Q&A session right here for them at some point (plus some unreleased music?), so stay tuned. Slab’s MySpace page has also attracted the attentions of their last drummer, Rob Allum, who now plays with Turin Brakes as well as being a founder member of The High Llamas. To say I am excited by all these developments would be the understatement of the century.

Strangely enough, the chap who set up the Slab! MySpace page is Tim Elsenburg, who fronts up the rather awesome band Sweet Billy Pilgrim. Tim has previously played with Martin Grech, whose song Open Heart Zoo was used a few years back for a Lexus advert. My wife loved the song, so I bought her the album not really expecting much of a big deal. Like – wow – how wrong was I? Open Heart Zoo is pleasant enough, but it doesn’t really prepare you for the full-on brainstorming onslaught of Dali. I’m still trying to get to grips with Grech’s second album, Unholy, which is austere and noisily mentalist in equal measures. His third – released last year – is apparently another about face, this time into the realms of introspective folk (I suspect that’s his Kerrang audience safely alienated then!). Tim has also remixed David Sylvian, and has collaborated and toured with David’s brother Steve Jansen (I never was a huge Japan fan, but have an unfortunately neurotic tendency to buy everything that David Sylvian ever releases). Tim’s blog is awash with tour stories and details of Steve Jansen’s inexplicable (and highly amusing) fear of lifts, and is well worth a visit.

Gig-wise, I have the following to look forward to:

UK Subs, Freebutt, Brighton, May 5th – the last time I saw the Subs there were two tattooed lunatics down the front fighting anybody who had the sheer audacity to go near them – so much so that the band had to stop playing several times to wade in and sort them out. Punk rock! The fact that my brother ended up being best of buddies with these two lunatics is neither here nor there.

Battles, Astoria, May 14th (support from Liars) – Battles continue their ambitions for world dominance by moving up a league from the Koko to packing out the Astoria – and rightly so.

Feist, Albert Hall, May 23rd – the last time I saw Feist was at the Komedia, a small(ish) venue in Brighton. The gig was fantastic. And here she is a year later selling out the Albert Hall – just shows what a fantastic album, an iPod advert and some Vanity Fair coverage can do for your career.

Broken Social Scene, Shepherds Bush Empire, May 25th – similarly, the Scene have moved up a notch from the Koko to the Empire (where Crackerjack used to be recorded). The last time I was at the Empire was for a Helmet gig, which featured – rather bizarrely – a stage diving Paul King! All together now: Love, and Pride! Time to grow a mullet and spray paint those Doc Martens...

The upshot of all this is that if you play in a band and hanker after fame, riches and endless critical praise, the place to be featured is – well, obviously – Unfit for Print! Battles, Feist and the Scene have all gone onto bigger and better things since being featured in these hallowed pages (the Subs have had their turn, I reckon!), and I like to think (in my entirely delusional and brain softened state) that it’s all down to UfP! Sheesh! I should start my own record label (coincidentally, my resemblance to Rick Rubin is really quite scary). Bearing in mind the good fortune this blog bestows on all and sundry, I’ll have a go at reviewing the Sweet Billy Pilgrim album as well – it hasn’t been off my virtual turntable (better known as a CD player) for at least a fortnight and I feel the overwhelming urge to write about it.

And no, I didn’t screw up last week’s meeting with the producer/director. Not a lot to report back on at the moment, but more as it develops...

Ass and More Ass

I always enjoy a good keyword hoedown – having Statcounter on my site enables me to see what search terms bring people swinging by UFP (they’re probably expecting knitting patterns and/or pornography, but you can’t win ‘em all).

Here are a few of the most recent (and choicest) terms:

* Reader’s Digest prize draw – I have it on good authority that Mr Tom Champagne (“I assure you, Chipster, that that is my real name, it really is, it really is”) is a regular visitor to UFP. I may even try and get a Q&A with the old goon at some point on this very blog!

* www. big ass Lucy – well, really, what on earth do you think this place is? (*quickly goes to internet and looks up www.bigasslucy.com*)

* how much did good will hunting screenplay sell for? A little (and perhaps not very reliably informed) bird tells me that the answer to this question is fifty pounds precisely.

* big ass nature – Indeed, it could be said that mother nature is ‘big assed’, but I suspect this has something to do with being naked outdoors.

* World chip ass 2 – come on, quit it with the asses!

* I have an actor attached to my screenplay what now? Depends who the actor is, surely? I mean, wee Jimmy Krankie being attached to your existential Robbe-Grillet adaptation probably won’t do anyone any good (that said, I'd pay good money to see that).

* Prescient cough – I have no idea what this means.

* Chip Smith philistine – yeah, yeah, I think we get the idea with all this keyword nonsense now...

