To the core, I say.

There are a number of plaintive cries that, when uttered, ring high above the treetops and church bells, causing all who hear to instantly drop their tools and hie quickly to the injured party, offering glad assistance without limit.

'My child has been taken by wolves' is one such cry.

'My foot has become wedged in a rabbit hole and ruffians are smearing my hair with goose fat' is another.

Sadly 'My iPod has just died' is not one of those cries. I hardly dare mention it at all. lest small children stand in the street outside my window, composing special mocking songs which with to compound my sorrow. 'Why don't you put this 'un on your On-The-Go Playlist?' they would probably shout out. After each song. The little shits.

But my iPod has died. Its white face, once optimistic and cheerful, symbolic of a future in which all things were possible, all horizons open to me, now taunts me with its blank insolence. The white gleam of the pearl of great price has turned to the marble of a headstone.

Added to this the fact that the Ethernet port in my laptop is becoming increasingly whimsical in its duties, and you can see why I am carefully going through all my iCreate magazines, defacing pictures of Steve Jobs with a magic marker.

Earlier today I ordered a wireless router linky-thing for my laptop, which is supposed to enable me to dispense with the archaic concept of 'cables' and simply link up to the interweb whenever my capricious whim takes me. Going by the high standards set so far this week, I fully expect to open the box tomorrow and find a large pot of jam, a WW2-style two-prong plug and some gravel.

Birds

Over at my parent's for lunch today, and was pleased to find out that the birdbox I put up last summer is finally being checked out by prospective tenants. Which is good, because I nearly killed myself putting the damn thing up, frankly. The first attempt looked fine, but wasn't high enough, a fact I realised when I stepped back to admire my handiwork and discovered I was standing amongst every cat that lived on the road, all holding knives and forks and winking at me. So I moved it about four feet higher, which meant being brave on a ladder, two notions never happily conjoined.

Anyway, it's being checked out by some bluetits apparently, which is good as I'd have a fighting chance of recognising them, what with their being helpfully colour-coded and and all. Other kinds of bird I can name:

Brown ones.
White ones.
Ostriches.

Also brought back a righteous haul of freebie CDs my mum's been collecting from the weekend papers for me. Ah, 'Rosanna' by Toto, what wonderful memories you bring with you. And 'Drive' by The Cars, because it's good to be maudlin on a Sunday. One of the CD's has 'Total Eclipse Of The Heart' and 'The Power of Love', which seems like too much wailing womankind to be contained one mere silvery disc, the technological equivalent of finding yourself in the midst of a savagely drunken hen-party with no fire exits. Also a couple of tracks by The Lightning Seeds and Shakespeare's Sister, who were both blimmin' well brilliant. Technically there isn't supposed an apostrophe in 'Shakespeare's',(*) as the printer accidentally left it off the cover to the first album, but it looks wrong without it.

*This is in fact slightly wrong, as pointed out by Igo in the comments below. It was in fact the 'e' that was left out, so they were called 'Shakespear's Sister'. D'oh. They used to be my favourite band as well, and I couldn't decide who I fancied more. Although it was Siobhan Fahey. But it was close. I really wanted pop-goth to take off as a fashion, but it never did really, more's the pity.

Gah.

top trump
Originally uploaded by jamesandthebluecat.

For a bloke, I'm really very bad at the technical stuff. Obviously I know that if my connecting train from Truro to Falmouth leaves at 17.04, that doesn't mean four minutes past seven. It's clearly four minutes five, and I've clearly missed it by... however many hours that is. Some hours. As should be clear by now, I don't do numbers.

Unfortunately, I don't do tables either, so when I cross the road to look at the bus times, I may as well be looking at something written in goblin. In fact, if it actually was written in goblin, that would be much better, as I'd have a fighting chance of being able to translate it.

I know it's terribly fashionable to have Asperger's these days, and I'm not claiming to have any more syndromes than I've already got thanks, but there clearly are a number of things wrong with me. It takes me ages to learn new faces, I'll take a half hour tube journey with three stops rather than a three minute bus journey, because I know the tube journey and I fear change, and I have never ever been able to read timetables and/or maps.

The last ones are particularly annoying, because if you're a bloke, that's supposed to be the thing you can do. You're supposed to be able to say, okay, I can't commit to you emotionally and I have a wide collection of silver gadgets that even I can't remember are supposed to flash or go ping, and the whole up/down toilet seat thing is still too complicated to remember, but I can arrange a trip to the zoo with a minimum amount of train changes, and probably get everybody home the same night.

I wish timetable and directions were also available in Lateral/Intuitive form. Go down the high street 'til things get a bit mimsy, then bear in the direction your hair takes you until you start thinking about strawberries, then it's languid, languid, languid, left at the crossing , and there's the Apple Store. Or possibly Finland. Either way, you can get your new network cable.

Only when I get home, it turns out it's not the cable that's being temperamental, it's the bit in the laptop it plugs into, so I can only get a connection if I hold the cable plug at a certain angle all the time I'm on broadband.

