Thong thethongthongthong

They've finally refurbished my local swimming pool. Only for some reason a load of triangular pieces of fabric have been stretched across the far wall, while a repeating loop of tropical birdsong plays in the background at all times. It's like trying to do twenty lengths in a Brazillian pant factory.

Very much enjoying Strindberg and Helium.

Six-figure sums

Obsessing with money as I currently am (remember, it's only vulgar to talk about cash when you've got some), Patrick Nielson Haydon had an interesting point on his Electrolite blog.

"...the reason for all that cloudy "mid-six-figures" language is so that authors and (in particular) agents can imply that they got much better deals than they did.

How to turn $33,000 per book into a "mid-six-figure advance"? Easy. Start by selling six books, which gets you to $200,000. Add on escalator clauses--hefty chunks of further advance payable for each week on the New York Times bestseller list, or if one of the books is adapted into a motion picture that opens on at least X number of simultaneous screens--and pretty soon the total amount theoretically payable on this contract is up to $400,000, the generally-accepted lower boundary of Mid-Six-Figures territory.

And of course, even the basic $200,000 is unlikely to be payable all at once. More likely, a fraction of it will be paid on signing, and the rest split into increments to be paid at certain miletones, such acceptance of each finished manuscript, and also first publication of same. So unless the writer cranks out at least two books a year, they're probably still making less than a legal secretary. However: Mid! Six! Figures!

How to get paid better in publishing? Make it so more people are dying to read your books. It's that simple, and that impossible."

Air Piano

ed harcourt
Originally uploaded by jamesandthebluecat.

Ed Harcourt's new single 'Loneliness' (it's streamed on the website, but go and buy it , it's bloody marvellous) comes out on the14th Feb (or the Day of Hollow Mocking Laughter as I prefer to call it).

It's off last years Strangers album, which bubbled under for a bit, but seems to gradually be picking up some well-deserved critical acclaim. 2004 was one hell of a year for floppy-haired, well-read chaps with pianos, and both Ed Harcourt and Rufus Wainwright seem to have hit their stride, with Strangers and Want One respectively. I liked both singers anyway, but clearly something got put in the water about six months before, or they found a new chord or something, because frankly, wow.

This track is from a radio session, but unfortunately I can't remember which station it was from, or indeed which site I originally swiped it from, so apologies to whoever that was. Anyway, I'm they don't mind me hikacking in the name of good music. It's pretty stripped-down: just a piano and Harcourt's voice, but that's all he needs. One of those songs that makes you amost believe you could play a piano if it was just put in front of you, like Manny in Black Books. I definitely play a lot of air piano to Harcourt, And quite often belt out the 'Loooooolinessssssss' chorus when I'm listening on the personal stereo on the quiet tree-lined path that leads up to my mum's road, occasionally sending flocks of discomforted angry crows screeching up into a grey cornish sky. I reckon it's just what Ed would want.

Ed Harcourt All Of Your Days Will Be Blessed

NOT WORK SAFE

This is very very rude, but quite astonishingly funny.

The Saga of Bloodninja

It's been knocking about the internet in various forms for ages, I think, but I've never seen them collected before. The rhinoceros one is my favourite.

Seriously though, don't read it at work.

So far today I have been rejected by:

... a well-known children's comedy program, a popular 'lager' style beer, and an much-loved alternative comedian.

My life. Has turned. To shit.*

It's like being thirteen all over again, this self-employed lark, with its constant cycle of flirtation and rejection, only now it's worse, as being in my thirties, I'm now fatter and wear glasses. Although I still talk about Dungeons and Dragons.

The main bulk of the Green Wing writing will be over soon (the commissions are coming in ever-decreasing minuitage, as though they are doing their best to prepare us all for the inevitable life on the streets) and a future of frightening unemployability looms overhead like a poisonous Zepplin. I mean what else am I qualified for? ' Will write amusing sketch about unreliability of iPods for food'?

Interview with 'Shameless' writer Paul Abbott here. I particularly like the bit where they asked him why he wrote for Coronation Street for so long, and he said 'two hundred grand a year'. This has made me have revise my previous hardline stance against writing for soap operas. If they're prepared to pay that much, I am prepared, with the greatest reluctance, to work for them. Although I want full creative control. And an enchanted sword that sings Kylie songs.

Maybe I should watch an ep (as we say in telly, because the word 'episode' takes too long to say, apparently) first. I used to like Emmerdale, about four years ago. Are the Dingles still in it? They were great. Maybe one of the Dingles should find a phoenix egg or something. And then whichever posh bird is hanging about the manor house raises an army of the undead, for some reason, then they march South and take over the Queen Vic and fight a pitched battle against everyone from the Bill.

