Monday 9 May 2011

We demand cake and fine wine!

My interview with Richard E Grant is up on Don't Panic's site now:


Here's the link to the article on Don't Panic's site.


“We demand the finest wines available to humanity!” That must surely sound familiar, even to those with only the shallowest interest in cinema.

The excellent and seminal Withnail & I spawned not only the biggest quote-off amongst students up and down the country for the past two decades, but also the career of the sublime Richard E Grant, who this week will be announcing his involvement in a competition sponsored by British Airways to find the next rising star in British film-making. Ironically, he’s actually allergic to alcohol.

The winning entrant will develop their script under Grant’s tutelage and produce a short film, which will then be shown on board all BA long haul flights and, thrillingly, at the Olympic Games opening ceremony; offering a combined audience of, oh, only most of the world.

On the day of this interview Richard E Grant is in a serious mood, yet despite having spent all morning in a windowless meeting room on what will be the hottest day of the year so far, there is still a sense of mischief about him.

“There’s somebody whistling in the background, can you just ask them to shut up?” interrupts Grant. Someone is quickly despatched to find the offending whistler and put a cork in them.

“I hate whistling. Stop fucking whistling. Jesus Christ! Is there anything more naff than whistling? Winking and whistling are the two things I could take a machete to,” he says completely straight-faced but with twinkling blue eyes betraying an appetite for Withnail-ish maniacal absurdity.

“Anyway,” Grant resumes, “we’ve gone off piste.”

Over a quarter of a century ago Daniel Day Lewis turned down the part of Withnail to work on The Unbearable Lightness of Being and Richard E Grant was cast in his place. What followed that serendipitous turn of events has been a career spanning three decades during which time Grant has been actor, writer, director and producer.

“I’ve got enough experience and know what not to do as much as anything so hopefully I’ll be able to help somebody through that process. Writing and directing my own film and having gone through the 26 drafts I know that you’ve got to be open to other peoples’ input and accommodate work around that. Hopefully I’ll be able to help. That’s the theory.”

So apart from absence of whistling and winking, what will he be looking for in the potential winning script?

“Something that’s original and extraordinary and hopefully brilliant,” is his reply. “You usually know within 5 to 10 pages whether something’s going to hold your attention or not. The advantage of a short script is that you’ve got to be very clear and precise about what you’re doing. Whereas over 100 pages of script – 100 minutes of screen time – it’s a bigger opportunity for people to waffle on or get lost”.

Grant likens scripts to online dating, “I know people who have been on internet dates, they meet somebody and see them across the room and think ‘Oh God no’; it’s pretty similar with a script, you make a decision very, very fast. And it may be entirely inaccurate but you go on your instinct. I’m always struck by the fact that you make big decisions about where you’re going to live or if you fall in love with somebody, that may involve a whole lifetime or all the money that you’ve never had; you make those decisions much more quickly than you would decide what book you’re going to buy from Waterstone’s for example.”

Instinct and fortune are valuable ingredients in the recipe for success, equal to talent and good old hard graft. But the first knack to master is spotting the right opportunities in the first place.

“I know that in my case if Daniel Day Lewis had done Withnail & I 26 years ago I wouldn’t be sitting here now,” says Grant.

“But it’s given me almost every job I’ve had subsequently, as a result of that so I’m indebted to it.”

”Whether you’re successful or not has always been luck of the draw as much as perseverance and ambition. And everybody knows really talented people who just haven’t had the break. So I think that the opportunity to mentor somebody on this programme and give them a platform such as being shown on BA flights and at the Olympic ceremony is an unbelievable opportunity; that in the midst of the recession there’s something like this. There’s always an opportunity somewhere, it’s just finding what it is.”

“Hopefully the short film that somebody makes for this programme will be the one lucky break and lead them onto much bigger things. And hopefully employ me in the future. Yes! Mentor somebody and think ‘Now that I’ve helped you; reciprocate’. It’s the long game, the big picture! Why not?”

In the run up to the London 2012 Games, British Airways is offering career defining opportunities to three talented Brits in the fields of food, film and art, with mentoring from Heston Blumenthal, Richard E Grant and Tracey Emin. For entry details, visit ba.com/greatbritons

Friday 6 May 2011

More Shoe Horn Nonsense

Link here.

With Osama Bin Laden’s body still warm, and his media profile hotter than ever, a bidding war has broken out between OK! magazine and Wikileaks for the rights to publish the first exclusive pictures of his bullet mangled corpse.

Between them, the two media leviathans have been first to get in on exclusive snaps from the likes of Michael Douglas and Catherine Zeta-Jones’ wedding, images from a bombing raid killing Iraqi civilians and children, and many of Jordan’s before and after surgery results.

In its desperation to nail the scoop of the year, seasoned rag, OK!, is using increasingly aggressive tactics to secure exclusive rights to the bearded weirdo’s posthumous pics to prevent ‘new kid on the block’, Wikileaks, getting there first.

