Apparitions

Apparitions ain't no Bonekickers, more's the pity. Martin Shaw! Exorcism! Joe Ahearne! Clearly, this should be an instant BBC classic... but it ain't.

It looks beautiful. Martin Shaw is great - although it is hard to watch anything he's in without remembering that the entire cast is put on a strict vegan diet - I spend most of my time assuming everyone on screen is wistfully imagining bacon. Because it's Joe Ahearne the characters are thunderingly written, it's creepy, and it looks lovely.

And yet... it ends up being terrifying and dull, like a powerpoint presentation on staff restructuring. I found myself watching and loving it, and yet also pottering off to do some washing-up. And in any drama that has nuns, that's a bad sign.

Partly because the fiendishly complicated plot was broken down into endless scenes which went like this:

MARTIN SHAW: You're possessed by the demon
DEMON DAD: No I'm not!
MARTIN SHAW: (look of infinite regret with a twinkle) Yes, you are.
DEMON DAD: No, I'm not! (weeps tears of blood)

When one of these scenes takes place in a lighting shop, your heart sinks. Yes, it's so that Satan can switch all the lights off at the end of the scene (spooky), but it's all so mundane. You really don't get a sense of apocalypse when you're clocking the "sale" tags on halogen fittings.

Also, the gays don't come out of it well. Martin Shaw has a young seminary friend who is a bumder and worried that Satan cured his leprosy. When he's kicked out of the church he goes to a gay sauna and gets skinned alive by a demon. Which is tragic and poignant etc etc and yet feels Very Old Fashioned and Not Much Fun. I thought we'd moved beyond telly dramas that show All Gays End Unhappily?

It was probably making some kind of point higher than that, but it didn't register. And even in a gay sauna, the sounds of someone being skinned alive would attract attention - at the very least from pottering old voyeurs who mistook the screaming for someone having a Jolly Good Time.

I'll carry on watching though. It is, after all, Joe Ahearne, plus it has a nun in it who's dead snippy.

Maxwell's Fullmooners

What could be better than an evening of vaguely burlesque comedy in a giant tent? Quite a lot, actually.

Kate and Rick have been raving about Andrew Maxwell's Fullmooners - a travelling event that only occurs on a full moon in eccentric locations. I've seen Andrew Maxwell, and he's brilliant. I've seen his assistant, Sir Tim, doing a great Edinburgh show about Morris Dancing across England. It all sounded rar.

Of course, I forgot, I don't do off-tube. Getting to Victoria Park required a tube, a train, a bus, and walking down a street of angry straight men kicking things (did they lose a sporty-woo?). By which time I was not in the mood for Funny.

That said, the tent was lovely. As was Andrew Maxwell and Sir Tim. There were only two problems - the acts and the audience. According to the website, an average Fullmooners gig includes Simon Pegg, or Russell Brand, or Marjorie Dawes. Or at least someone funny. But not this night. "Well, it is a long way for anyone good to come," sighed Kate. Even Andrew Maxwell was recycling material from his Edinburgh show, which considering this was an audience of groupies, seemed lazy.

Which brings me on to the audience. I went off "I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue" slightly when I realised the audience were even more middle-aged, middle-class and ghastly than I am. This was worse. This was a tent full of Comedy Is My Life-rs. If you like it so much, why not just sit back and enjoy it rather than constantly taking photos with the flash on?

As one of the comics pointed out, having been blinded for the twelth time, "Have you Facebooked that? Am I tagged? Will people believe you were here now? Go on - take another!"

And, if they weren't taking photos, they were texting. ZOMG and LOL, most probably. Maybe even a ROFL. Mind you, thank god they were, cos when the power went, the only light was all those twinkling little screens, no doubt each one reading "Power cut!!! omg!!! Sacry!!!!xxx"

It was a room full of people desperately telling each other and all their friends they were having a good time.

Mind you, Fullmooners deserves to be the best thing ever. After all, it has Andrew Maxwell and Sir Tim, who are brilliant - what's not to love about an Old Etonian drinking beer through a bugle whilst playing The Last Post? (mind you, that was charming on stage, but describing it makes it sound like a rugby club turn).

I just wish it had been more of them, and they hadn't bothered with anyone else.

The Haunted Cupboard

Very brief cat update (yeah, there is other stuff, and soon, promise): Why don't they issue them with flashcards?

When the thing first arrived, it just had one mew. This was fine. This mew meant everything from "Hungry" to "Scared" to "Need to Wee".

Now, of course, it's settled in, and there's a whole panoply of mewls, chirrups, and howls. Most of them I can make a guess at from "It's nearly dawn, that makes it Breakfast o'Clock" through to "You're not watching that rubbish again, are you?". But some remain a mystery.

I'm sat in the spare room, and the cat is doing what she always does when I'm in here. She walks in. She sniffs her favourite electrical cable (one day I'm going to come home and find a just tiny fur coat, aren't I?), and then she turns, looks at the wardrobe and screams. It's very disconcerting. I means - my dress sense can't be that bad, can it?

On being an author

Last night I got to go to my first ever publishing party. It actually seemed to be a room full of lovely people I already know drinking free wine, but still, what a nice feeling. Especially as they handed out little badges which had our names on and said "author" underneath. I think I managed to leave before I did or said anything ghastly... but I'm not sure.