On the plus side, I was pleased to see I now exist in number/table form as a Top Trump card, Once a kindly passer-by explained the details to me, I was pleased to see that my highest rating is in Kindness, and my lowest is in Greed. Although I always thought my Cunning was much higher than it turns out to be. Which on reflection, would explain a lot.

Just noises really.

Oooo-wheeeee blum blum blum blum. Oooo-wheeeee blum blum blum blum. They were playing the theme from Star Wars in the hotel restaurant today, and it got stuck in my head. Or was it the theme from ET? That must have been a hard one to pitch: There's this alien, and he looks like an inside-out turd, and he goes round pointing at people and then he dies, and then he gets better. Magical stuff.

Actually, I think that's the theme from Star Trek, which they definitely weren't playing. Could be worse, yesterday I had that bit from 'Marge and the Monorail' Simpson's episode where Homer sings 'I bought my love a chicken/It had no bones' and then goes 'Mmm... chicken' cycling round and round my head all the way up in the train. Upon reflection, I don't think there was quite enough oxygen in the carriage, as it smelled a bit stale, and everyone seemed a bit sleepy. Worrying.

I'm going to start my new screenplay when I get back home. I think you need to just keep writing them - a lot of actual proper writers seem to have written at least a dozen before they start to get the hang of it, so there's my business model. Anyway, it's even better than the Viking Heist Movie idea (which I'll come back to one day), but wow it's a good idea. Or potentially a very bad and silly idea (even compared to a Viking Heist Movie), but I won't know until I've written it. I can't run it past people either, because by the time you've told them what it is, the part of you that needed to tell the story has wound down, and a lot of the impetus has gone, like a springy sping that has sprung its sprung and now just goes 'bleugh'.

Oooo-wheeeee blum blum blum blum.

Kitschy Apocalypse

twitchfilm.net lead me to the new video by The Postal Service - 'We Will Become Silhouettes', off the Give Up album. It could possibly be filed under Not For Everyone, but I've always liked their bittersweet tone, and the video (by Napoleon Dynamite director Jared Hess), matches this perfectly.

Great as The Postal Service are, I like even more stuff recorded by the main guy Ben Gibbard under the name Dntel, but it's much more glitchy and wooshy and clicky, and a bit snickety as well. So far I've only been able to pick up odds and sods off various mp3 sites, but he's on my list of things to investigate in 2005, about which I'm sure he's very excited.

If my Romey Loves Jools sitcom were to ever get off the ground, I always saw it as looking like Blackadder, but sounding like Spaced. And with 'The Book of Love' by the Magnetic Fields as the theme tune. With Rufus Wainwright making a guest appearance. I like to plug R+J once a fortnight or so, just in case a C4 executive has stumbled onto this site whilst looking for tips on which kind of glaive-guisarme most quickly dispatches which variety of D&D monster. You never know.

UPDATE:

The ever-reliable Anonymous points out in the comments section below that: Dntel is actually Jimmy Tamborello ... the non-singing one in the Postal Service. Gibbard does Death Cab for Cutie, as I think someone else pointed out ... word is that they're working on a new Postal Service album, though, since their little side project majorly out-sold anything either of them had ever done in the past ...

Down a Michelin

Okay, I ran Shari's question past an Industry Expert who said "This writer should probably email the BBC writers room to ask if they'll take a re-drafted script before just sending it in - they'll have a log anyhow... they may read a rewrite but
it's at their discretion - they may ask to read something new instead... "

So there we go. Good luck Shari.

Just had an acknowledgement from amazon that the first season of Northern Exposure that I ordered on DVD is just about sort of almost on its way. I like the way you can track a parcels progress: it's on the train, the postie's got it, he's turning into your road now.... OH MY GOD HERE IT COMES! Really livens up my day.

I cooked a fantastic roast Saturday night, its fantasticosity only slightly besmirched by one of the diners coming down with some dreadful stomach complaint about an hour after forks went down on empty plates. The fact that me and Matt were fine, combined with the sudden onset of the complaint would suggest outside causes, but it was a slightly sudden end to the evening. Personally,even if it was my cooking, I still reckon an attrition rate of on-in-three to be acceptable losses, which is why I never lasted long in the Air Training Corp. Also, once I'd had a go on the gun range, the fun bit was over, and when I thought about it, I was kind of scared of flying anyway. But I digress.

Film meeting about my screenplay didn't go anywhere exciting, unfortunately. Not quite what they're looking for at the moment apparently, although they 'liked the writing'. One could be churlish and wonder what it was they didn't like?(Damn! If only I hadn't filled the margin of each page with clipart characters pointing at the good lines and giving a double thumbs-up!), but as it's my first screenplay, and that was the first company it got sent to, anyone actually going to the bother of reading it at all was a minor miracle. So now it's going on to the next company...

In fact the best thing is to forget all about it and get on with the next thing. Viking heist movie? Hmm. I feel like I ought to do something reasonably grounded in reality next, that maybe wouldn't cost a kerjillion pounds to make, and could be pitched without me saying things like 'okay, I know this sounds weird, but bear with me....'

But then to be honest, those are really the only things worth getting excited about. Tricky.

I made some stock from that roast, which is sitting in the fridge, quietly daring me to use it. Onion soup, I think. And later I shall ring up Death himself, and arrange to play dice with him. And it's only monday.

