Just A Minute...

Since we finished recording this last series of Genius I've been enjoying my writing much more. With nothing else to distract me I've found it easier to immerse myself in the book and suddenly I see the tale with more clarity. Hurrah for things like that.

In order to remain focussed on the book I've been turning down everything else I'm offered. I know I'd enjoy popping up on bubbalub and chatting to Dermot about this series of Big Brother - and I think there's a lot to be said about the current crop of housemates - but I've decided that, for now, the book is more important.

I thought I was going to maintain my no-other-work rule no matter what but then along came an offer that was simply too good to refuse: Just A Minute. JAM is one of the great radio shows. (There's only really I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue that can compare.) So how could I possibly say no when asked to take part? I couldn't. I said yes without hesitation. Or the other two.

And then, I suddenly found myself increasingly worried about what I'd agreed to. Because while I love the show it's also incredibly intimidating. The other contestants will be Paul Merton, Tony Hawks and Clement Freud all of whom are exceedingly skilled players of the game with buckets of experience on their side. Clement Freud had been doing the show since before I was born.

Whatever the show, regulars always have an edge with the audience because their relationship already exists - they've already earned their respect. Anyone new has to try and win that trust anew. I reckon that the longer the regulars have been on a show the harder it gets for any incomers... and there aren't many shows that have been running longer than JAM.

Not that I'm complaining about the situation. They've earned their place in the audience's heart after all. And besides, as a fan of the show I'd be disappointed if Clement Freud wasn't there.

Suddenly it feels like I'm stepping into a boxing ring for my first ever bout and I've been pitted against a an undefeated heavyweight. I will be pummelled. Gulp.

When Tilusha, the show's producer, called me to talk about the show and explain some of its subtleties I confessed that I was feeling intimidated by it. She told me that most people did and that yes, it was quite an intimidating show to step into for just those reasons. Which didn't make for the peppiest of pep talks.

She then told me that Michael Palin had written about the show in his diaries. He appeared on the show in 1975 and he was intimidated by the show then for much the same reasons. I googled it and found the extract here.

"The three regulars have been playing the game together for five years, Williams and Freud for eight, and it shows. They are smooth and polished, they know when to ad-lib, when to bend the rules a little, and when to be cross with each other."

and

"The game became easier but I never mastered the technique of microphone-hogging which they have all perfected."

Gulp.

Somehow the fact that Michael Palin - official comedy God and NicestManInTheWholeWideWorld felt slightly out of his depth doing the show isn't particularly reassuring.


Having spoken to Tilusha about the show I was surprised to find that our paths crossed again later the same day when we were both at the same book launch. The book being launched was How to Bring Up Your Parents by Emma Kennedy. Emma writes one of my favourite blogs and it's no surprise that such a consistently funny bloggess has turned out such a funny book. (There's a quote from me on the cover so obviously I do genuinely recommend it.)


Seeing Emma's pride and excitement as her tome makes its way into the big wide world was a good reminder of why it is I want to concentrate my efforts on my own book. It has to be something I can be proud of. So other things must go by the wayside. Apart from exciting and intimidating invitations to enter hallowed radio institutions. They must be accepted. I'll be recording two episodes on Tuesday night at the Radio Theatre.

Tunnel Vision

Tube, originally uploaded by Dave Gorman.

Joan Collins Fan Club. (Self)

Okay, I know I'm on thin ice with this what with my catalogue of autobiographical work behind me and this blogging malarkey but here goes...

The thing is, when you write about yourself your ego is bound to control things at least a little bit. It has to. I'm pretty sure that most of what I've written about my experiences shows me to be the dysfunctional tit I am but even so, I'm bound to have crossed the line some of the time and written something that equates to I'm-great-me! And for that I can only apologise.

The best place to look for ill-advised, self-aggrandising nonsense is probably the blogosphere but I think you'd be hard pushed to find a better example of the genre than the accidentally hilarious piece written by Joan Collins in this Saturday's Daily Mail. Rarely have I read anything more lacking in self-awareness.

