How Journalism Works...

In my professional life as a journalist, I get some pretty desperate emails from some pretty desperate PRs hungry to whore their clients in order to get them any form of publicity.

And I get the deal... They want to keep the profiles of their clients as high as possible and they're only doing their job. And the fact that many of their clients are talent-vacuum oxygen thieves with no real or discernible skill, whose only real claim to fame is appearing on some reality TV show, doesn't actually seem  to matter.

But every once in my while the mechanics of my industry still has the power to shock. Take today as a case in point...

A work colleague asked me to come and look at some pictures and, when I arrived at his screen, I was presented with semi-naked pictures of a sixtysomething soap star sunbathing topless. The shots looked like they were long-lens shots and clearly taken without the poor actress concerned's permission.

As far as I know, the actress concerned isn't any sort of publicity whore and she generally keeps a low public profile. She's quite good at what she does and she's part of a show with a huge fanbase. She certainly doesn't make herself a target for this sort of attention.

So what topless long-lens pictures of her were doing for sale on a photographer's website is somehow beyond me. I was genuinely appalled to see them. And appalling me is quite a feat these days...

Then I started thinking the thought process of the photographer concerned through, and I got even more appalled because I realised that he must have thought these were a sellable commodity. And that he had the right to sell them. With no consideration for the person concerned. And all for a quick buck.

Human beings are capable of amazing things, but when I see stuff like this happen I fear that Bill Hicks was maybe right. Maybe we are just a virus with shoes and we deserve to be wiped out.

Fortunately, the Leveson Report demanded some quite sweeping changes that will help outlaw this sort of practice. So thank God, Cameron and his mates are implementing them. Oh... Hang on... They're not, are they?

We're doomed...

Movie Madness...

After the success of the Missus not buying clothes in 2012 she has adopted a no-TV-watching policy for 2013. She can, however, watch movies and boxsets so we're currently stocking up boxsets we haven't seen and are also making lists of movies we haven't seen and were refining the rules of the movie list.

'I obviously don't mean I want to watch every movie I've never seen. For example I've not seen Cocoon III...' states the Missus.

'I didn't know there was one,' I reply, stunned that the idea could be stretched out to two movies let alone three.

'We should only include important or classic films and one of us can't have seen them,' she continues.

'There are loads of classic films I've never seen all the way through. I've never sat down and fully watched Casablanca or Citizen Kane...'

'We'll include those on the list.'

'I've also never seen Ran all the way through, which is ridiculous because I love Kurosawa. And I've never seen Debbie Does Dallas.'

It is at this point the Missus stops and stares.

'That's a porn film, isn't it?'

'Yes but it I'd quite like to see it.'

'Why?'

'Well, for a start, it's a classic 1970s film and as such I think it's quite an important cultural artefact. It also has significant cache because it's one of those films that was released around the time when it almost became acceptable for adults to go to the cinema and watch porn just like any other film. I've read lots about the film and that period so I think I'd like to see it...'

The Missus sighs and goes into the kitchen. I take this as a good sign because while it means it's not on the list it also means it's not definitely off it. 

Who knows? I may be able to get Deep Throat included, too. I won't tell her that I've actually seen that in its entirety...

Fashion News...

The Missus decided that 2012 would be the year she stopped buying clothes and I thought I'd try the same approach.

Sadly, I needed a few rash vests for martial arts training early on in the year, then a suit for a wedding, then some shorts and trousers for a holiday, then I succumbed to a sale and bought a few cheeps polo shirts... so my bid to not buy any clothes ultimately failed even though my 2012 clothes spending was far from excessive. 

The Missus, however, succeeded magnificently and didn't buy a thing. Instead she recycled lots of her old clothes and dug out stuff she hadn't worn for ages. So I'm going to follow suit and do it properly in 2013. I've got loads of clothes that I haven't worn in ages. Some of them are even nice... 

Bizarrely, however, after making this decision I still found myself looking round the sales and even more bizarrely I was quite taken with a pair of trousers from Vivienne Westwood. It was at this point that I realised that I must be going slightly insane because:

i) The trousers were about £120 after being reduced for £220

ii) They were a cross between combat trousers and clown's pants 

iii) They were the sort of trousers the girl from 1980s pop band the Thompson Twins used to wear and looked ridiculous even back then. 

I am now pleased that for the rest of 2013 I shall be removing myself from such ridiculous temptations. Goodbye new clothes...