John Cleese's Three Rules of Comedy

I'm not a terribly good person to ask for advice on writing, as all I can really offer is 'try and be really really lucky at least six times in a row', to which all people can really say is Umm and Well, thanks anyway...

Doesn't stop me talking to the Professional Writing Group in Falmouth once a year, but I figure that's more along the lines of, look, I clearly don't have a clue what I'm doing, but I did at least get to quit the day job, so if I can do it... No-one's ever said I've specifically put them off writing anyway. So far.

Any-old-hoo, I got this email:

James - I e-mailed you late last year asking for your advice on getting my script read by producers without an agent... what I wanted to ask you was this; I submitted the original pilot to the BBC Writersroom as I have done with a few scripts before and received their standard no letter, but this time I got a full-page script report on my work which I'd never got with a rejection before.

There was a lot pointing out why it wasn't suitable and what didn't work which you would expect in a rejection, but there were three seperate and very complimentary things said about the idea in general and the writing. As the Beeb had never gone to the trouble to tell me what I'd done wrong or pay me any compliments before I did a re-write using their input and sent it back to them.

The re-write is much better thanks to their suggestions but I'm not sure how they're going to take me sending it back to them. They didn't ask for it to be re-written and re-submitted but, reading between the lines, I got the impression that they were encouraging me to do more work on it and try again.

What do you think?

Thanks for your time again,

Shari Smith

To which I replied there was certainly nothing to lose by sending off the second draft, although you'd be best off sending it to the same person who gave you the feedback if you can - they should remember the first version, and at least they're kind of emotionally involved with your script on some level.

Also that it might be best to crack on with a second, completely different script now, but make sure she sent it to the same person first. Which I know can sound a bit dispiriting, a bit like saying to someone who's just run a marathon: Great, now run another one. But once you've got useful feedback on a script, your next one tends to be exponentially better, I reckon.

Which I think/hope sounds reasonable. But if anyone reading has more experience on the script-editing/reading end (or even works for the BBC) , they can chip in and tell me/Shari if that's useful advice or not, on the comments below. I'm impressed with the BBC Writers Room site response though - I used to recommend entering competitions as a means of getting proper feedback on scripts, but it's great if the Beeb are starting to help out. If no-one has any better thoughts within a week or so, let's assume this wasn't terrible advice. Good luck Shari.

I wouldn't really encourage people to ask me for specific advice like this though - I'm still making a number of elementary and hilarious scripting mistakes, some of which keep me up at night, and it's a bit of a classic for someone who's had a small amount of success in comedy writing to think they're suddenly a cross between John Cleese and William Goldman, and start writing columns called The Rules of Comedy* and so forth. The sites mentioned under 'writing' in the sidebar are pretty damned helpful though, And there's a fantastic website called Making Light, which has all sorts of interesting writing tips and comments, albeit spread out over a number of somewhat... eclectic comment threads (not really scripting, more prose/fantasy/SF,). That's where I got the Walk into Mordor thing from.


*If you actually are John Cleese though, you're perfectly entitled to have Three Rules of Comedy. These are as follows: 1. No Puns. 2. No Puns. 3. No Fucking Puns.

Tolkien Meme

Okay, this is childish and strange, and I'm not sure who did it, but it made me laugh.

One Does Not Simply Walk Into Mordor

And Many Moooooooooore.....

no expense spared
Originally uploaded by jamesandthebluecat.

Happy Birthday Ori. I will of course be hundreds of miles away, but put on your actor's face, smile through the tears and have a lovely time. But look after Fay, you know how she gets when someone else is getting all the attention...

She gets brilliant, that's how she gets.

Think I got away with that.

blue head
Originally uploaded by jamesandthebluecat.

There's a blue head in my garden currently. I was clearing out some stuff from my old room (after I left for university it was kept as a shrine for... ooh... thirty seconds?) Anyway, Steve gave me his ceramic head as a gift, which was very nice of him. And after a while it gravitated to the back of the wardrobe, and now it has re-emerged. My flatmate likes to go and have a pensive smoke in the back garden a few times a day, always sitting in the same chair as she stares thoughtfully over the roofs of Falmouth, and no doubt thinking about important things. So I stuck the head in the undergrowth, carefully angled to catch her gaze just on the pensive down turn.

Apparently she thought someone was trying to send her a message. Which they were. It was me, and the message was 'blue head in the undergrowth'.

Comedy gold.

Quick music catch-up:

Music For Robots has Nina Gordon (ex-Veruca Salt) covering NWA's 'straight outta compton', while stereogum has The Arcade Fire covering The Magnetic Fields 'Born on a Train'.

I've finished for the day, so it feels like I've been awarded a small prize. That only I would want, but hey-ho. One day I'll have a slot on Radio 3, about one in the morning when I can play stuff like this to my hearts content, and I will be the happiest man in the world.

Indie geek intertextual retro-rockfest ahoy!

Team Green Wing

Quick update: Green Wing has been bought by BBC America! Huzzah! No idea when they'll show it, but soon all you lucky types across the Pond can have a taste of our speedy-up barely-medical nonsense. May God have mercy on your souls.

