Birds do it...

There have been two birds copulating on my roof for the past three nights. At least, I assume that's what they're doing. Whatever it is it's very noisy.

Had a weird dream last night that I was forced to marry a giant turtle. In the dream I was very happily swimming around in lovely deep blue tropical waters, but was still mortified that i had been paired off with this creature. I think I must be slowly going mad...

"Old Boys" seems to be going rather well, so I take back some of the abuse I hurled at it a couple of weeks back. My director is great, now that she's actually read the script (it helps) and a couple of my actors are CSSD graduates so are pulling the whole thing along. We've reached the stage now where we can concentrate on doing some physical humour in addition ot the jokes I've written in, and to my delight my actors had themselves and me hysterical with laughter to the point we had to take a break to calm down. Our additions are tasteless in the extreme, and I'm kind of hoping none of my students show up to see it... The only problem we have is with the actor playing James. He's a sweetheart and also potentially quite sexy, and you could well believe he's a guy who'd pretend to be an investment banker. However, he hasn't learnt the script (at all), turns up on average half an hour late for rehearsals (last week he admitted he had got "held up" in the pub) and speaks so quietly you can't hear a word he's saying anyway. It isn't altogether his fault - this project is supposed to have WP overtones and consequently it attracts people who don't have much acting experience as well as the clique of CSSD graduates, so you would expect there to be some support for the actors, but there isn't. They get given a script and occasional slots later in the evening where they're allowed to rehearse in a public foyer, watched over by a director who's keen on getting you to jump up and down to "warm up" but hasn't yet read the script that requires direction. I feel bad because the office scenes are so sparklingly good now that he's going to stand out as being a bit rubbish, and the script will be lost for the main scene of the play. Even when you can hear him, he always sounds either pleasantly surprised or confused by each line, and I get the feeling he doesn't quite understand it, because nobody's tried to explain or given us all any time to go over such piffling detail as "what does this actually mean?" Certainly every line that I've put in to create a link to an earlier comment is lost entirely. My lovely director and I had a long chat about this on Monday and are going to do a lot of work from 6.30-10.00 tonight in the hope that the whole thing is at the very least acceptable by 6.30 on 7th. I've just thought... I hope he actually turns up by 6.30 on 7th... We have no understudies...

I need to sleep....

Hot Fuzz

Apparently the reason the Cheesm hasn't posted on my blog for so long is because he only posts when he disagrees with me. This means I have been utterly dull and predictable of late and, worryingly, suggests that the two of us have been in agreement for a good two or three months , which is surely a record. Note to self: must try to be controversial.

Unfortunately, I was going to report on Hot Fuzz, which I know is not going to be in the least bit controversial, and anyway, the Cheesm and I have discussed this already. Hot Fuzz was brilliantly funny and had the added bonus of being (inexplicably) a 15, so there were no ferral youths flicking popcorn at me from the backseats of Camden Odeon's Screen One (I know, I know, they don't show stuff like this at Screen on the Hill.) I was amused by Metro's warning, underneath all the other 15s that contain "sex scenes", "sex references", "violence" etc, Hot Fuzz contained, apparently, "extreme comic violence and language". Extreme comic violence? Does that make it extremely comic, or extremely violent? Or both? And language? The British film I'm about to see contains language? Which one? English? Italian? Swahili? You're kidding me!

I'm not really sure how to describe Hot Fuzz. I suppose it's Scary Movie meets Lethal Weapon meets the Wicker Man, with the whole lot transported ostensibly to Gloucestershire (though it's filmed in Wells) but that definition makes less sense written down than it did in my head. Basically it's a piss-take on American cop shoot-out movies, with the Shoot-out to End All Shoot-0uts in the Somerfield carpark (incidentally also the Cinema carpark in Wells, Wells cinema being a large shed with no parking spaces of its own.) You get the feeling that at this point in the film they realised they had a lot of money left over, and in their over-excitement said "hey, let's make it even longer!" What you end up with is twenty minutes or so of slightly trippy carnage ("extreme comic violence", I presume) interspersed with me going "I've been there. And there. And there", much to F's anoyance. It has become an unwritten rule that I can only see films that have been filmed near where I live/used to live - the last Simon Pegg film was largely shot around Ferme Park Road in Haringay, though ironically my cameo was shot on Wormwood Scrubs at 7 in the morning in the snow. I can therefore reveal, incidentally, that the pub full of underage drinkers used in Hot Fuzz is not far from the truth, and the extras used were most probably from Wells Cathedral School. We used to joke that in the local pubs they used to ID you to ensure you were under 18.

I won't spoil the plot (such as it is) as this really is one that's worth the £9 (£9!) ticket.

