Collecting Things

Politics Off The Telly has the last word on Election night, or as I like to think of it, the night which screwed up my sleeping pattern for a week. Seriously. I'm only just getting over it.

"There's nothing for it but for David to hand over to Jeremy. "You've seduced another guest into your salon." "Steady on," replies Jeremy, "it's Ken Clarke!" The former Chancellor, shown at his count looking more dishevelled than usual, reveals "I find your exit poll very boring." Jeremy incorrectly paraphrases a quote he made on Radio 4's Any Questions? "Misquotation again!" Clarke booms. "Ken's always good value for money," mocks Jeremy's next guest David Blunkett, "you should have him all night." At which point Jeremy wryly makes to go back to talking to Clarke, before resuming his conversation with Blunkett who's in Sheffield. Alas, their dialogue has to be curtailed, prompting Blunkett to declare: "You're just interrupting me again, and I was just trying to say something non-party political and sensible, but back to you Jeremy, carry on in the usual way!" "Oh, there's no need to take that tone," drawls Paxman, but before the cod-pleasantries can continue David has to take us over to Erewash where we find - at last! - Daisy Sampson."

I actually went to bed at 4:30am so I wasn't up for Galloway and Paxman and I didn't realise BBC Breakfast News had even been on. So for me it seemed as though Dimbleby et al had been broadcasting for twenty-eight hours straight....

The Road To Beijing

The Road To Beijing Japan. "The British team is led by Tim Don, who won the World Cup in Honolulu earlier in the season, along with veteran Olympian Andrew Johns and 3rd place in the 2004 World Cup standing, Stuart Hayes. The women?s team is led by Michelle Dillon who was 2nd at this event in 2004, as well as Kerry Lang from Scotland who came out of nowhere in Mazatlan to post an impressive top 10 finish." [about]

Mr Blue Sky

The Weather Somehow I missed this. Somehow I missed a tornado sweeping through Sefton Park (were I live). There is even a picture, which seems to be at the lake.

"The tornado struck at 5.45pm just as Mr Byrne, a father-of two, was putting away his camera, having captured his catch on film. As Mr Byrne returned the carp to the lake, the weather suddenly changed."

Apparently it only lasted 30 seconds. I think I was cooking beef burgers at the time.

Planned relaxation

Life Here I am having broken up for an unexpected holiday from work. Sometimes you never know what's going to be happening at the end of the week from the beginning. There's something about knowing that you aren't going to have to get up for any particular time which is somewhat relaxing. But for a change I have things planned: the new World Museum, Liverpool next Tuesday, Belfast on Thursday, Manchester and hopefully Star Wars on Friday. So planned relaxation then.

Flicker

Film This article at the BBC website about the Canne film festival, appears to be about Woody Allen's apparently great new British film, Match Point. And then weirdly at the end, the following happens:

"(David) Thompson also confirmed that BBC Films is pushing ahead with its plans for a Doctor Who feature, the progress of which is dependent on how the new Doctor Who TV series is received in the US."

Apart from the obvious, there a few things which don't add up about the end of this sentence. They're not going to make a film unless the new series is recieved well in the US. As far as I know, after the Sci-Fi Channel turned it down (and what were they thinking?) no other US tv channel has bought the rights to the series. So they're waiting for the new series to be bought and shown in one country before they make a film version. Which leads on to the next thought -- would it be a big version of the tv show with David and Billie acting and Russell writing or some 'name' actors? In which case, what would be the point? You'd end up with the Peter Cushing situation which I don't think would jive with the more media savvy kids of today, who'd more than likely be wondering why The Doctor has changed shape again...

But what I really wanna do is ...

Film Being one of the twelve people who didn't have An American Werewolf In Paris (with its, my god, bungee from the Eiffel Tower opening), I like that Julie Delpy is looking to return to the horror genre. But this time she wants to direct:

"Its based on a true story based on Elizabeth Bathory who was a Hungarian countess in the 1600s. She became obsessed with eternal youth and started bathing in virgins blood. She killed about 400 girls. It sounds like a gothic [tale] but its more a drama. Its more focusing on the psychology of human beings when theyre given power."

There is also some talk on her album (three tracks from which turned up in Before Sunset). She didn't really like the title ...

The Road To Beijing: Laurence Godfrey

The Road To Beijing Archer Laurence Godfrey is mention for the first time since the Olympics in conjunction with the news that the South Korean Dong Eun Suk is has become British archery's new head coach. He was previously with the Italians who've had a long spell of success under his tutorledge. [about]

Dive, dive

TV Up until about the age of twelve, I wondered why some films I watched on tv didn't end properly. I remember one in particular were a woman who's father left her a fortune in his will, also left a series of videos offering pearls of wisdom which she would go on to use in fighting crime. All kinds of ideas were set up and although one story ended, there were a number of things which were left hanging. It's not until years later I realised I'd been watching a failed pilot from the mid-Eighties. I also found out there are hundreds of them, shows which sometimes have a spark of genius which never goes to fruition because a series isn't ordered. It's not something which happens much over here. In the UK we tend to comission a series and then turn up later to sort out the wreckage.

But what about the actors in US pilots who are on tenderhooks to find out if they're in the new Desperate Housewives. In this, four actors are interviewed about the waiting game:

"With the fate of Reunion in the hands of the network, Faris is playing the waiting game again, but this time with added wisdom. "We won't find out until mid-May," he says. "You just try not to think about it. It's funny, last year we shot Life, and we knew we had this great thing, it was very exciting, but we knew it was a major risk as well. I was just on pins and needles to find out. This time around, I know what's going on. I understand why it would get picked up and why it might not be."

According to this the new Marshall Herscovitz and Ed Zwick hasn't been picked up yet. One of these days, those guys will create a series which will run and run...