We now return to our main feature.

There's not so strong a tradition of team-written comedy in this country as there is in the States, mainly because there isn't the money. Although I've yet to see a high-ranking television executive shivering in the gutter because he spent all his money on writers.

British comedy tends to be written by the performers (Fawlty Towers, Absolutely Fabulous, Spaced, The Office), or by a writing partnership (Porridge, Blackadder, Peep Show). Of course, there's usually a script editor in the background, and occasionally, someone like Simon Nye will come along (How do you want me, Men Behaving Badly) and do a whole run of great shows single-handed, but generally in the UK, team-writing just isn't practical.

In the States of course, shows like Friends, or Frasier or Will and Grace are (were) gleaming, manufactured creatures, attended to by great flocks of writers, constantly darting in and out to make sure every line is sparkling, every bon mots adjusted to receive the maximum possible amount of laughs. Here in the UK we have a more closed, jealous attitude, hoarding our best lines in a sulky, dragonnish manner lest they be stolen by hobbits. It happens. In fact, with GW, 'team writing' means meeting up once a fortnight or so, reading through the scenes given a tick by the producer, then scuttling home again and trying to come up with a nice complex-but-can-fit-into-a-few-short-scenes-storyline that fits in with what's been written so far, and will count for lots of lovely minutage when the thing gets shown. The ideal scene for a GW writer is one that's two sentences long, but takes about half an hour on the screen. Giving the character of Dr Statham something odd to do is a winner, as Mark Heap will take this kind of thing and run with it. For miles, if need be, god bless him (I still thank him regularly for the nipple-twiddling 'Radio 3' scene. Thirty seconds to type, a lifetime on the screen. Of course it's Pippa I really need to keep apologising to).

We're on the final stages of writing the second series of Green Wing. Not that there isn't a tonne left to write, and this is still only the first phase in a very long process, but it's getting there now. Which means the whiteboards in the office are filling up with storylines and poor Patrick is constantly trying to work out which desktop folder scenes should go in. If in episode one, Boyce were to do something amusing with a monkey (he doesn't), should it, for example, go in the 'Boyce' folder, the 'Ep 1' folder or indeed, the 'monkey' folder? Or indeed, the bin?

GW comes about in a much more organic manner than most shows. The writers tend to wander off on tangents and pretty much see where the line takes them. All the characters are up for grabs, any situation is possible. Gradually, storylines tend to accrete around the main characters, the episodes start to divide themselves up into rough themes, and eventually you've got the required number of scripts (eight, for the new series) that then need to be pruned into some kind of reasonable shape. This isn't how normal shows do it, and if we bump into them in the corridor, other writers tend to look at us with a strange mix of awe and sad contempt, but we get by.

We're about a month away from that, I reckon, and that's still just the first phase. After that it's time to sit in a drafty church hall and go through the scenes with the actors. This is when you discover that a scene that begins in the operating theatre unnacountably ends in the bar, without anyone actually moving at any point. Possibly GW gets away with this more than other shows, but it's best not to actively confuse the audience if you can help it, so corrections will be made.

Actors will then arse about with, or, technically 'improv' the scenes, to see if they can make them funnier. Sometimes, annoyingly enough, they can, and these get folded back into the script. Hearing your scenes read aloud tends to focus you on just how much can be chopped away, and often lines that resonated with genius on the page clang like a clangy iron pan when you hear them out loud. Then there's more read-throughs in the Talkback basement, this time with the directors, who for some unaccountable reason want to know where everyone is when they say their lines. This is when you find out that a scene involving, say, a lion, will now have to take place using a camel instead. I like a system that doesn't work that out until a third of the way into the production. Marvellous.

After that, the job of a writer is pretty much done. All you can hope to achieve now is popping in unexpectedly and putting people off, which is fun in its own way, but tends to get remembered and used against you in future productions.

Ori, feel free to chime in/correct/dispute as necessary.....

Gentlemen of letters (and Will Self).

Just come across a great interview with the League of Gentlemen's Mark Gatiss. I particularly liked the proposal for a five-minute TV slot about topics such as creationism titled "Did I Miss a Meeting?". Great idea. Looking forward to the LOG film too, although I'm trying not to read too much about it, lest my viewing pleasure be diminished.

Gatiss did a great interview with Rufus Wainwright a few years ago, in which he was clearly one one shandy away from shouting 'IloveyouIloveyouIloveIloveyou'. So it's nice that they're now best mates. On an unrelated note, Sass couldn't find her Martha Wainwright CD in St. Ives, and there was a worrying moment when I thought one of us would have to ring the owners and have the following conversation:

ME: Has a CD turned up? My friend lost one, and I thought maybe one of the cleaners had come across it.
OWNER: What's it called?
ME: Um..... Bloody Motherfucking Arsehole?
SILENCE
SFX: Beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep...

