Thursday, August 31, 2006

Dr Who from bard to worse

Filming of the new series of Doctor Who has brought the centre of Warwick to a standstill this week as the town was transformed into Elizabethan London.
David Tennant and new side-kick Freema Agyeman spent two nights filming at the Lord Leycester Hospital which doubles as Shakespeare's Globe Theatre.
In the episode the Doctor will meet Shakespeare but chief writer Russell T Davies is tightlipped about the plot.
BBC bosses had hoped to film scenes for the new series of Doctor Who at London's Globe Theatre but the area around it wasn't historic enough.
Gerald Lesinksi of Warwick's Lord Leychester Hospital which doubles as Shakespeare's Globe, said: "Last year the BBC filmed scenes for Elizabeth: The Virgin Queen.
"The Doctor Who location manager fell in love with the place. Filming was done at night to avoid traffic noise."

Wednesday, August 30, 2006

Diana didn't die

German director Christoph Schlingensief has probably found his perfect material in the death of Diana, Princess of Wales - he's making a movie about her last hours - given his notoriety for blurring fact and fiction. Thanks to the likes of the Daily Express no explanation of her passing will ever be credible: just back your whim.
"Diana is a legend," says Schlingensief. "The most abstruse conspiracy theories have grown up around her death. It can probably never be exactly clarified what happened in that hour of her death. Art has the freedom to interpret this."
Schlingensief's artistic stunts include a pretend Big Brother street show in Vienna featuring asylum seekers competing for a residence permit (passers-by were fooled) and a staging of Hamlet in Zurich for which he recruited neo-Nazis.
His intention is to question certainty: yet in Diana we have little but uncertainty -unless he sneakily proposes to suggest that she survived the car crash. It's an entirely credible notion that Charles and Camilla were privy to a conspiracy to smuggle Diana out of public life via Paris and settle her in happy obscurity on, say, the charming island of Thudufushi in the Maldives - where Brigitte Nielsen used to holiday regularly. Schlingensief should look into this.

Douglas on a movie racket

Interesting insight into Michael Douglas' attitude to the movie trade. A friend interviewed him lately for his new film The Sentinel and he was asked if he'd ever hire out his voice for an animation:
He laughs: “Are you kidding? For a start, it doesn’t PAY so much as real acting, and you are never offered a profit share, and then I think that the animation companies are taking the Mick when they ask you if you can loan your physical movements to an animated character…and it’s not even you up there. It’s – to me – a racket. So yes, I would LOVE to do it for the kids, for my children, but NOT for the studio. And they put you through the emotional wringer when they say ‘OH, Michael, please do it for us, Cerys and Dylan will LOVE it’. That’s just blackmail!”

The Simpsons forever

UK Teletext has some exclusive stuff on The Simpsons TV series and movie:
TV series
The producers of The Simpsons plan to make it the longest-running prime-time entertainment show in US TV history.
Actress Marcia Wallace, who plays teacher Edna Krabappel on the animated comedy said: "It would be fitting for us to hold that record."
The series begins its 18th season in the US next month. The current record holder is Gunsmoke, the western which ran for 20 years until 1975.
Animated comedy The Simpsons has definitely been renewed until its 19th season, but Marcia Wallace believes the end is not in sight for the show.
"There was talk the show was going to end a few years ago, but I don't hear that any more," the actress, who plays teacher Edna Krabappel, said.
"Everyone is just as enthusiastic now as they were when it started. It is part of popular culture, so we all want to do 20 years at least... and more."
The movie
The movie version of TV's The Simpsons is shrouded in such secrecy that much of its cast don't know what it's about.
Marcia Wallace, who plays teacher Edna Krabappel, revealed: "I've only seen bits of the script that have Edna in it - nothing else. I've never known the producers to be so secretive."
Wallace revealed the movie features songs, but not from Edna. "I recorded one, but it's just been cut," she said.