Woody

Film At Canne, Woody Allen offers a particularly sensible approach to movie making:

""It's become more and more prevalent for studios and financiers to participate in the project," he said.

"They want to have a say in casting and read the script, and occasionally come to the set. I can never work like that. I don't let people read scripts."

He added: "I want the money in a brown paper bag and to give them the film a few months later, and that's that."

I'm saying that if this approach was used all over we wouldn't end up with any more bad films than we have now, and in fact film would exponentially increase in quality because we'd be seeing a single vision.

Huff ... hmm ...

Blog! The Huffington Post has launched then. I haven't really been into the Blogosphere in the last couple of days, so I don't know what the general reaction is but I've a feeling it'll be mixed. Parts of it are very good, but some of it is incomprehensible to people living outside Washington. The trick seems to be to stick with the commentators you've heard of. Which means I've caught this gem from Larry David and the shock and awe of Rob Reiner. I'll be really pleased when I can tune out the chatter and just pick the commentators I particularly want to read. That way I can avoid the really wierd polemical political stuff.

Wouldn't want to be ya!

TV Seeya. Wouldn't want to be ya. Celebrity Wrestling has been dropped from its Saturday night timeslot opposite The Doctor. It's to be replaced with reruns of the Star Wars movies. Which is to a degree even more bizarre scheduling. Which shall I watch -- a dodgy, pan and scan copy of a film I've got on dvd with ads on, or a brand new episode of the best show on tv? Erm ... just what's going on in the heads of ITV's schedulers? Expect a remake of The Tomorrow People to go into production ready for next year.

Compromise

Life Sometimes life is a compromise. I had a plan to book a holiday from work in June, when I could take myself off somewhere for a week, away from it all and just be me. Checking in work, I found out that if I wanted to take a whole week, because of staff allowances and whatnot I could only book next week or the first week in September. So I booked next week.

Last minute really. I spent last night online looking for one of those immortal cheap deals which everyone else I've ever met talks about their auntie/sister/work colleague taking. What I discovered is that unless its to a resort in Spain or Tunisia, if you want to go to a city, they don't exist. So I decided to go London. I worked out the train fare, and spent two hours looking for somewhere to stay. I talked to Suw and she suggested this and thanks to her I found a place two minutes walk away from Oxford Street.

Then reality started to sink in. I can't really afford it. The train fare, the accomodation, all the spending money. The only way it could work is to crash into my savings and if I want to do all the whatever it is I want to do in the future, I simply can't start skidding around that corner. So I'm thinking about the future more than the present again. Even though all I want to do right now is run away.

Instead of taking myself off somewhere for a week, I shall be spending next Thursday in Belfast. It's a compromise, but at least I'll be flying somewhere and I can say that I've visited all of our nation's capitals. And as I board the plane, I'll smile and think about the opportunities of the future, because sometimes compromise is a wonderful thing.

Numbers

The Globe Theatre, the original in the 1600s, had a capacity crowd of three thousand. There were only two hundred thousand people in London at the time so it would take just seventy-five performances before everyone in the city had seen one of Shakepeare's newest.

"Kissing a total stranger...."

TV Overnight ratings for 'The Long Game' have been posted at Outpost Gallifrey:

Dr Who average - 7.51m (share 38.9%)
Celeb Wrestling average - 2.56m (share 14.1%)

Has anyone thought about what's going to replace the series when it leaves the schedules in just over month's time? The BBC haven't had a ratings puller like this in that timeslot in years. Will they take advantage of the fact that people quite like watching drama in the early evening or can we expect some cruddy gameshow?

Early in the game

Film Some more information about Match Point, Woody Allen's UK adventure. Judging by this set report from Emily Mortimer, you can see why actors fall over each other to work with him.

"Filming with one of the great directors was bewildering from the very start. Having met Allen and shaken his hand, she went away convinced she had not got the part. 'But that's what everyone says about meeting him,' she recalls. 'Then I got the call and I was petrified. But it was so thrilling to be around someone who's been making films for so long that they know exactly what they want and how they want their world to look that there's no shilly-shallying. You do one or two takes, he says cut and we're all home by three in the afternoon. Marvellous.' "

Altered states

TV US site, TV Shows on DVD has begun a list of programmes which have appeared on Region One dvd in some altered form, either with music replacement or edits to the shows themselves. It may be useful in R2 as well.

Scooby Doo Hamlet

VELMA:
The first clue came from Elsinore's high walls,
Where, so said Hamlet, Hamlet's ghost did walk.
Yet though the elder Hamlet met his death,
And perforce hath been buried in the ground,
'Tis yet true one would not expect a ghost
To carry mud upon his spectral boots.
Yet mud didst Shaggy and his faithful hound
Espy, with footprints leading to a drop.
This might, at first, indeed bespeak a ghost...
Until, when I did seek for other answers,
I found a great, wide cloth of deepest black
Discarded in the moat of Elsinore.
'Tis clear, the "ghost" used this to slow his fall
While darkness rendered him invisible.

Theater club takes on challenge of staging Hamlet

I can't find a flight, so unfortunately I'll be missing this: "For perhaps the first time ever, a live production of William Shakespeare's Hamlet will be staged on Saipan. Scheduled for evening performances on Friday, May 13, and Saturday, May 14, in the Mount Carmel School Performance Hall, Hamlet marks the 18th production by the school's Theatre Club. "It's a rare opportunity for the island community to watch one of the greatest plays ever written," according to Hamlet producer and director, Galvin Deleon Guerrero. In addition to being one of the greatest, he notes, it is probably one of the most difficult to stage. Student director Caisha Sablan agreed. "I can't believe Mr. G said yes when we asked him if we could do this play."