Inadvertantly followed my boss around Sainsbury's. Spent the afternoon playing scrabble. Note to self: must get a life.

Have unwittingly been roped in to running Sunday School, the aim of which seems to be to scare kids into good behaviour until they are old enough to actively reject religion. Some bright spark came up with the idea of each child making their own "Sin box" for Lent, with different bits of coloured paper symbolising Sins and Good Acts for them to post whenever necessary. This relies on kids' honesty, and means that the most honest kids will have absolutely no self-worth or confidence left in 42 days' time. Nice one.

Venus

I realise there's been quite a lot of stuff going on recently that might have interested people more than my rants about the weather. Like, for example, the pagan wedding I went to recently. If I was any good at taking photos and wasn't technologically inept and thus unable to figure out how to put photos on my blog, I would show you some of the weird and wonderful costumes that were on offer there. Most interesting, though, was not the couple themselves (lovely though they are) but the motley crew of guests, most of whom they had unearthed from a roleplay society at UCL Union. One, who was dressed like Adam Ant but talked in a monotone that reminded me of a Peter Cook character, was especially noteworthy:

Me: "So, what do you do?"

Him: (deadpan) "I make sex toys"

Me: (not quite sure of what to say) "Really? That's interesying. What kind of stuff"

Him: (wary) "I have a line in dungeon furniture"

He looked distinctly unimpressed when I asked him if he'd come as Jack Sparrow from "Pirates of the Caribbean", and suspiciously replied "No."

I think it's the bizarrest wedding I've ever been to: a short ceremony conducted by a part-time druid who's also an actor, whereby ex-girlfriends of the bridge and general roleplay people read poems about fire, water and all the rest of it (ostensibly - really they were all about sex) followed by a heavy metal disco without a DJ, where some home-made CDs were blasted over some loud speakers and the guests (literally) let their hair down.

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I've started to look forward to the week as it feels like a break from the weekend. Decided on Saturday Enough was Enough and spent it in the bath re-reading "1066 and All That" (this, I decided, was a Good Thing) and dragged myself out to see "Venus" in the afternoon.

It's not a bad film, but anything you see in Swiss Cottage Odeon is rather marred by the fact you're seeing it in Swiss Cottage Odeon. You may £9, more than the DVD will cost in Fopp, to sit in a tiny seat in a cinema that hasn't been cleaned since about 1986, and get fed bollocks about how they now run Mother and Baby screenings. Add to this the fact that the reason I'm even there in the first place is that Camden cinema can't be arsed to show anything that might be deemed remotely arty, experimental or foreign (unless of course it's Irish), and the whole thing is frankly Annoying. I could go to the Renoir or Screen on the Hill for the same price, but get lots of legroom, comfy seats and a clientele who don't spend the film flicking popcorn at my head thrown in, but they never seem to show the films I want to see when I want to see them.

But "Venus" redeemed itself firstly by being shot roughly 100 yards down my road. In fact, I walked past the house where Peter O'Toole was meant to live on my way to St M's yesterday. So I spent a happy afternoon trying to spot my flat in the background and feeling like I lived somewhere remotely fashionable for a change. The last time I was able to do this (with the exception of Shaun of the Dead, which was different) was when I went to see "The Full Monty" and exclaimed excitedly when the Asda first appeared, much to my friend's embarrassment, "I've been there!"

It's an odd film with "Taming of the Shrew" overtones but slightly ruder language not to say a certain implausibility, with a fairly decent soundtrack thrown in. It didn't seem to have much of a story, but perhaps that was just me expecting too much for my £9. Basically, Peter O'Toole is Very Old. Then he dies. Jodie Whittaker, on the other hand, is a Complete Cow, then she's Not Any More. Like "The Taming of the Shrew", the transformation from Complete Cow to Not a Complete Cow is unconvincingly immediate - despite his best efforts, she's only shocked into it when her boyfriend assaults the Very Old character and death looms ever closer. The assault takes place after he has apparently walked all the way from Willes Road in Kentish Town down to the Open Air Theatre in Regents Park, had a slightly arty Voices from the Past thing strike him while he's there (that's presumably why it wasn't on in Camden), recited a bit of Shakespeare (as you do) and walked all the way back, all before the two nineteen-year-olds have managed to finish having a shag in his bed. You wonder what went on in what was presumably a good two-hour period.

Well, anyway, it's worth seeing if you get the chance, just not in an Odeon.

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In other film news, Helen Mirren got her Bafta (surprise, surprise) and promptly dedicated it to Ian Richardson. Like she dedicated the last one to the Queen (who I'm sure was thrilled.) Why can't she just say "thanks very much" and smile? To whoever decides the awards, take the hint: she doesn't want them. Give them to Penelope Cruz and anyone involved in "Little Miss Sunshine" instead.

