Oscars have come and gone. I missed the ceremony this year but I did see the BAFTAS which were probably better due in part to the nominees (”The Constant Gardener” replaced “Munich” in most categories and is clearly a better film). The academy selected the films they believed were the most important films of the year. But which film has the issue that should be praised above the others? I haven’t yet seen “Good Night, and Good Luck” (attacking current media info-tainment and attempts to limit free speech) or “Capote” (the only film to be nominated that is more character study than issue-driven) but am sure that they will be well worth a look. On Saturday Hannah and I happened to rent Best Motion Picture of the Year; “Crash“. This was an excellent film, very well handled and the way the separate stories and characters were affected by each other was beautifully done but we both felt the race issue but a bit heavy handed and forced in places. Here reality seemed to be distorted to make things seem worse than they are (like the state of relationships were made to out to be nothing but hellish in “Closer“). Maybe I’m just being naive, being white and middle class and not living in the U.S., but have these issues not been dealt with and addressed in cinema countless times over the last few decades (e.g. “To Kill a Mockingbird“, “A Time to Kill“, just off the top of my head)? Is the situation not better now then it has been in the past or are racial prejudices and racial tensions so bad now that this film is really that important? Certainly the script has been around since at least 2001 according to the IMDB (where these links will take you). I just thought it was a very well made film that was refreshing in that every racial group demonstrates their own predjudices e.g. the Don Cheadle character referring to his girlfriend/partner as being Mexican when she is infact half Puerto Rican and half El Salvadorian. This too has been done before in films like “Traffic“.
Even “Brokeback Mountain” which was also excellent is deemed important not because it is a wonderfully written love story that is superbly filmed and acted but because it is a gay cowboy love story. I just thought it was great because the gay characters were not relegated to the side lines or presented as being riotously camp so that they were the focus of humour but this has similarly been done before in other genres (E.g. “Wilde“, “My Own Private Idaho“). Maybe because these films remind the viewer how much worse the situation could be (i.e. if the whole of the U.S. went back to the racism and homophobia that it had in the 60’s), they are considered safe and worthy of being rewarded and why more revealing and potentially dangerous films like “The Constant Gardener” and “Syriana” were kept out of the best picture and best director categories. “Philadelphia“, which isn’t a great film, managed to show a sympathetic and realistic gay character and a black character who is biggoted and predjudiced in the same film and that was over ten years ago. If the academy is arguing that “Crash” and “Brokeback Mountain” deserved to triumph because they are well made films then that’s one thing but I suspect that it was their issues that lead them to victory and kept other well made films out of contention.

I was reminded of this fable this weekend. Not because of the moral of the story but because it would make a cool name for a pub and exactly what I’d name mine if I ever opened one. Hannah had taken me to two pubs in Oxford, one called The Lamb and Flag (we think it was - Hannah remembered where the place was but we never actually ckecked the name and we passed a different Lamb and Flag later so either Oxford has two, or we went to a pub with an entirely different name…) and The Eagle and Child. Now I think I’m right in saying that The Lamb and Flag probably has Navy origins what with associations to the royal navy flag and/or Lamb’s Navy Rum. I might be wholly wrong there. The Eagle and Child did have a display that babbled something about somebody’s coat of arms and a child that was raised by an eagle and underground tunnels (that are still there apparently). Unfortunately it wasn’t really very interesting and I had forgotten the story before I left the place (and not due to drinking as I was only on my second).

My pub would boast a display that recounted how a bat, a bramble and cormorant met and decided to go into business together. They agreed that each of them would bring something to the new venture in the way of capitol with the bat securing a large monetry loan, the bramble arranging to buy a large quantity of cloth on credit and the cormorant getting his claws on a large stocklpile of copper. The three needed to transport their wares abroad but whilst they were at sea fell victim to a violent storm that scuppered the ship. The three partners made it to land but the ship and all of their goods and monies were lost. To this day the bat never goes out after dark fearing he will run into his creditors, the bramble strives to catch the clothes of passers by hoping to recover some of his cloth and the cormorant flies over the sea looking for traces of the lost cargo of copper. The moral is something like, make sure you make careful investments, or choose your business partners carefully, lest you spent the rest of your life affected by your misadventures. I’m sure there’s more to the story than that but I couldn’t find anything further. This fable never seems to get the exposure of stories like The Hare and the Tortoise or the Fox and the Grapes but I will always love it because it has the coolest name. You might say to your mate, “Fancy a pint at the Bat, Bramble and Cormorant?” or “Got absolutely leathered in the Cormorant last night?”. Although having said that people would probably just shorten my pub’s name to “You and Dave goin’ down the BBC later?”. At least you won’t mistake it for another pub.

March. I can’t believe it’s come around so quickly. I no longer feel I have to hide indoors away from the icy climes and now that the Winter season of quality TV including Life on Mars, Hotel Babylon, Eleventh Hour and the two recent Poliakoff dramas, Friends and Crocodiles and Gideon’s Daughter is drawing to a close, I feel a desrie to roam around and visit people at weekends. My Spring ‘06 Tour takes in a visit to Oxford to see my friend Hannah (and her brother Robbie, who is just back from a recent jaunt to South Africa); a housewarming party in Brixton hosted by my good friends Benj and Ros, where I’ll also get to see lovelies Dave and Alex; a return to dear old Bristol for a catch up with folk there that will most likey include heavy drinking (as every trip to Bristol invariably does) and finally a weekend visiting my pal Rich who has recently moved into a new pad between Stoke and Stafford. It will be interesting to see if this can achieved with my complete and total lack of money but I really feel that it is time to stop feeling sorry for myself and get back in touch with the physical world

Having recently been a position to digitise my sizeable music collection, I been able to reassess how I’ve enjoyed music and how I’ve discovered new things and spotted links between artists and genres. And also friendships. When looking for holes in my iTunes music library – things I will need to download or buy on CD – I’ve had to acknowledge that there are many things that I only own on minidisc, or going back even further, on cassette.