Cry Baby

Here is an oldish but excellent article in The Guardian by Charlotte Higgins on how blubbing at the theatre has somehow become a cultural faux pas. The theatre I can do without, but blubbing? My life would be severely limited if I had to avoid things that made me blub like the great Gazza.

· That Cancer Research ad with a muzak version of Sting’s Fields of Gold tinkling away in the background (yes, Sting, for Christ’s sake – Sting! Stun gun me now!).

· Come to think of it, any Cancer Research ad.

· Any programme that bears a passing resemblance to Children’s Hospital. I don’t have kids and don’t want any, but this doesn’t stop me howling whenever I have the misfortune to tune in to something like it.

· And talking of hospitals, how about Animal Hospital? Come to think of it, any programme that involves pet euthanasia...

· The Secret Millionaire – it’s weird (maybe because you don't see it on television very often), but basic human kindness in any form makes me grizzle like a four year old.

· There was a documentary some time ago about the children’s charity Barnardo’s. Within twenty minutes I was a complete emotional wreck and had to be helped from the room by a team of paramedics.

· Music – everything from Nick Drake to Kevin Drew is guaranteed to make me snivel and get all bunged up.

· Films? Don’t get me started – I’ll blub at anything and everything. Bambi? Check. Shrek? Been there. The Abyss? A big tick in the box. A Matter of Life and Death? The last time I watched it, it took all weekend to recover. Enchanted? I cried like a six year old all the way through it.

· England 24 – France 13. Yup, you guessed it – at the end of the game I cried.

All in all, you can guarantee that whatever the medium (theatre being the sole exception, where I think you need a good deal more ‘suspension of disbelief’ than with any other medium), I will blub on cue every single time: so much in fact so that it has become a standing joke at Chipster Towers. Whenever I sit through anything that might threaten an attack of the snivels, my wife always checks to see whether or not I’m misting up. And if I am, she has a damn good laugh. It’s also difficult to know whether or not I’m being emotionally manipulated, because I will basically cry at anything.

That said, I watched Ocean’s Thirteen the other night and cried most of the way through that - but not because it was a particularly emotional experience ;-)

Killed by Death

I had to kill a character in a script yesterday, but had a few issues deciding exactly how to do it.

The choices?

1) Handgun. Too easy to be honest, too abrupt. There’s a certain shock value, but ultimately it seemed a little unsatisfying. What’s more, there’s no physical contact, which doesn’t make for a hugely dramatic scene.

2) Suffocation by clingfilm. A much better idea (anyone seen The Last Broadcast?). But then I started to wonder exactly what sort of weirdo carries a roll of clingfilm round with them (sincere apologies to anyone who does, but come on, let's face it - you're weird).

3) Belt. This is more like it. Easy to come by, always at hand, the ideal weapon if you're in the mood for a spot of one-on-one strangulation.

It then suddenly occurred to me that I didn’t really need to kill this character at all – all I needed to do was to incapacitate him. So I clacked him round the back of the head with a fire extinguisher, which brought to mind Irreversible (no bad thing in my book).

Right, I’m off for a quick garrotting. Wish me luck.

Welcome to Multi-Tasking Script Hell

I am in search of a working method – purely because I don’t have one. I’m the sort of misguided idiot who outlines as he’s limping along, which is guaranteed to send you doolally, especially by the point the eighth draft drops and you haven’t nailed that annoyingly illogical moment in the third act. I always used to think that outlining/writing a treatment helped, but the problem with that is that it kind of sucks the soul out of what I’m writing and turns it into the script equivalent of an Ikea catalogue. I can’t do mechanistic – it hurts.

So I’m taking advice from the great man John August, who I don’t think really trusts outlines much either:

Ask: What needs to happen in this scene? Just come up with one or two sentences that explain what absolutely must happen...

And that’s it – my new working method. I tore apart an eighty-five page first draft the other day and this is the only way I can see to get the damned thing moving again without descending into the brain numbing hellhole of an outline.

(Just as well I don’t have one of those groovy little bar things at the side of my blog to show the progression on my most current draft - on day seven it would be 10% completed, day seventeen would be 85%, and day seventy would be 3%. That’s assuming I would have the technical ability to put one up there in the first place).

There’s also quite a helpful post over at Pillock’s Pad, which neatly summarises what little method I actually possess (It seems that by jumping straight into the writing, the brain mobilises more creative faculties than it does by carefully planning first). By sitting in the scene itself and staring hard at a blank screen, ideas actually start to bubble up that have absolutely nothing to do with an outline. The problem with this of course is that I’m not exactly forging ahead at a rate of knots – every page I write has an effect on the pages preceding it, which means that yes, I’m outlining as I’m writing – which is multi-tasking hell.

On a lighter note, Robin Kelly and I are rejoicing this week as Broken Social Scene has just announced a short UK tour in May. Get your tickets now, kids.