The best bit of the evening was when I nipped out to buy cigarettes. Nice shop owner smiles and says "Excuse me - aren't you a writer?"

"Why yes," I say, preening mightily. "However did you know?"

"From you name badge," he replied.

There Will Be Blood: Thomas The Tank Engine Edition

Genius.

Welcome to Wolverhampton

This is almost the first thing you see outside Wolverhampton train station. The second thing is a "nite club". Unlike Newport, things go rapidly uphill after that.

baaaack

So, I'm back from a week in Scotland. It was lovely. Just some walking and eating and drinking and generally living the life of a prematurely retired gay. The cat was okay when I got back and is now the size of a house (the cat sitter has been overfeeding her).

Went to Wolverhampton today to give a talk about the job I used to do. Genuinely lovely madness. Had a brief moment of relaxed, unguarded candour, and then noticed the attractive young blonde man in the front row. He was holding a camcorder. And he winked. At which point I went smartly back on message.

Sadly, he didn't hang around afterwards. But a man who'd built a TARDIS in his shed did. Apparently it made unusual sounds due to the functioning plasmatron.

The train journey both ways was fascinating. Who are these people who drink beer at 10am? And, on the way back, a couple sat listening to a CD walkman (remember them), with one earphone each. Their eyes were closed, they were holding hands and they were smiling.

Sachsgate Sackings

Well, it's all over, again. Mark Thompson finally emerged, blinking into the media spotlight like a mongoose suddenly appointed prep school headmaster. He gave the performance of an iron jelly, and then vanished.

My prediction that it'd just be the producer who got fired seems wildly wrong now. But then, Holy Moly points out that he was just filling in, while his uber-boss Lesley Douglas resigned rather than see him scape-goated. Good for her - it almost makes me forgive her for George Lamb and "women listen to music differently to men".

6Music is an interesting listen today. The giggling refrain of "ooh, we'd better not" and "we've been told we can't" suggests the gastric band of editorial policy has been tightened while terrified producers second guess every decision.

UPDATE: Of course, that didn't stop John Holmes from chatting to his co-host. "You've been reading the Book of Daniel?", "Yes. Chapter Six.", "Is that where he got thrown to the lions?" And, without a pause, he plays "Hanging on the telephone."

Sachsgate: From the forums

Magigirl says on Digitalspy It's time to disband the BBC

We can't continue to fund the filth which is being broadcast in our name and at our considerable expense, and we can't afford to keep on filling the bulging pockets of the likes of Jonathon Ross to the tune of millions of pounds each year, only for them to broadcast filthy, offensive material in return.

Presumably, the BBC served a useful purpose many decades ago but it's now time for the madness to stop.

Sack Ross, and then split the the BBC into its component parts and sell it off to the private sector, the proceeds from the sale being divided and returned to those who funded it, which is us - the licence-paying public.

Um. Meanwhile, the Today Programme pointed out that it was the 70th Anniversary of the War of the Worlds radio show and, very quietly, drew a parallel between millions of people being frightened by a radio programme they hadn't heard, and thousands of people being offended by a phone call they hadn't heard...

Sachsgate

I've met Andrew Sachs. I worked with him once. I was very hungover and trying not to vomit. This isn't so much declaring an interest as dropping a name. He was a nice man - very quiet, likes croissants, bit frosty. But then we had just had Hannah Gordon in and she'd shown us she could split an apple on her knee and that it was a skill that had really impressed John Lennon. "And I mean *really*" she'd twinkled.

Anyway, poor Andrew Sachs. It really is playing into the tabloids' grubby hands, though, isn't it? Aged National Treasure terrorised by Britain's Wealthiest Entertainers? Short of spit-roasting Joanna Lumley it's hard to work out what they could have done worse.

The really sad thing is that you just *know* what's going to happen. You can sense it as soon as phrases like "BBC Internal Inquiry" and "Urgent Investigation" start floating around. Will they fire Ross or Brand? No. In the end they'll simply sack the show's producer. He only earns thirty grand, he's nobody (even though he's got good hair). And it'll look responsible. They can issue a statement: "Clearly, both of them overstepped the mark. Maverick talent needs careful handling, and there was a clear failing in this case."

Which is one way of reading it. Another is to imagine a 25-year old producer trying to overrule two multimillionaires who could end his career instantly. A mistake happened. But personally, I hope he goes on to make many more.

Meanwhile, the vile 6Music-ruining Ray Davies-baiting George Lamb is still employed. Now that's a clear crime.

UPDATE: Well, they've been suspended. Mark Thompson is rushing back from holiday to hear from senior executives he's "tasked" with the investigation (I thought no-one still said "tasked" these days, but he does). But you just know they'll be back after a token wrist-slap. Firing Ross would mean the issue of his £18 million contract never left Mark Thompson.

AND: From an article about the BBC's Editorial Guidelines: "Radio producers do not have to worry about nudity or the use of strobe lights."

UPDATED AGAIN: And it seems as though Russell Brand has decided to spend more time with his strobe lights. But I bet they still boot the producer. Jonathan Ross meanwhile has apologised... saying he only waited so long because he wanted to do it on his tv show. Hmmmn. I remember I once tried a similar excuse with my mum. She didn't buy it.