I'm spitballing here, obviously. Two hundred grand, though. Crikey.

NB. I've cheered up now - just whinging, sorry. Also, I've done my fair share of shit jobs (whitstable weighbridge, pot pourri factory, two years making data recording heads for the Turkish underground system), so I'm under no illusions that I don't already have the best job in the world. Apologies to anyone who really does have a rubbish job, and would trade places with me in a heartbeat - I just needed a moan.

Distractions...

lego_relativity
Originally uploaded by jamesandthebluecat.

More Escher Lego here - I didn't make it, just in case people think I'm some kind of lego wizard. By which I mean a wizard at lego, not a wizard made from... you know what I mean.

I'm working on a film outline at the moment (which sounds very grand, but it's really just a one or two-page outline of a basic plot with a few character details - more stuff on outlines here on the excellent Wordplay site). I'm still unconvinced that this is the best way of writing a script - it's much easier for your idea of how the film should go to get unpleasantly diverted by official-style tinkerers and fiddlers, who apparently say things like 'mmm, could it be set in space?' and 'can you make it more expensive? That way we could get Keanu' and stuff like that. But it's quite good if you're just footling about with a rough idea or two. Also, it's something to give Agent Ginny, as if she gets enough scipts and concepts from me, she stands a fighting chance of rolling them all up and physically bludgeoning production companies into giving me cash, which at the end of the day is the name of the game. Or possibly the name of the rose .

Obviously it's not going very well, or I wouldn't be footling around t'internet looking at interdimensional lego, and if the Neil Gaiman or Making Light sites from which I get half these weird things from ever close down, this blog would suffer terribly, and I'd probably have to go outside and do some gardening, or meet people or something.

Fellow Magnetic Fields fan (and I suspect uberfan) David Jennings sent me a link to these notes on the making of each song off the 69 Love Songs album. I was particularly pleased to find out that the boa constrictor Merritt had in mind when writing the eponymously titled song of the same name (called 'Boa Constrictor'), was the one from Antoine de Saint Exupéry's 'The Little Prince', which really scared me as a kid. Although not as much as the picture of the very small world from which grew three enormous boab (?) trees, for some reason. Freaked. Me. Out.

Also, it informed that someone called 'LD Beghtol' sings on 'All My Little Words'. I should probably have picked a song with a Stephin Merrit vocal to try and introduce people to the Magnetic Fields, but I'm pleased to say that if you pop down to your local newsagents, Uncut magazine has a freebie CD containing 'I Was Born On A Train' - recently covered by The Arcade Fire. And their album's bloody marvellous an' all.

I see in the comments section someone made the Planet Cook Cheesecake (although they correctly pointed out that it's really more of a Key Lime Pie), and nobody died. As far as I know. Although I'm sure they would have mentioned it.

She forgot her keys, apparently*

Ellen 'there's no wind, and then there was some wind, and it was too much wind, and then a whale came very close and I nearly died' MacArthur sails into m'home town of Falmouth today having successfully completed her 72-day round the world trip, so there is a commensurately large number of media crews hanging around the town at the moment. Including large numbers of Cockney photographers, so the locals are holding their purses tight and their daughters tighter.

I did wander out to the harbour this morning to try and get a glimpse of her coming in, but I was too early, and thus missed the sight of a small boat growing gradually larger. Still, always nice to beat a record previously owned by the French, against whom I have no particular antipathy.

It's stuff like this that should make everyone glad I never tried to get into journalism.


___


*That's why she came back to Falmouth. Having gone all the way around the world. D'you see? All the best jokes have to be explained.

Like the Bible.

Why can't I say anything nice? What's wrong with me? I'm going to die alone.


---



Mind you, we all die alone, if you think about it.


And now back to the studio.

Scary-ass 'Muppets' animation.

Well, this slightly freaked me out.

"and now you say that you're unboyfriendable..."

69 love songs
Originally uploaded by jamesandthebluecat.

So Matt (aka Gandalf) has given me a tutorial (with notes, he really should do this professionally, ho ho) on uploading mp3s to my site, so I can then link to them from the blog. Usual stuff applies: they'll only be up for a few days, so grab them while you can - any objections from copyright holders and I'll take them down immediately and so on. I'm only aiming to put up stuff that has already been out on freebie CDs, or is no longer available, or is a live recording, so fingers crossed there won't be too many problems in that area. Fingers crossed, touch wood and so on.