Owner, Richard Desmond, has been courting Obama and White House officials, reportedly sending signed copies of Katie Price’s seventh volume of her autobiography as a sweetner.

OK! Magazine's Richard Desmond claims Osama has gone from the most wanted list to the A-list
“He was America’s most wanted man when he was alive, but now the whole world wants a piece of him,” said Desmond of Bin Laden’s surging popularity.

“To have an Osama cover would be a dream scoop for OK!. It would shift more copies than the Brangelina twins or Kerry Katona on a fun-run.”

Hot on OK!’s heels, however, is Wikileaks editor, Julian Assange:

“The biggest question that’s on everyone’s lips is: who was he wearing when he died? If it was Alexander McQueen, that is going to blow everyone’s minds…if you’ll pardon the pun.”

Author Andrew Morton, who penned the best-selling biography of Diana, Princess of Wales, is already said to be in talks with Desmond and Assange about a potential publishing deal for his unauthorised biography of the enigmatic aeronautical enthusiast. The hope being that it will hit shelves before Katie Price can find the body – now believed to be 150km out in the Arabian Sea – and marry it.

Tuesday 3 May 2011

Assange Does A Marr?

My debut piece of nonsense for The Shoe Horn here:

Link here.

A super injunction granted to Wikileaks founder Julian Assange has been reproduced in full on his own infamous website.

The court order – gagging press from reporting on a new allegation of sexual impropriety brought by former Big Brother contestant, Imogen Thomas – appeared on the site last night and quickly spread, trending on twitter within minutes of publication.

Sources close to the silver haired secret-pedaller say lawyers fighting Assange’s extradition to Sweden – to answer a separate case of impropriety – applied to the courts ahead of the bank holiday weekend to ask for the gagging order.

The busty, brunette reality-TV-contestant-turned-underwear-model claims she had sex with Assange under duress from PR guru, Max Clifford, who represents both Assange and Thomas.

Courts were minded to grant the super injunction after deciding that the defence of public interest did not apply, given that there has long since ceased to be any public interest in former Big Brother contestants.

Assange pauses briefly outside Belmarsh magistrates to do a freakishly good impersonation of Mr Humphries from popular BBC sitcom Are You Being Served?
It’s unclear whether the document was published by Assange himself or whether its appearance on the site is an act of malicious mischief by another source, but the timing of its surfacing is suspicious.

Fellow super injunctee, Andrew Marr, has seen his popularity and man points sky-rocket in recent days since he admitted he’d managed to pull someone slutty enough to want to sell a story on him.

“Journalists, especially political ones, are such a dull, ugly bunch,” said a friend of the lady-killer.

“What with the Guardian winning that press award for its Wikileaks scoop and the US being too busy violating Bradley Manning’s human rights to bother with fabricating any more rape charges, Julian was getting a little worried that the Assange brand was losing its sex appeal.”

Assange, whose name is a variation on the French word for ‘monkey’, could not be reached for comment at the time of writing as he is currently covering the royal honeymoon, the location of which is, unsurprisingly, a secret.

Monday 2 May 2011

Thanks, Men's Health. Now you can be selfish AND rapey!

Out of casual curiosity I was flicking through the May issue of Men's Health magazine recently; interested to see whether health magazines targeted at guys are full of the same kind of advocacy of self-loathing and insidious pressure to conform to 'sexy = slim' tropes as women's 'health' magazines are. (To wit, just a couple of the cover stories from two of May's women's health publications: Top Sante, 'Why eating fast could make you fat'; and Women's Health, 'Look hot from behind'.)

So, are they?

Well, no, Men's Health doesn't seem to actively advocate self-loathing, taking a more impartial, educational tack with instructions and practical advice for exercising without any value judgement attached to body shape or individual results.

But disappointingly, just like its female counterparts, yes, Men's Health does encourage and nurture the insidious pressure to conform to the slim = sexy trope. Except the targets of this pressure espoused by the content within are not the male readers, but their female partners.

The following feature written by Kamin Mohammadi uses the conceit of a survey layout, invoking dubious statistics and research findings to support suggestions as to how readers can get their girlfriends to acquiesce to all of their sexual peccadilloes by employing stealth coercion techniques and more overt tactics that will in all likelihood, if practised in real life, scare the shit out of her.

Men, Men’s Health is not your friend! They are the relationship advice equivalent of some guy in his thirties who still lives with his parents and whose main interaction with the opposite sex is online role player gaming.

Here’s why…


Men’s Health says:
‘Tip the scales for better sex.’

Interesting turn of phrase there, ‘tip the scales’, no? There’s definitely an undercurrent of ‘Show her who’s boss!’, throughout this piece. ‘Men, tilt the balance of power in the relationship dynamic in your favour, because women are nagging harridans and men are just pussy whipped pussies who are sick of her having everything her own way and…’, yawn…I’ve bored myself already with the predictability of the script.