I was real latecomer to the League of Gentlemen, being more or less badgered into it by the Mighty Evans. Then I saw the Christmas Special, which was I think the first without canned laughter, at which point I though 'Ah, I get it now'. I bloody hate canned laughter, especially with British audiences, which just sounds wrong, although not as wrong as the canned laughter on some kid's shows, which have this terrifying edge of hysteria, as though the tiny monsters are just one sherbert dip away from invading the stage and turning the presenter into a pile of gnawed bones before burning the whole place to the ground.

'Sherbert dip'. Cutting cultural references there. I had a meeting with a kids TV producer a while ago and said very earnestly that one thing I'd like to get away from is that whole 'gunge' thing, at which point she looked at me very sympathetically and said 'Mmm, no-one's done that for about ten years'. So I tried to argue that in that case, it was time for gunge to come back, but the interest had gone from her eyes, quite frankly.

Mark Gatiss has done a couple of Waterstone's events with friends of mine, at which he acquitted himself very well, by all accounts. You can tell if someone's been an arse at these things, as if you go back a few days later, you'll find all their books with their faces turned quietly to the wall. With moustaches drawn on the author's photo. Unless they already have a moustache, in which case it'll be tippexed off. My enthusiasm for Ruth Rendell's excellent crime novels written under the 'Barbara Vine' pseudonym certainly abated after I did an ghastly event with her in Canterbury, the thought of which genuinely makes my flesh crawl to this day. And having seen her interviewed on subsequent occasions, I think I got off pretty lightly. Shudder.

While I'm in this 'throw a log on the fire and have another glass of whiskey'-type of mood, did I tell you how I was once put down by Will Self when he came to do an event at the shop? Great story. Pull up a chair.

He was publicising his latest novel, the name of which genuinely escapes me. It was about three back. Now I think Selfy uses some astonishing words, can write amazing sentences, and cracks out some fabulous short stories. But his novels, I can't be doing with. So I chose to sit this event out, planning to use the time to quietly sort out my graphic novels. And by 'sort out' I mean read. However, Self turned up at the front door (we preferred authors to creep shamefully in by the rear door without scaring the punters, so he was blackmarked already, frankly). So I ended up taking him up the stairs to the staff room, where the manager was waiting for him with a bottle of wine. And just as I turned to go, my manager said, in tones of understandable pride, 'James writes for Bob the Builder, you know.'

Now why he thought the author of 'Cock and Bull' would feel some kind of kinship with a part-timer who wrote amusing stories about a small puppet and his talking machines, I don't know, but it was sweet of him to try. Anyway, Self fixed me with a cockatrice glare and said 'So how many words in a Bob the Builder script then?'
Um, I said, about five thousand?
'Bollocks' said Self, balefully. 'It'll be about two and a half thousand, tops. And most of those'll be 'Exit Bob, pursued by digger'.
Can I go now? I said, and it was agreed that I could. And about halfway down the stairs I thought A) he's right, Bob scripts are actually about two and a half thousand words, and B) Will Self was actually much funnier than I'd given him credit for.

Still don't like his books though.

Talking Business

so 2004
Originally uploaded by jamesandthebluecat.

Finally someone makes an amusing comic strip of my life (click to see more clearly). This is from See Kyle Draw, which I like to check in on from time to time. Very cute drawings, with an undercurrent of... something else. Me likey.

Eyes, look your last! Arms, take your last embrace!

And lips, O you the doors of breath, seal with a righteous kiss a dateless bargain to engrossing death!

I've still got a cold.

Back from London where I caught up on gossip, comics and (lastly) actual work. I was supposed to be heading back to St. Ives for final night tonight, but just too knackered. I've also spent enough time on trains in the past two days to last me a lifetime, having got the sleeper from London last night and arriving in Truro early this morning feeling like twelve kinds of shite. Still, am currently enjoying the classic lemon and honey/warm bed combo.

Very good GW meeting yesterday, although it looks increasingly likely... thatseriestwowon'tairuntilFebruary2006. I thought I'd rush that bit, so people might speed past it. Sorry. It's a very technical show, with the editing, and the music and that, and does take an age to do. On the plus side, if I can haul back the crowds rushing lemming-like for the nearest cliff, we're currently trying to get a Green Wing bit in for Comic Relief, so there's something to look forward to. We made up a very very rude song in the meeting (I say 'we' - I just sat in a corner and had my first proper hysterical laughing fit for ages - I was a bit tired) but when we checked it out with the authoritahs, they told us that the people ringing in to complain would have taken up phone lines that other people would be trying to use to donate, which was a sobering though. So we're doing other stuff instead. It'll be just as good though.

Good meeting with Agent Ginny, too, with some interesting stuff looming on the horizon, winking knowingly. I'm starting to realise the limitations of a blog about scripting, which is if things seem to be going well you just end up sounding either mysterious and/or smug, so apologies if that's the case.

Saw the Lemony Snicket movie as well, so I finally get the realtors/fridge thing now. Couldn't get that into it though, despite great acting, sets, cinematography etc. I think because it's so episodic, which is clearly keeping faithful to the book, although like the third Harry Potter movie, these things work best when someone steps in with a Point of View and is unafraid to sacrifice great swathes of stuff in order to make a better movie. I'd rather they'd lost the Uncle Monty/Aunt Josephine stuff, and just stayed in the city with Count Olaf. Jim Carey very good though, and the child actors very talented, even if the girl looks like someone tried to genetically create a human version of a Gelfling from the Dark Crystal. I just hope she didn't get bullied at school by Skeksis.