Let it Snow, Let it Snow, Let it Snow

You'd think these people had never seen snow before! (The snowmen with guitars I find particularly unnerving.) Yes, Britain grinds to a halt and stares in wonderment saying "What is this cold, white substance mysteriously falling out of the sky? It must be a miracle!"

Er, no. It's not a miracle. It's called weather.

Apparently it's the "biggest snowfall for 7 years" This does not excite me. What do they want us to say? Shit! Seven years! I was, gosh, only 19 then! It's not got quite the same ring as, say, "biggest snowfall since 1650", and anyway, it's not like we're lighting bonfires on the Thames. All it means is we need to wait three times as long for a tube and I fell flat on my arse sliding down Queen's Crescent. (That must have looked silly.) It's also bollocks. I remember making Snow Angels (I know, I have such a full and exciting life) in St James Park in 2003. I'm sure you couldn't have done that with yesterday's pitiful offering, which had all but disappeared by the time I left Back Hill at lunchtime.

Schools have closed, on the basis that children might hurt themselves in the snow. This reasoning is based on the notion that, without school to go to, children will sit safely snuggled up at home gazing in awe at the snow through their windows, and will not be, say, hurling snowballs at each other, the 46 bus (we were hit by 5 different troupes of children on the way in - I told you everyone hated the 46 bus) or, indeed, engaging in more traditional pastimes such as shoplifting and nicking cars.

Speaking of lunch (I kind of was earlier. Come on, keep up!) my boss seems to think I am somehow aiming at becoming a Size 0 model, and has taken to asking me what I've eaten for breakfast. A slice of toast, since you ask, followed by chocolate mini bites at work. Not very Prada, if you ask me.

As I have no other news, and interaction on this blog has dropped to an all-time low this week, I thought I'd try out my quiz on you. There are no trick questions - it's designed to try and give our Night Shelter guests something to do, and indeed, something to do that doesn't involve hitting each other or nicking our spoons. Answers on a postcard, or, failing that, my comments page.

Have a good weekend.

Night Shelter Quiz

Film and TV
1. Who wrote “A Prairie Home Companion”?
2. Tony Blair, Mel Gibson, Richard Gere, REM, Ian McKellan, Aerosmith and The Red Hot Chilli Peppers have all appeared as characters where?
3. Which film includes the line “You’re only supposed to blow the bloody doors off”?
4. Who are Tinky Winky, Dipsy, Laa-Laa and Po?
5. Laurence Fishburne had his first major film role in which 1979 film?
6. Which TV series features a detective with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder?
7. Who was the other male lead alongside Bing Crosy in “White Christmas”?
8. Ben Elton, Rik Mayall and Lise Mayer co-wrote which cult TV series?
9. Which was the first colour film to win the Best Picture Oscar?
10. Michael Palin, John Cleese, Kevin Kline and Jamie Lee Curtis co-starred in which 1988 film?

Music
1. Reg Dwight is the real name of which singer/songwriter?
2. Which song starts with the line “breaking rocks in the hot sun”?
3. “Penny Lane” was on one side of a double-A. What was on the other?
4. Who can be seen playing mandolin in the video of “Maggie May”?
5. In their 1967 hit, the Monkees took the last train to where?
6. Which song starts “They paved Paradise, put up a parking lot”?
7. Which act, representing the UK, won the Eurovision Song Contest in 1997?
8. Who has daughters called Fifi Trixibelle and Peaches?
9. Which singer became famous through Myspace with “Smile”?
10. “I’m Forever Blowing Bubbles” has become the theme song for which football team?


Sport
1. Who plays at Valley Parade?
2. Which famous racehorse died in November 2006?
3. Which cricketer was nicknamed “The Cat”
4. How long is the Great North Run?
5. Which team is known as The Blades?
6. The Indianapolis Colts recently beat which team to win the Super Bowl?
7. What is the nickname of champion boxer Ricky Hatton?
8. How many pockets does a snooker table have?
9. Where were the Winter Olympics held in 1994?
10. In golf, US Masters Champion Vijay Singh is from which country?

General Knowledge
1. What is the largest building in the United States?
2. What is the capital of Australia?
3. What was John Wayne’s real name?
4. Which extinct creature got its name from the Portuguese word for “stupid”?
5. How do you say “No Worries” in Swahili?
6. In which year did the Euro first become official useable currency?
7. According to Douglas Adams, what is the answer to the Meaning of Life?
8. The streets of Atlantic City were used in the first official version of what?
9. On the periodic table, Pb is the symbol for which element?
10. What were Little Boy and Fat Man?