Tuesday, August 29, 2006

Beyonce gets chewed

One of the world’s foremost authorities on reptile biology Clifford Warwick is snapping back at BeyoncĂ© following her recent remarks about taping a baby alligator’s mouth shut at the photo shoot for her new album, B’Day. The former Destiny’s Child singer — whose record drops on September 5, the day after her 25th birthday — told the September issue of Arena magazine, "There was a shot where I held an alligator. [He] had [his] mouth taped—that was my bright idea. … He was really cute, but since his mouth was taped, he didn’t have any way to defend himself. He was upset, so he peed on me. That was an experience!"

Here's the letter:

Beyoncé Knowles
c/o Yvette Noel-Schure
Sony Music
550 Madison Ave., 26th floor
New York, NY 10022

Dear Ms. Knowles,

As a specialist in reptile biology and welfare I’m concerned about your posing with a terrified baby alligator for your new album cover. Humans and alligators are not natural bedfellows, and the two should not mix at events such as photo-shoots. In my view, doing so is arguably abusive to an animal.
According to reports, the animal had his mouth taped shut, and you noted that he was so frightened and defenceless that he relieved himself all over the set. Any restraint at all inherently deprives the animal of instinctual means of avoiding unwanted attention. By taping his mouth closed, this alligator was very exposed to his captor (you) and other surrounding threats with no way of evading the predicament.
I can understand why, despite assurances from animal handlers, you would be concerned about being in close proximity to a wild animal. Even a young alligator can bite when provoked. Few people realise that even holding a wild animal (whether captive-bred or wild-caught) is often a major stressor for them. In nature, an animal will be pursued and quickly caught or escape. Animals won’t be held in their predators’ arms for protracted periods of time while being stripped of all defenses. There is no scientific question as to whether alligators are capable of feeling pain and sensitivity to stress—they are, just as you are.
Alligators are rarely aggressive to people unless they are forced to be. They do, however, carry bacteria that can cause serious infection in humans. This is yet another reason for not using them for photo-shoots. Humans have historically treated alligators badly. Skin and meat traders in the US continue to do so by ranching them and slaughtering them via slices through their spinal cords or bludgeoning them with hammers. The ‘lucky’ ones get shot. The alligator you handled probably faces this same end, after a life of confinement in captivity. It seems a great pity that this animal’s problems should be added to in the course of promoting your own work.
I should hope that, on reflection and consideration of these wild animals’ natural needs, you would opt from now on to leave wild animals in the wild.

Regards,

Clifford Warwick, PGDipPHC(Med), FIBiol
Institute of Biology

Jodie wants sausage

The delightful Jodie Marsh is back blogging again after an over-long summer hiatus and has lost none of her jawahh der vivererrr. My latest favourite item of hers, extracted from one of her 1000-word pars, is this revelation:

Gone are the days of playing men and getting exactly what I want out of them. Gone are the days of feeling so powerful I can take on the world (no, actually they're not gone, I still can take on the world!). All I want now is a half decent bloke with a working sausage to keep his mouth shut and service this old banger twice a week. Ha ha.

All a Blur book

Blur bassist Alex James is writing his autobiography, I can reveal. Due out next year, it's so far 75% finished.
"It's about as much of the '90s as I can remember," James told my talented source. "It's been good, looking through my accounts. Looking back, things I thought were important at the time really weren't."
He added: "I've been going through '90s music magazines and, well, I remember things differently than they reported."

Bingo for Vic Reeves

I understand Vic Reeves is working on Big Screen Bingo for Endemol - it will be shown in cinemas across the country - supposedly UCI and most of the other big cinema groups have signed up to it. You're given a few numbers on your cinema ticket and before each movie Reeves will read out random numbers on pre-recorded footage to win a large cash prize.

Saturday, August 26, 2006

Robert Tewdwr Moss: 10 years on

In earlier posts in July I reminded those who care that Aug 26 marked the 10th anniversary of the death of Robert Tewdwr Moss. And here we are now.