So I thought it only fitting to have something by the Magnetic Fields as my very first musical posting. If you like a) words and b) music, you probably want to go and buy 69 Love Songs right now. Apologies to anyone who already has Stephin Merritt's every lyric engraved upon their heart in spidery letters, but it didn't seem right starting with anything else.

The Magnetic Fields - All My Little Words - Link taken down now.

(The server's a wee bit temperamental at the moment, so if it's taking ages, have another pop later on. This is a bit of an experiment really, as I don't know how practical making this an mp3 blog will be, so let's see how this works out... )

They're a great live band too, Claudia Gonson making a fabulously ditzy foil to Stephin's slightly curmudgeonly stage presence. I particularly liked the throat-slitting gesture he made to instantly quell the sudden outbreak of clapping-along to (possibly) I Thought You Were My Boyfriend. Not purely out of a wish for discipline though: I believe he has a hearing problem that render him vulnerable to particularly loud noise - horribly ironic that someone who writes such fantastically sharp and cutting lyrics then has to suffer physical pain at their performance. How he must laugh.

Buy 69 Love Songs

Visit Stephin Merritt's website.

Remember to put foil on the base though.

There comes a time in every chap's life when he feels a certain ennui creeping over him. A lassitude steals over his limbs, a frown across the brow. Woodbines lie unsmoked, the Daily Sport has been pushed, unread, beneath the chaise-longue, and a high-class call girl sulks unnoticed in the corner of the room, her expensive Pierre Cardin undergarments completely the opposite of dishevelled. Shevelled, probably.

Suddenly said chap leaps to his feet, eyes ablaze with revelation.

Can it be true, he cries slapping his forehead with the noisy smacking sound of an actual epiphany. Can it really be six months since last I made a cheesecake?

One of the many fun things about writing scripts for children's television is the feedback. 'Line twelve is a little bit didactic. Also the yeti's fur is orange, not green' is my personal favourite, from a cookery show I worked for last year. From which I also got the recipe below.

Note the 'serves 8' bit though. This does make quite a lot of cheesecake.




PLANET COOK Spring Time Lemon & Lime Cheesecake
Serves 8

cheesecake
Originally uploaded by jamesandthebluecat.

1 packet lime jelly
juice and the rind of 1 lemon
100g (4oz) Digestive or sweet oatmeal biscuits
*50g (2oz) butter
*25g (1 oz) soft brown sugar
340 (12oz) light cream cheese
*50g (2oz) caster sugar
284ml (10 fl oz) double cream, lightly whipped
*sprig of mint leaves

1. Break the lime jelly and place into a bowl, pour over 150ml (5fl oz) boiling water and stir well until the jelly has dissolved. Add the lemon juice but not the rind. Place the bowl somewhere cool to allow the jelly to start to set. Do not let it set completely otherwise you will not be able to stir in other ingredients.
2. Now make the base; place the biscuits in a polythene bag and crush using a rolling pin. Melt the butter in a small saucepan, stir in the biscuit crumbs and brown sugar making sure the crumbs are well coated in the butter.
3. Lightly grease a 20cm (8 inch) round loose bottomed cake tin and cover the base with a circle of foil or parchment.
4. Spread the biscuit crumbs over the base and press down to make a smooth base with the back of a spoon. Chill in the fridge.
5. When in starts to set add the cream cheese, caster sugar and two thirds of the cream. Stir until smooth and then pour over the base. Refrigerate until set.
6. To finish the cheesecake first remove it from the tin by carefully undoing the sides and sliding the cheesecake onto a serving plate.
7. Sprinkle with the lemon zest and place the sprig of mint into the centre.

Tune(s)!

Green Wing is up for an NME award. Caroline from the GW office and I would both quite like to go to this one, so if anyone does fancy voting, just go to the linked site and vote away (you can text, but you don't have to, and everyone spent too much money doing that on the Comedy Awards, although it was very much appreciated). Anyway, if we do get on and anyone can fix it for me to sit between Rilo Kiley and The Arcade Fire (don't know if either of them are invited, but you never know), I'd be terribly grateful. Although the lovely Little Britain boys are also up for the same thing, so we are, obviously, fecked.

Birthday girl (it lasts all week apparently) Evans sent me this Doctor Who song, which I liked very much. Other stuff on the site very good too. This will probably jinx it now, but Agent Ginny has sent some of my scripts to a producer on the new Doctor Who series. A ridiculous long shot, as A) The first series hasn't even been finished yet, so crikey alone knows if there'll be a second, and B) I don't think they're particularly looking for new writers. But I've always wanted to write an episode that takes place entirely within the TARDIS, and it wouldn't work half as well on any other show. I did write a Doctor Who/Green Wing crossover bit for Comic Relief, but it's not making it in on the grounds of being A) too expensive B) too silly C) too complicated copyright-wise. Otherwise, apparently, it was hilarious and brilliant and they would have filmed it and then played it five times an hour and then released it as a separate DVD. They said. Anyway, I'll put it up on the GW page on my CV site at some point, unless I look at it again and realize it's actually a bit crap, which is always a possibility.