I was reminded of the significance of the compilation (or mix) tape in the opening chapter of “Starter for Ten” by David Nicholls (a book I’ve wanted to find time to read ever since he headed a very interesting and inspirational course on script editing I was fortunate to be sent on). The protagonist is about to leave for university and one of his best friends, unable to find any other way to convey his feelings (sound familiar, guys?) gives his mate a mix tape. The protagonist thanks his friend and his friend responds;

“‘Alright, Jackson, it’s only a sixty-nine pee tape from the market, no need to cry about it.’ He says that, but we’re both aware that a ninety-minute compilation tape represents a good three hours of work, more if you’re going to design an inlay card.”

I realised that this is very true. Although this story is set in 1985, things didn’t really move forward much until the digital revolution - you had to actually sit there and listen to each and every track to make sure that it recorded OK but more importantly that the order of the songs was right for the general message you wanted to convey. I immediately thought of Nick Hornby’s memorable explanation of the guidelines of preparing a successful compilation in High Fidelity;

“Making a tape is like writing a letter - there’s a lot of erasing a rethinking and starting again… You’ve got to kick it off with a corker, to hold the attention, and then you’ve got to up it a notch, or cool it a notch and you can’t have white music and black music together, unless the white music sounds black, and you can’t have two tracks by the same artist side by side, unless you’ve done the whole thing in pairs and… oh, there are lots of rules.”

The cassettes I’ve recently found are “Schrodinger’s Astrochicken”, from my buddy Robert that he posted when I was in my first term of uni and cheered me up no end, “Fish Pan Skillet Trousers” from another good friend Liam who forwarded the cassette to me in the first term of my second year and similarly brought a smile to face, and another by my uni housemate of two years Graeme, who sent me a minidisc just after I’d moved to Brum called (rather less imaginatively) “Compilation for James”. All three were full of memorable tunes by artists I went off and bought more music by and still listen to today. As well as bringing endless enjoyment, they let me know I was missed.

I’ve made many a mix tape for friends and significant others and have each and every time been amazed at how much time and thought they have required. Because of this you knew that when you were given one, it must mean that someone had spent an equivalent effort for you. I don’t think the same can be said for assembling a playlist and burning a CD for you. It’ll still be special because you’ve carefully selected the songs and the order (even if random play can negate the structure) but won’t ever quite recapture that feeling that someone has written off a whole evening to put a smile on your face.

So I’m still between jobs. I think this is a kind way of putting it. Out of work; unemployed; surfing the sofa is more the state of things. I mainly patrol BBC Jobs, Guardian Jobs and I get individual job alerts from my subscription to Production Base. Today has once more yielded wholly underwhelming results. At the moment I’m sticking to my guns and looking for drama work only (as time progresses I might have to extend my search criteria). Today’s job alert from Production Base has brought Fremantle Media to my attention and their current search for Clarity Operators for “Quizmania”.

You can imagine how my heart sinks everytime I read something like this. Firstly, I have no idea what a clarity operator is. Is this someone who dumbs down the content to a more baby-food level than it was before? It probably airs on UK TV Pleb Dazzle at 3 in the morning and attracts lowest common denominator viewing and is cheap and unimaginative viewing made by people who “…have experience within quiz or shopping formats.”
Maybe I should just bite the bullet and go for something like this. It does have the advantage of getttting me to London but I know I’d be miserable, it would look bad on the CV and might limit my already poor chances or getting back into drama.

I think for the time being I’ll leave this exciting opportunity to people more keen to immerse themselves in “…the UK’s most successful live interactive gameshow.” Best of luck to them.

Being in the midst of the Six Nations at the moment and loving rugby as he does Dad was ready for England vs Scotland at Murrayfield this weekend. Rae was home for the weekend but was due to be whisked away to sunny Snowdonia for some hiking on Saturday. Not being able to bear her lucky England top going unworn and therefor rendering it’s good fortune void, Rae passed the talisman to Dad who clambered into it. I think we have a fairly good side at the moment who were thoroughly capable of a grand slam having seen off Wales and Italy comfortably. Scotland, to everyone’s surprise had made a strong opening impression but were supposed to be beatable - or so we thought. Solid team work and a faultless defence triumphed over the English to reclaim the Calcutta Cup and dad never really got to make the above face again in a match devoid of tries. I was annoyed with a Scottish team who deserved the victory yet had been unable to beat a lacklustre Wales the week before. Rachael was annoyed that she hadn’t been dressed in her England top which apparently would have made all the difference.

Wow. Me with a blog - who would have thunked it? Thanks to my good friend Robert I now have one. Hurrah! There may well be teething problems as I try and learn how to use this blogging equipment but hopefully not. I’m delighted to finally have an internet presence! I look forward to your support in the matter