I tried recently to buy a copy of his fantastic travel book about Syria, Cleopatra's Wedding Present, but it's out of print, more's the pity. I'm tempted to re-print it myself. It's a book of timeless worth both for its writing and its sensibility: a book only Robert could have written - a funny, gay picaresque odyssey-cum-love story in a fundamentalist Moslem country.

I had thought to re-read his many obits that improbably appeared in the nationals back in '96. I say improbably because he was not famous, known only to a small circle of journalists. Many of the obit editors hadn’t heard of him but were persuaded by the likes of Peter Parker and Philip Hoare to run pieces: they and many others had sensed in Robert the potential for tremendous achievement and had already witnessed his genius for affecting so many people through his personality and voracious interest.

Cleopatra was a promise that tragedy made a memento. I say this not to glamorise him, he had many faults like everyone else, but to acknowledge a general impression of him by all or most who encountered him.

I planned to re-read his obits to say more about his life but I now think I prefer just to remember him and some reactions to his death. One that sticks particularly in mind was a news feature on Robert written by one of the Duncan Campbells on the Guardian.

Even now it seems astonishing that this paper commissioned and ran the piece. It told the story of a murder mystery in high society, the death of a man who wrote for Tatler and other posh periodicals, who was gay. It was written in a semi-amused way as if Hercule Poirot had been hired to script a voiceover for yet another homicide on the Nile. Because the victim was (wrongly) perceived as part of a privileged world, because he was a man who was homosexual, the writer imagined that he could write a piece of emotional indifference for the entertainment of his audience. This hideous article alerted me to a streak of viciousness that runs through the Guardian to this day – at its worst it makes the Daily Mail look as benign as a village newsletter.

Aside from the obits, newspaper coverage of Robert’s death was thin – ironic given the fact he’d written for most of them. His passing coincided with the awful murder of a child (I forget the facts) – the subject of pages and pages of fact and speculation mixed with the usual exploitative emotionalism. Child murders sell newspapers. Gay male murders don’t.

An obvious point to make but one worth repeating.

Robert’s obits were inevitably eccentric and colourful: a little too colourful for the likes of the priggish Ian Hislop who at the time despaired at the odd subjects of obits these days: he was plainly referring to Robert’s. Hoare’s obit in the Independent recalled how an editor at the now defunct IPC fashion glossy Woman’s Journal first “discovered” Robert. He had written to the editor on coloured notepaper and enclosed cuts from some obscure West African magazine. He was invited to the soulless glass tower near Blackfriars. The editor recalled a beautiful pony-tailed man with droopy wing collars and a baroque waistcoat gliding into his office and exuding a carnation scent. The camp exterior belied a serious and determined temperament – later demonstrated in many high comic celebrity pieces that were marked by great attention to telling detail.

Robert had an unusual talent to befriend his interview subjects. Beryl Bainbridge adored him as did the curious and late Master of the Queen’s Music, Malcolm Williamson, who would phone the offices of The People in attempts to contact Robert – he was shifting at the paper along with Hoare back in the early ‘90s.

For some reason the actress Joely Richardson became one of his best friends and exotics such as Lady Colin “Georgie” Campbell doted on him. John Major’s biographer Nesta Wyn Ellis was also a close pal: on one occasion she asked him to house-sit her duplex in Montagu Square while she was away. This became an opportunity for a debauch with one of his lovers and both delighted in disporting in her expensive lingerie before the many mirrors in her boudoir.

Even Lord Snowden was the subject of an anecdote. Robert encountered him at a London party and recalled how on leaving the venue all he could hear was the rapid thud of Snowden’s walking stick on the ground as the viscount seemed to hurry after his new young friend. At the other end of the starry spectrum was his encounter with Lionel Blair at yet another party – a chaste encounter it should be said though not for want of Blair’s obvious enthusiasm.

Had Robert lived he would have written more travel books of innovation and controversy, travel books comparable with or better than Bruce Chatwin's. He would have written comic romans a clef based on his unique journeys through London society and would have himself become the subject of media interest – somewhere in a TV vault there’s a documentary in which he took part, on the subject of … handbags.