Brains....

I've got a cold, and like all blokes with colds, I think I'm going to die. I've got red eyes, and a shuffling gait, and frankly, I wouldn't want to be passing through a sports shop just as Simon Pegg hit the cricket bat display stand. But then I don't go to sports shops very often, so I should be okay.

Met up with some ex-Canterbury Waterstone's types last night. Lovely Laura, and Just As Lovely Nick, who with his beard and pipe seems to have turned into a Victorian seacaptain since last I saw him. I haven't seen Nick for a year, and while waiting for Laura, we had one of those blokes-catching-up conversations, which can sound to anyone nearby like we were simply reciting lists of bands at each other.

ME: Riley Kiley.
NICK: Yup. Futureheads.
ME: Yup. Four Tet.
NICK: Yup. Joanna Newsom.

PAUSE

BOTH: Mmmmmmm....

She's not for everyone, mind.

Laura brought two friends from work, one of whom said she liked Green Wing, but could the next series have less nob gags in it? Kate, I'll do my best, but I can't promise anything. Bearing in mind I always thought the spiritual antecendents of GW were Carry On Doctor and The Benny Hill Show, I thought we were relatively restrained.

Oddly, considering all the Waterstone's people I caught up with last night (I also shared a profitarole with PP), the fact that no-one mentioned the Joe Gordon being dooced thing was remarkable. Uncanny. Unheimlich even, which is a word I've always meant to write down, but for which I've never previously had the opportunity. And it was heimlich as well, because the word and its opposite can have the same meaning. Similar, but not quite the same as how 'cleave' can mean both 'adhere to' and separate from' which is terribly confusing.

If I had met a completely seperate group of people though, and we had discussed the Joe Gordon thing, it would be interesting to note that a variety of reactions were noted, and the general consensus was that it was quite a complex case, with rights and wrongs on both sides.

Ex-Waterstone's blogger in 'supports another ex-Waterstone's blogger' shock.

Surprised to hear that UK book chain (and my ex-employers - see My Bookshop Hell) Waterstone's have sacked much-respected employee Joe Gordon from their Edinburgh branch after eleven years, for supposedly bringing the company into disrepute by posting supposedly-derogatory comments on his blog: The Woolamaloo Gazette.

Some commentators have suggested that this is not unlike sacking someone for letting off steam in the pub, to which I have to say Hmmm and Errrr and Can't Quite Agree. The comparison simply doesn't work, unless your pub could theoretically seat about six billion people, all of them can access your conversation, and everything you say is written down by gnomes who will pass out copies to anyone who wanders by the pub at any point in the future*. Blogging = publishing, and the quicker people (including me) realize they may have to stand by casual comments which might just outlive them, the better.

However however however....

You don't sack someone for it. At least not without a number of meetings at which people get to say things along the lines of Now hang one, and I didn't mean, and Well, okay but what if... instead of a meeting which seems to have gone more along the lines of Out.

And you know what? If Joe Gordon had brought Waterstone's in repute, possibly I would have heard about it by now. Except he clearly hadn't. And now Waterstone's have carefully brought themselves into disrepute by being incredibly heavy-handed, and any last vestiges of loyalty I had towards the chain have just quietly evaporated.

All the best to Joe for the future, although I'm sure he'll find an excellent job elsewhere. Sad to say, once you've left a bookshop, your new colleagues may never be quite as much fun, but the pay and conditions will always be far, far better.

* The Victor Drago's pub in Falmouth had six billion seats, and gnomes with writing pads. But they knocked it down a few years ago and built the Ships and Castles swimming pool over it, which always seemed a shame.

Raining in St. Ives.

Which it is. Very much so. It's quite picturesque rain though, sweeping across the harbour in a stylish grey sheets. I am currently dripping rainwater onto the public terminal in St. Ives library, which is less stylish.

Matt's updating the GW bit of my website, so some of the nice screeshots/logos people put up are there - so thanks for that. Will put some downloadable PDFs of bits of script relating to pics later as shameless advertising for self, but I'll mention here when I do.

Right, back out into the rain.

Peter Jackson not on line one.

MidgardGate
Originally uploaded by jamesandthebluecat.

When I wasn't being annoyed by braying poshos on the train journey to London the other day, I vaguely scribbled down some ideas for my second screenplay.

On the way back, I dug out my notebook and looked at the first line.

It read 'Viking Heist Movie'.

I seriously don't remember writing that.

I've always had a bit of a thing for the nordics though. I spent the fee for my last ever Bob the Builder script on a trip to the Arctic Circle, travelling through Norway, Sweden and Finland (it was during the summer, so not as cold as it sounds). In Sweden, I was interested to see, Bob is called 'Palhui Pete'. Or something like that.

I've recently been re-reading Kevin Crossley-Holland's 'Penguin Book of Norse Myths', which is funny, and gory, and sad, and generally just brilliant. Moved onto 'The Sagas of Icelander' (also by Penguin), which I've been meaning to dip into for ages, and I'm glad I did, or I'd never have read the saga of 'Ref the Sly', which is clearly the first ever Viking sitcom.