Men’s Health says:
Whose libido dictates when you have sex?

Testosterone driven man = higher libido right? Not so. If anything the pace of modern life swings the balance in her favour: a Mumsnet poll found that when women have less time for sex they're more self-centred in bed.

‘A Mumsnet poll’ is the only source evidence given for this spurious statement, so with equally scientific rigour I spent a couple of hours browsing the relationships forum on the Mumsnet website and found posts from women discussing their desire to have more sex as well as from women complaining that their partners wanted sex more often than they did. In all the threads I read I saw nothing to support the argument that the ‘pace of modern life swings in her favour’. In fact in nearly all the threads I read it seemed that when women have less time for sex it’s because they are busy raising children, often working too, and doing the lion’s share of the housework – favourable indeed, lucky them!

Men’s Health says:
RESTORE THE BALANCE
All you need to do is grab a coffee. The same poll also revealed a shortfall in pillow time makes her more likely to experiment so, with a little persuasion, you can even out the kicks. Get her to try things your way by adding a little froth. A study carried out at the University of Queensland in Australia found that caffeine makes us much more open to persuasion. And it's been shown to increase female sex drive. Two lattes to go please.


“Get her to try things your way”? Really? “…caffeine makes us more open to persuasion…”? Gross. So is this what is meant by the ‘pace of modern life swinging in her favour’? The precious little time she has after having worked all day, done the ironing, and fed, washed and put kids to bed, is spent with her partner trying to shove coffee down her throat in an effort to make it even more about him?

Hang on, the phone’s ringing… It’s 1950 on the line *passes phone to Men’s Health*.


Men’s Health says:
Is foreplay focused mainly on her or you?

The most common complaint I hear is 'He doesn't engage in much foreplay' says Dr Diana Wiley from the Seattle Institute for Sex Therapy. Yet according to a new survey carried out by lovestruck.com, in 58% of couples it's the woman who receives more attention during foreplay.

Shut up Dr Diana Wiley! What do you and your formal qualifications and the Seattle Institute for Sex Therapy know about foreplay anyway? This dating website says you are wrong!

Men’s Health says:
RESTORE THE BALANCE
To make sure some of that is coming back your way, press your whole body against hers; whole body contact intensifies excitement and will turn her on to paying attention to your body. According to Wiley, giving her 17 minutes of foreplay is optimum to ensure that you hit her gratitude levels.


You’ll probably want to warn her you’re intending to pin her to the bed with your whole body weight before you do it otherwise, as soon as she can breathe again, her gratitude will be immediately forthcoming in the form of her running towards the nearest exit. As for 17 minutes, can we not at least round it up to an even 20…?


Men’s Health says:
Whose media tastes influence her expectations?

Carrie Bradshaw has a lot to answer for. 'Women have learned through the media to demand good sex' says Pennant. A study by the university of Michigan found reading women's magazines makes her more ‘sexually assertive'. Translation: more work for you.

GOD FORBID men should ever have to work at seducing a woman. Damn Sex And The City for filling women’s heads with all sorts of nonsense about sexual assertion and female agency. (Although let’s not forget that in the movie, Carrie ends up marrying a man who jilted her at the altar – positive depiction? Possibly not.)

And what about those interfering women’s magazines, twisting ladies' minds with all sorts of feminist shit about how sex should be good…? Well worry not because May’s issue of Cosmopolitan magazine carries the cover story, ‘Men’s sex secrets: Can you handle the truth?’.

See! Silly men, scared that women were only thinking of themselves. As Cosmopolitan says, it’s what men are thinking that’s important!

Men’s Health says:
RESTORE THE BALANCE
Ask her to watch pornography with you, by heading to erikalust.com, which specialises in girl friendly titles. 'The imagery can free couples up to think about what they would like to do', says Pennant.


Never mind whether she’s into porn in the first place. Don’t even bother to check, it’s not important. What’s important is that you get her to do what you want by asking her to watch things you think she ought to watch.

After all, I’m sure it would never had occurred to her to watch porn at all if you hadn’t suggested it!


Men’s Health says:
When you share fantasies, whose get played out more often?
'Dopamine the brain's chemical responsible for arousal needs novelty', says Wiley. Our survey revealed when fantasies are played out, in 68% of cases they're hers not yours.

Ahh, ‘novelty’. Women: be wary of doing too much of what you like and are comfortable with in the bedroom lest this should ever wear off.

Men’s Health says:
RESTORE THE BALANCE
Load up your laptop. If she's unsure about acting out your fantasy explore it through online forums or pornography to bring her round to the idea. Research by psychologist Robert Cialdini found that when people are unsure how to act, they're more likely to follow what they see to be the accepted social norm. God bless the internet.


‘See darling, loads of people are into Hentai tentacle porn, they’re all doing it. What are you worried about, are you frigid or something?’.



God bless the internet? Or, God save men’s print media?