It seems JC has a new autobiography coming out and to plug it the Daily Mail published an extract covering a tour of US theatres in a play with her former Dynasty co-star (and real life nemesis) Linda Evans.

Joan chats to Linda yesterday...

You can read the piece here and here. (Yes, it's in two parts. I'm not sure why. Maybe the Daily Mail haven't worked out how to scroll properly. <<*EDIT TO ADD: the article has mysteriously disappeared from the Mail's site now... but the text has been lovingly preserved here EDIT ENDS*>>

Anyway, make yourself a cup of tea, settle down and read the article. It's worth it. It's not just that Joan is being catty about someone - after all, that's part of what normally makes Joan so deliciously entertaining - it's all about how blind she is to her own vanity and her own faults. If Linda improvises it's unprofessional. If Joan improvises it's professional. When the director gives Joan notes to improve her performance he's wrong. When anyone gives notes to Linda, they're right. Before they've started rehearsals, the producer is interested in Joan's rewrites - all of which are fabulous and improve the play no end - and yet two days before opening night they're not so interested. Surely Joan is the only person in the world who hasn't worked out that they were only being polite in the first place and their politeness has now run dry. There are simply too many fabulous moments for me to mention them all or I'll end up doing a line by line dissection of the piece and honestly, you'll enjoy reading it for yourself. Read about Linda stupidly wanting to do the fight scene onstage and Joan sensibly wanting to do it offstage. Then read the review from Variety in which the director gets criticised for inexplicably staging the fight out of sight. Then read bitchy comments like "A simply horrible review in the local paper, almost as bad for me as it is for Linda." Then go back and read the review from Variety again and see who come off better in the serious trade journal. Some random lines that made me spit my tea out with laughter: "My finger is in agony because Linda kicked it last night." Oof. "I find her an acting coach she can work with after rehearsals." Ow. and then this exchange at the end of a row... well, this takes the biscuit:

As she goes, I say: "I don't think that's very professional." She screws her head around - like Linda Blair in The Exorcist - and a demonic croak comes out of her mouth: "Well, you're unprofessional!" Everyone around us is agape. I'm furious. It's one thing to describe an actor's specific behaviour as not professional, but quite another to call the actor unprofessional. She obviously hates me and is jealous of my happiness with Percy.

Do you follow? Joan said Linda was being unprofessional and Linda responded by saying that Joan is unprofessional. That's where she crossed the line. Grrr. Must be cock-jealousy that's behind it. That. Is the only. Explanation.

It's only because it's her

So there's a documentary about the Queen and to publicise it the BBC showed a bit of footage to a load of journalists. In the clip Her Maj is turning up for a photoshoot with queen snapper Annie Leibovitz. When AL suggests that ER might look better without her crown the Queen takes it badly and walks out. Apparently.

Except that's not what happened. It's just the way it looked in the edit. But because that's the way it was presented all the papers ran with the story when in actual fact the footage that appeared to show ER leaving was actually footage of her arriving. So now the BBC are on the back foot, apologies are flying around and resignations are being called for.

What strikes me as odd about this is that these kind of editing techniques are clearly used all the time in telly-land. It's only because it's embarrassed the Queen that they've had to apologise. I bet she didn't have to sign the usual release form waiving all her rights before they started filming. (She doesn't wave or waive like anyone else, that one.)

If you watch a Wife Swap/Holiday Swap/Shipwrecked/whatever, I'm sure you'll see the same kind of editing all the time. Rows are ramped up and conversations manipulated in edit suites every day.

When there's only one camera crew in a room they have to use shots out of sync because they can't film what one person says and the other person's reaction at the same time. So at the end of a long day when they catch someone looking bored and yawning, they'll take that and cheerfully splice it into a conversation from earlier in the day to make it look like the two people weren't getting on. You see reality TV participants complaining about it after the event all the time... but nobody asks anyone to resign over it. We all just think they're complaining about nothing, that they should have known what they were getting into and that it doesn't really matter because it's only telly.