Every episode Ref gets insulted by someone. He lets it go for a while, and everyone thinks he's a big wuss, although he is in fact off sharpening his spear in his longship garage. Then he runs the insulter through and has to depart to pastures fresh. This gets repeated a number of times with increasing amounts of Ref's family having to accompany him, and even more outraged relatives of the deceased trying to catch up, until eventually Ref evades them and sets up somewhere new, only for the whole process to begin again. Marvellous.

I also found a site called Mythica, left behind when a huge Norse-based online roleplaying game was designed and funded by Microsoft, then suddenly abandoned. All the concept art has been left up though, and I'm an absolute sucker for this kind of stuff. Lots of lovely backgrounds, and characters and monsters. I particularly liked this 'Midgard Gate' concept design, which looks like it's straight out some as-yet-unmade Lord of the Rings film. Lovely.

Adam informed me the radio 4 show 'In Our Time' is offering mp3 downloads of the most current show on the bbc.co.uk site (go to 'radio' and then 'info' and it's around there somewhere). I was gutted to see I'd missed the norse myths one though, and didn't find anything on Google, so if anyone knows where I can get this on a format which allows me to stick it on my ipod, I'd be most grateful.

Also found some downloads on the sigur ros website, including some live performances from 'Odin's Raven Magic', Chapter 3 is particularly beautiful. I've banged on about the band before, and the titles sound like some kind of hardcore death-metal played by grumpy pierced roaring types in black leather, but they are in fact completely the opposite. Still nordic, but in a sweeping, melancholic, pleasantly introverted sort of way. Funny to thing a few hundred years ago these are the same people who would have been performing the 'blood eagle' (i.e. cutting open your chest, pulling out your ribs in an inverted 'wing' shape and then spreading your intestines in a three-foot radius).

Well, maybe not 'funny' exactly....


On that note, I'm off to a nice rented house in St. Ives for a few days to get some actual work done. If anyone needs me, Agent Ginny's back on Monday, and I'll have my mobile with me. Whether I can actually get reception is an altogether different matter, of course.

Seriously, that 'Chapter 3' track is astonishing.

GW media takeover continues...

Fellow GW-writer and performer Ori (she of Lyndon-sniffing, banging-herself-in-the-face-with-a-pillow fame) has only gone and got herself a blog innit? So go and have a look at her terribly glam photo (which is exactly what she looks like in what I feel obliged to call 'real life', of course) and leave her some encouraging comments. Not depraved filth. Unless you want too. She quite likes that as well, mind.

Ori's based up in Londonville too, so her blog'll probably have proper gossib, and real celebs dropping by for a cup of tea and that. What can I offer? Obscure Dungeon and Dragons monsters and stories about slugs. Sigh.

That said - slightly more info on the BBC Greatest Moments thing - the shiny silver invite says the live event is on 22nd Jan, so I would imagine it'll be broadcoast either that night, or (in case someone shouts out 'willybumpoo!') after they've had a chance to edit it. Don't think I'm going, as my flatmate is out that weekend, leaving me with the house to myself - a rare pleasure not to be lightly spurned. Invite looks good on my bookshelf though. Along with the 'Tokyo in a bag' thing that Adam had bought from Muji. I actually wanted 'Paris in a bag', but Tokyo was all they had left.

Credit where credit am due.

A Green Wing scene is up for the BBCs 'TV's Greatest Moments' or best moments, or whatever it's called. For anyone who saw GW, it's the bit where they're putting on Geordie accents while doing surgery. It's quite a nice illustration of the collaborative nature of the show actually, as the scene was written by Stuart Kenworthy, re-written by Rob, and then the 'I'm unemployed and I have a mullet' bit was added/improvised by Stephen Mangan (Guy) on the day. Comedy via an anarcho-syndicalist commune method there.

Stephen also came up with Martin's exam mascot 'Captain Wipey' (a napkin), which made me reet laff.

And 'See you in Zurich' as well, which if he gets in there and copyrights, could see him through to his old age.

Script meeting

Had meeting with producers of kid's show yesterday, which I think went okay. Face to face meetings to see if one's suitable to write for a show can sometimes feel a bit artificial. After all, it's supposed to be the writing they're after, not your social skills, which in the case of most writers are fairly limited anyway. So your main aim in these meeting is to contain those sort of comments which sound funny at the time, and do a reasonable impression of some kind of professional. Well, the 'writing' kind specifically. Convincing plumber impressions will get you only so far.

But, one of the producers seemed to really like GW, which helped, and the meeting was really about the way the storylines are structured, the process for pitching idea and so forth. This particular show is now on its seventh series, so there's a pretty tight format for taking on new ideas. A bit like the last couple of series of Bob the Builder, by which point Bob had built pretty much everything there was to build, so short of devoting thirteen episodes to having him drive around Bobtown pretty much demolishing everything (which was, briefly, considered), you need to come up with some new ideas without wandering too far from the basic premise of the series.