Instead, his journey on this planet was brief but rich in incident. Too brief.

PS A reader asks how do you pronounce Tewdwr. Answer Tudor.

Goddess and Coke cock

"The Disappearing Goddess" is Alison Boshoff's latest excuse in the Mail to rummage through the Nexis electronic cuts service in her PAYE mission to tell yet another sad tale of a fallen celebrity - in this incidental instance, Nigella Lawson.
The object of the exercise is to somehow relish in schadenfreude (for Success Must Have A Price) while both shedding a crocodile tear and name-checking lots of other celebs for a confected ambience of haut-monde. I particularly adore Boshoff's little glitzy tautologies such as her description of Lawson's "cultured and epicurean existence" with husband Charles Saatchi - "There are blissful lunches a deux ...." she writes. The "a deux" bit is italicised for the posh gloss effect even though any lunch of two people would be "a deux". The sentence was written just for the italicisation.
I had the opportunity to watch Boshoff in action at a Cannes Film Festival a few years back. She didn't have a clue how to work the event. She hung out with some PA cheena and together they loitered around DDA's and other PR offices hoping for a 5* celeb to 'chute onto their laps. It didn't occur to Boshoff that no stars or their agents would dream of a 1-2-1 with a proven libeller. So off she tottered back to Nice Airport and Derry Street to write a piece about how Cannes was a faded thing - all to justify the expense of sending her in the first place.
As for Lawson there's much more that could be said - how she had started her affair with Saatchi long before husband John Diamond snuffed it of throat cancer. Not that he was perfect. The night before their wedding he had sex with a person who'll remain nameless - "He was desperate for sex," she reports. Another of his earlier lays reports he had a cock shaped like a Coke can. Gawd bless 'im.

Friday, August 25, 2006

Robbie in Barcelona

Hello dearies, back from Barcelona. Rudebox everywhere - Robbie Williams on the cab radio to Gatwick, Rob-bloody-ster in some "duty-free" shop after the security farce (no, charade), Rude-fucking-box in the hire car from Barcelona Airport up the C32 to the Meridiana, Robbie on some TV screen in the Cortes Ingles dept store in the Catalunya square whatsit, then more Rudebox in the hotel - lovely hotel actually in Barbera del Valles, since you ask - lots of marble - yes, more Rudebox while this Catalan cleaner waltzed with her mops and hoover over rink-shiny floors - it was like Holiday On Ice - Rudebox everywhere in Barcelona and I don't think the single's out yet, not that I care. Robbie reminded me that I was still in UK Popland which is just about anywhere but the USA. Picked up the Sun (2 Euro!) and here's the Robster claiming he fancies Madonna while making the foul allegation that Louis Walsh wants him as his lover. Didn't Victoria Newton say Rudebox is the worst single in history? Actually it nags its way into your head and after a while it's fit for the iPod. It was Gaudi Vs Robbie Williams in Barthelona, and if that reference makes no sense to you then take the next flight out to Barcelona even if the Spanish can’t do maps.
(Message to Conde Nast Traveller: the above will cost you £578.00 + VAT).

Thursday, August 17, 2006

Madame Arcati is on holiday

Yes, the withered but sharp-eyed Madame is away now and back Aug 26. But send her your emails and stories and she will employ some form of divination to assess veracity on her return.
Meanwhile say a prayer for the poor fellow withered old stick Kelvin Mackenzie. He thinks George Michael should be served an ASBUM (a homo ASBO - joke! How I laughed!) and made to clear up Hampstead Heath after polluting it with his vile practices, a proposal inspired by Boy George's NY sweep up.
This is a most uncharacteristically restrained expression of wit by Mackenzie. Surely George should wear a Pink Triangle as he serves his ASBUM and plucks condoms off London trees. I can't imagine why Mackenzie holds back. He really should just give full and uncensored vent to his ancient prejudices and thereby make it easier for the authorities to clap him up in some secure unit.