A friend once told me about the contract they were asked to sign for a reality TV show. One of the clauses was that the company had the right to misrepresent the participant. Reality. Misrepresent.

In a joint statement from the BBC and RDF they said, "This assembly was never intended to be seen by the public or the press," which does make you wonder who it was meant to be seen by. Were they making it for their own amusement? For a bit of a laugh? What seems most likely to me is that the piece was put together by someone who just went about their job the way they normally do... using the footage available to them to make the most entertaining story they could. It's just that nobody stopped to think, that maybe, just maybe, they shouldn't do that to the Queen.

I bet it won't stop them doing it to anyone else though.

Here's the Queen storming out of a photoshoot with me some time last year:

Queen 1, originally uploaded by Dave Gorman.

Genius 6/6

So that's the third series of Genius done then. Well... it all needs to be edited but all six episodes are recorded.

I'm really pleased with the guest list again this year. I the guests have to come from different fields so that the show doesn't become predictable. My theory has always been that if you put all the guests from one series together they'd make a really good panel for Blankety Blank.

Matthew Wright, Rob Newman, Simon Munnery, Gyles Brandreth, Germaine Greer and Charlie Brooker. Now come on - you'd watch Blankety Blank if that was the line up. Professor Greer would have to go in the bottom right. You know, where the ditsy blonde always sat.

No. I wouldn't say that to her face.

On the way to the pub afterwards we found ourselves walking up Portland Place and arriving at a junction at the same time as a huge bunch of rollerbladers. There were loads of them. I'm useless at assessing numbers so I'll say there were between 50 and 200 of them. I had a small camera in my pocket and as the lights changed and they went thundering past I snapped this.

London Skaters, originally uploaded by Dave Gorman.

Quite a sight they were. Apparently the group goes skating round London every Wednesday night. If I could rollerblade I'd join them.

Genius 5/6

In the second series of Genius there were a couple of nights where the guests weren't exactly cooperative and I had to work hard to keep the ball in the air. It's always been a fun show to make but those nights are more exhausting because my focus has to be more intense and I end up feeling like I've done a job of work. When it's easier and the conversation just flows I don't have to think too hard and I get carried along by the show's energy. Or something.

If there was one show this series that I was trepid about it in advance it was the one we recorded last night. The guest was Germaine Greer who I confess to being a little scared of in advance. (Does that say more about me or her?) Would she enter into the ridiculousness of the show? It's not like we have many ideas in the series that would actually work. This is one of the things that I like about the show... that everyone maintains this strange internal logic and takes these ridiculous proposals "seriously." Of course if you take them seriously (as opposed to "seriously") it can fall apart because it's unlikely that you'll discover any actual genius there. (Whereas if you take them "seriously" you might well find "genius") (Obviously, it's all about the "")

We had a brief chat before the show and I still couldn't get a read on how playful she would be with the ideas. But when the show started she turned out to be just about the perfect guest. I think it's the atmosphere created by the audience that does it... there's more of them than anyone else in the room and they seem so tuned in to the show's tone these days that I think they create an irresistible force. She's such a strong personality and has a great (and funny) way with words so maybe I shouldn't have been worried about it in the first place... she was always going to be great.

Flickr Boing Boing

I took these photos of a shopfront shutter graffiti alphabet in East London back in January 2006.
They were blogged far and wide at the time and I started to get strange e-mails asking me about them from Canadian typography experts and the collection ended up being published in a Brazilian magazine too. But that was ages ago and they're now buried deep within the bowels of my flickr account where they largely go unnoticed.

Suddenly this week they started to attract loads of views and comments and I wasn't sure why for a while. It turns out they were linked to by the superb BoingBoing. (Which is very flattering because I heart BoingBoing. It's ace.)

Even better, it seems a chap called Carl Pappenheim has written a really nice program for them, that allows you to write anything you like using them as your font of choice.