if in doubt do nothing

The administration team, including myself, were meant to give a presentation at Monday's team meeting, on 'what we do' - lest anyone be thinking that we spend our days shopping online or whatever. However we got bumped at the last minute, having presumably been judged to be too dull. Little did they know - now they will never get to see our dance routine set to a version of MC Hammer's U Can't Touch This, with the lyrics changed to reflect best practice in administration.

Actually I was somewhat relieved. I mean, it was a bit risky.

Someone asked me the other day if I had been 'impressed' by anyone in politics recently. I couldn't think of anything to say - except for no, obviously. If anyone in politics ever threatened to impress me, I would have to go out and get my critical faculties sharpened. But then, such is life, only a day or two later a new face in politics did emerge that excited my interest. Someone had entered a shop window dummy into an Aberdeen by-election under the name of Helena Torrey, I think it was. The name hardly matters, the important thing is that here at last is a political figure with integrity, one who:

a.) Won't lie.

b.) Is able to accommodate the whims of political fashion without altering her fundamental stance.

c.) Can easily withstand a grilling from Paxman. As long as he doesn't use a real grill.

I hear that she has already been taken into custody, along with her handler - proof, if any were needed, of her radical credentials.

The Hollywood Nightmare

The best thing to be yielded up by the BBC news website this week was (a link to) a letter from Joe Esterhaz to Mel Gibson, complaining about Gibson's refusal to direct his script. Not only that, it also detailed the Esterhaz family's terrifying experiences as houseguests of Gibson, wherein they cowered in their beds in fear for their lives while Gibson rampaged around the house like a mad gorilla. Among Mel's numerous crimes were saying that John Lennon 'deserved to be shot', and announcing to Esterhaz's fifteen year old son his intention of fucking his ex-girlfriend ('She is evil') from behind while simultaneously stabbing her in the back. Wild! Mel later sent the family a note apologising for the 'rage-filled puss' which occasionally bursts out of him. What? Is he some kind of were-cat? Anything is possible with Mel, it seems.

The script in question was for a historical drama about a Jewish hero, which is supposed to counter all those wild accusations of anti-Semitism that have been thrown Mel's way of late - although Mel's own idea (according to Esterhaz) is that the resulting film will 'convert the Jews to Christianity'. You do wonder if Joe might not have wondered a little sooner whether a man who habitually refers to Jews as 'oven-dodgers' is really the ideal person to be making 'the Jewish Braveheart' with. The Jewish Texas Chainsaw Massacre maybe.

Personally, I think Esterhaz's script sounds boring, and Joe should be thanking Mel for providing him with priceless new material - a psycho-thriller about a scriptwriter menaced by a bonkers Hollywood actor called (just a suggestion) Gil Mebson. It could be the Mommie Dearest of our age.

title

'Bieber covered in slime', said a BBC News headline. This meant, apparently, that Justin Bieber had been subjected to some sort of dunking on a children's TV programme. It wasn't just a statement of fact.

On Saturday I was having problems with the new washing machine. It wouldn't stop. Even shouting at it to STOP FOR CHRIST'S SAKE had no effect. Eventually I somehow managed to trick it into releasing my washing, but I'm not sure that it's entirely fooled, deep down. They're cleverer than they look, those things.

It wouldn't have mattered so much if I wasn't hurrying to get to Ross and Christine's; although, when I did, Ross was still in his dressing gown, making the most of his leisure time now that he has a new job. I don't know what it is, but such is the air of mystery that he has created around it, I speculated that it must be Al Qaeda - or KFC. 'Is there any reason it can't be both?', he asked.

We were going to a barbecue at Phil and Vicki's at which the guests of honour would be Rhys and Hadeel, who were launching their new baby Nia onto the social scene. 'Baby cuddles' were high on the agenda, though I warned Facebook not to expect any of those from me. Told by Vicki that I would be expected to 'hold a small child', I agreed only on the basis that it would be 'cooked to my liking'. In the event Rhys thrust his screaming child into my face while I was backed up against the wall. 'It was horrible', I gasped, after it was over, then seeing Hadeel staring right at me, felt obliged to add: 'No offence.'

In spite of the expected exhaustion, Rhys is still going to carry on reviewing films on the other blog. I gave him If...., an acknowledged classic, but when I returned home it was to see sleazy 1980 horror film Don't Go In The House, in which our 'hero''s memories of child abuse over the hob at his mother's hands have left him unable to relate to women except with a flamethrower, in a specially-built chamber with sheet-metal walls. This makes dating a bit of a challenge (this was in the days before Match.com, you understand); nevertheless, in a strangely poignant scene, he has a stab at 'normal behaviour' and visits a disco, but it all ends in disaster when he sets a woman's hair on fire (which was, to be fair, probably a lot harder to avoid in the 1980's).

At no point in the film, to my slight disappointment, does anyone actually say the words: 'Don't go in the house.'

Further Inconsequentialities

When I came back to work after another bout of watching films in London the radio had been changed to Heart. Apparently there had been some kind of crisis while I was away. Not an emotional crisis precipitated by one too many shrill discussions about the economy on Jeremy Vine (it was Vanessa Feltz this week, anyway), but a crisis of reception. So it was upbeat pop all the way. Don't Stop Believing, we were urged. All very well, but try taking 'a midnight train going anywhere' in real life. You'll find that the trains all go somewhere specific. It's to do with the way the tracks are laid down.

As for the films, my occasional co-blogger Rhys will be pleased to hear that Turkish auteur Nuri Bilge Ceylan has a new one out. Once Upon A Time In Anatolia is a conspicuously undramatic account of a murder investigation, giving as much screen time to (seemingly) banal conversations about yogurt as it does to the ins and outs of 'who done it'. I was gripped for the full two-and-a-half-hour running time. All the more so because, during the conversation about yogurt, a rather unpleasant yogurty aroma began to fill the cinema. Were the Curzon Soho doing Odorama now? Or were they just selling frozen yogurt?

Whatever - the trend seemed to have petered out by the time the autopsy scene came round.

I also saw Rampart, with Woody Harrelson. I mean, he was in the film, I didn't go with him (in spite of all my efforts). The screen in the Odeon Panton Street was also showing the Roman Polanski film Carnage, so that the two titles appeared one beneath the other just beside the entrance, creating a new entity which I misread as Rampant Carnage - now there's a film I'd like to see.