Patrick Schulenburg, Green Wing Production Assistant and all-round Good Egg is playing guitar on this song with his band 7 Seconds of Love. A goey-outy song of the first order, but possibly avoid if you're afraid of monkeys/quivering things/quivering monkeys.

And finally, linking the twin themes of excellent music and birthdays, Best Mate Sass has booked me ticket for Rufus Wainwright when he plays at the Hall for Cornwall on April 5th. This has made me happy. I briefly considered trying to get in touch with his agent and attempting to get an interview for the blog, but then I thought he'd probably see through this transparent attempt by yet another (and rather less distinguished) british comedy writer to adopt him as new bezzie mate. Maybe Mark Gatiss would let me borrow him at weekends or something.

Anyway, I'll go to Ottakers bookshop on that afternoon, just in case he's hanging around roleplaying games section or something. You never know.

Happy Birthday Evans!

She's the one who occasionally berates me, Victorian-style in the comments section. Have a great day, and I did send a card and pressie, but I guess it hasn't arrived yet. Curse the British postal service, which unlike the American postal service, doesn't even double as heartbreakingly melodic electropop outfit. The Cornish postal system is however, brilliant, as people tend to live about three doors away from the postie, which gives deliveries a pleasingly improvised, deliveree-centric approach.

Anyway, have a lovely day Evans, and let all of London rejoice in your good fortune, and increased wisdom that comes with age and that. I command everyone in London to buy Evans a drink tonight in Ye Olde London Pubbe. And some crisps.

Over in Canada,twitchfilm.net have already got a glimpse of Green Wing. Seems to have gone down well, with a very positive review here. There's also an interview with Neil Gaiman (above the GW one) which is well worth a read.

My wireless router did arrive today, and did contain traditional electronic-style electronics. However the ethernet port problem that I was hoping to circumvent by going wireless turns out to be an uncircumventable barrier to going wireless in the first place. It's a bit like that problem with the fox, then chicken, some grain and a river, only instead of a fox, a chicken, some grain and a river, I've got three worms, a plastic straw and a volcano. And as I'm right in the middle of a streak of GW brilliance, I can't afford to send my laptop away and have it sit in someone's office for a fortnight. So I'm taking the plunge and buying a dinky new Powerbook. I've currently got that light-headedness that comes with spending money you haven't quite got, on something you can't entirely justify owning. This must be how women feel all the time.

Also, restored my iPod to factory settings, which means it's working again, but I've lost all the stuff that was wasn't also on iTunes. Annoyiing.

At least I managed to restrain from phoning Matt this time. What with him being a website designer and lecturer, he does tend to be the first port of call for anyone he's ever met who's having even the slightest problem with their computer. It must be like Gandalf foolishly leaving his mobile phone number lying around in Hobbiton.

GANDALF: Hello?
HOBBIT: Is that Gandalf?
GANDALF: (reluctant)Yes...
HOBBIT: A Balrog's coming to get me! A Balrog's coming to get me!
GANDALF: (sigh)
HOBBIT: Gandalf?
GANDALF: Is it sixty feet high and wreathed in flame?
HOBBIT: I'll have a look.

Long pause. Gandalf sighs and flicks some dust off his robes.

HOBBIT: I've checked, and it's not quite that big, no.
GANDALF: Is it under five feet?
HOBBIT: Yes.
GANDALF: Is it green?
HOBBIT: Yes.
GANDALF: Is it a goblin?

Long pause.

HOBBIT: Yes.

Long pause.

GANDALF: Do you have a sword?
HOBBIT: Ooh, I'm not very good at technical stuff.

SFX: Drawer opening, rattling sounds.

HOBBIT: I've got a frying pan.
GANDALF: That'll do. Okay, hit the goblin with the frying pan.

SFX: CLANG

HOBBIT: It didn't like that.
GANDALF: Try again, and keep going until the goblin shuts down.

SFX: CLANG

SFX: CLANG

SFX: CLANG. CLANG. THUMP.

HOBBIT: I think it's dead.
GANDALF: Good.
HOBBIT: While I've got you there, my Palantir keeps giving me feedback. I've tried throwing a cloak over it, but-
SFX: Click, brrrrrrrrrrrrr....
HOBBIT: Helloooo?