This means coming up with ideas on spec - i.e. for no money. Which is pretty much the opposite of my planned career path (writing a little as possible for as much money as I can carry in my rucksack) , but it's unavoidable at this stage. Also it's unlikely you'd have to do more than a couple of scenes on spec - it's pretty much sending in brief ideas for consideration, which will get shot down or met with appreciative murmerings as the case may be.

'Romey loves Jools' seems to be working well as an introductory script though. Because GW was team-written, it's impossible for people to tell which bits were yours (unless you set up a blog and list them, ahem), so it's handy to have a full twenty two minute sitcom script to show you can do funny and deliver a proper narrative structure into the bargain. So even if R+J never gets as far as a commissioning editor's desk, at least the effort isn't wasted.

A load of nonsense, quite frankly.

Just spent five-and-a-bit hours on a train from Corwnwall opposite two of the most annoying, braying junior poshos it has ever been my misfortune to encounter.

Why are posh youths always pinker than normal people? And louder. I hate their checked farmers' shirts, and their ruddy good health, and their nascent Boris Johnson hair. And their proper shoes. Who wears proper shoes with jeans? Annoying poshos, that's who.

We used to have some great posh kids come into the bookshop in Canterbury, from the local public school, which I think was slightly older than the cathedral (note: in Britain, a public school is what in other countries would be called a 'private school'. I don't know why). They were going to film Harry Potter around Canterbury Cathedral, but someone complained about lowering the tone, the silly sods, bearing in mind Henry II had beaten them to it a few hundred years ago by having Thomas Becket murderized just to the left of the gift shop.

Mostly, the public schoolkids were just a little bit over-confident, and smug, until they hit thirteen, and the heroin kicked in, at which point they dressed like Eminemineminem and tried to shoplift books about William Blake. I always found my grimy comprehensive school background rebelling against the posh kids, making me sneer and attempt to pour jam into their satchels. The counterpoint to this was that when one of the better-brought-up young aristos would ask for help in a properly polite manner, I would swing wildly too far the other way and find myself attempting to tug my forelock while simultaneously attempt four kinds of cringe. The british class system is a strange thing.

In fact, a friend of mine had attended that very public school, which made our occasional visits to drop off books terribly amusing, due to his habit of, once within the school walls, suddenly adopting an enormously posh voice and saying things like 'I don't think we'll ever get out of these beastly quads!' and 'who's for a game of wincey-nancey?'. Never did find out what that was, although apparently the last match ended with four scullery maids pregnant and the local constabulary having to send off for replacement eppaulettes.

Fwah fwah fwah.

Scrawly goodness.

seasons by mao
Originally uploaded by jamesandthebluecat.

If you have broadband, and time to spare, have a look at the Strings of Fate webcomic by Mao (creator of the rather lovely 'seasons' illustration I've put up) . You need to stick with it through the first couple of chapters (best way is to download the chapters as per the bottom of the page), as both art and storytelling quickly develop into something quite glorious, as though someone had taken Disney-style drawings and turned them into something much much richer and darker.

The comic finishes eventually because Mao has to start art college. This very nearly made me want to kill myself. On the other hand, animation in about five years or so could finally start to turn into the medium that (some Pixar stuff aside) it currently very much isn't.

The Guardian currently has a great cartoon strip called Hunter and Painter, the full website for which is here. Apparently it's only running until 7th January, which is a great shame, as I may be the only person in the world who simply doesn't get Steve Bell's stuff.

Never really came to grips with most of the strips in the Guardian to be honest, although I finally got Doonesbury after just frowning at it for about five years. I think my heart will always belong to Calvin and Hobbes though. Magical stuff, and I always hoped Bill Waterson would move on to a full graphic novel, but there doesn't seem to be any sign of that happening. Maybe one day though.

Off my (fabulous) arse.

This entry on Orbyn's blog finally got me to contribute to the tsunami appeal. Funny how blogs have made things just that little bit more personal - which encourages one to get just a little more involved that would otherwise have been the case.

Not that there's anything necessarily wrong with the way the traditional media have been covering the disaster, but there's such a format to these things now, it can somehow turn into a media event, with plenty of dramatic pictures and shaky-cam footage. Even the best journalists can, in these circumstances, turn into some appointed high priest of news, and the end result is dramatic, but leaves you feeling ultimately rather hopeless about the whole thing. What difference will a comparatively small cheque here or there make?

Not everyone feels this way (thank god), but I'm ashamed to say it was only when they showed white, Western tourists that I got the shiver of 'that could have been me'. And yet that still wasn't enough to make me do anything about it. For that, I needed a simply-told story, no pictures, appearing in a blog by someone I've never met, that I probably check on twice a week or so.

Of course the real worry is that in a couple of weeks or so, when all the photogenic opportunities have dried up, the world will gradually forget and move on, just when the survivors need more help than ever (providing food, shelter, medical aid). I like to think blogs can help, in some small way, by providing a connection to both survivors and their devastated communities. But I think right now, blogs are showing that the world is infinitely messier than we would ever have believed, but that each of us, in our own small way, has the power to do something about it.

Details on how to contribute here.

Don't worry, I'll go back to slugs and swearing tomorrow.