Some New Year Thoughts...

Here are some things I've recently learnt:
i) The Christopher Nolan Batman trilogy is much better when you watch it as a trilogy over a couple of days. It is also much better if your wife buys it for you as a surprise Xmas present in flash box-set form and agrees to watch it with you.
ii) At times I can be quite funny. I've worked bloody hard on the script for Message For as the readthrough on 22 January approaches and usually I'm sick to death of any script when I've put this much work into it and worked on it for so long. But this still makes me laugh so it's possibly a bit good.
iii) At times I can be funny but I also can go too far. I've realised some of the jokes in Message For are funny but also fucking disgusting. The most disgusting of these are obviously going to stay but I may get rid of some of the more rubbish/sick/utterly-tasteless/possibly-unfunny gags.
iv) Starting the new year with a bad muscle injury in the leg at martial arts is both fucking annoying and fucking painful. And I even spent longer than normal warming up and stretching. Arse biscuits...
v) David Cameron is still a truly awful man with no moral compass or compassion for the most vulnerable members of society.
vi) Michael Nyman is very good and I shall be buying more of his work in 2013.

Fat's Your Lot!

I have piled on weight in the past three months and I am now 14 stone and six pounds.

This is the heaviest I have ever been and it must now stop as I am in danger of breaking the house rule when it comes to weight and size. And that is that the stomach must never be bigger than the chest. 

We call it the Tits-Belly Rule and I am breaking it.

Enders Watch...

The decline of EastEnders (or Shouty-Cockney-Land) has been much discussed in this blog. And, frankly, that's because it's utterly awful. And that's a shame because I still have fond memories of watching it in my soap-column-writing days and actually thinking it was quite good. It understood characters, plots and how to build big storylines that kept me interested because they were rooted in grounded and believable characters and the ever-escalating problems they endured.

Sadly, those recollections are now but a distant memory. Watching Shouty-Cockney-Land these days is like being forced to spend time with a once-elegant and entertaining wit who's now turned into a beer-fuelled pub bore. There he sits in the corner, hoping for the return of the days when people would fete him, while he repeats the same stories and insists on drunkenly shouting the punchlines in the hope that they will at some point regain their power to entertain.

The much-heralded Xmas special was a case in point. For months, the big reveal viewers were promised was the secret of what Max had got up to with brother Derek while 'Up North'. There were several good theories about this, including a possible tryst with the long-gone ex-lover Stacey Slater and potential involvement with some East European gangsters.

What we got instead was a convoluted story about Max being married, with the supposed-to-be-divorced bride turning up just as Max and Tanya were about to remarry. Then thrown into this mix was an unknown storyline about an aborted baby.

The second storyline involved the fallout of the Alfie and Kat split after her affair with Derek. If we were supposed to have some sympathy with Kat this failed because she's essentially been such a cow to one of the few genuinely likeable characters in Albert Square. The only sane response to this dilemma was the one Alfie took, namely 'Good bye to bad rubbish.' And it didn't matter how sorry Kat was and how much one of her voice messages pleaded for Derek to leave her alone.

The climax of the episode was the death of über-baddie Derek Branning. He left with some ridiculous speech about how he wanted respect and love, then tried to physically drag Kat out of the house to start a new life with him.

This could have actually been something very good. One of the many people who hated Derek could have killed him. Enough people had a motive and if two of three of them were involved it could have been collective guilt and secrets for the rest of the year. Instead he merely collapsed in the Square, presumably from heart attack or hair gel poisoning or as a tribute to Pauline Fowler. It was shit.

Watching Enders these days is like watching a badly done Aussie soap of about 30 years ago. A story is either introduced then resolved very quickly or it meanders after making unbelievable turn after unvelievable turn that has nothing to do with any character trait but everything to do with seeing out a poorly plotted storyline.

The Xmas episode was a case in point. To make the drama more dramatic we had a shock new character and new information turn up out of the blue, then we had to accept totally unbelievable character behaviour led to this situation. Think of old episodes of bad whodunits where the villain and several vital pieces of information are exposed at the last minute before the final reveal.

Well Enders at the moment is not that good. Or even that subtle. Not even the oft-derided Aussie soaps of 35 years ago do this any more. I'm giving up on Shouty-Cockney-Land for good. Home And Away is much more believeable and it's much better written. And it's sunny.

Enders is quite simply embarrassing.