The Academy Awards.

I thought I wrote about the Academy Awards last year but not so; so here we go.

To start off if I went out of my front door I could be at The Kodak Theatre, where they have the show and present the awards, in five minutes; walking.

The streets around here will be very busy as Hollywood Boulevard will be blocked off and made into a pedestrian precinct and why they don't make that permanent is beyond me.

They build a bridge across the street to enable ABC Television to put their cameras on and they also interview people on it.

Over the street from the Kodak Theatre is a Belfast type security fence where you have to be searched or patted down just to walk along the street; the footpath is unavailable to pedestrians and the Kodak Theatre is not in view from anywhere across any street or building; it's all be blocked off.

So when people ask me if I go down to watch the arrivals the answer is no.

Now don't get me wrong I really do enjoy the show and I see nothing wrong with it but the winners are not always the best; there will be a big shock if Colin Firth doesn't win for best actor because he has been in the frame from the time he opened his mouth on the first day of shooting The King's Speech; it seems to be a forgone conclusion as it is every year.

The strongest voting block in the Academy are the actors and they will also be the ones to choose the best film.

Everybody is only allowed a vote in their own category and everybody votes for the film and that's why the actors are so powerful.

Let me get one thing out of the way; if anybody tells you they know the winner of any of the Academy Awards they are mistaken. It is the one award where it never leaks out. The reason? Only two people know so if it leaks out the one that did not do the leaking will know the other guy did it – and here in the USA you can't bet on it. In fact I don't think you can get a bet on anywhere after the voting papers have gone in; if you don't believe me and think the winner gets leaked take it up with Price Waterhouse!

I know an actor who lives here, and gets plenty of work, who goes out to Santa Monica on Academy Award day and reads his book in a place where the awards are not on; the rest of us are eating pizza or going to Oscar parties – and there must be thousands of Oscar parties here.

In the afternoon before the show starts it's very hard to park at Rock and Roll Ralphs – the local supermarket – as people are in their buying booze, finger food, pizza, ready made party feast and lashings and lashings of ginger beer. I put that last one in as you can't buy it here but I love it.

Living down the street within eye sight of my balcony is Helen Mirren; on the year she won for The Queen I was in London so didn't see the limo arrive to pick her up; but she goes to loads of award ceremonies and I haven't seen a limo yet. I might have done if I'd been looking through the window I suppose.

Now who is that above?

That is the great Randy Newman; singer songwriter, composer of film music. He is the nephew of Alfred Newman who scored over 200 films; he was nominated for 45 Academy Awards and won 9.

His nephew, Randy, gets nominated nearly every year and never gets nervous because he knows, sometimes, that he doesn't stand a chance; he has been nominated for 19 Academy Awards and won 1; he was the one winner that the orchestra would not drown out for going over his allotted time in his acceptance speech; he looked at them and said “some of these guys sometimes work for me” - he was only kidding, of course, but would you want to upset him?

I have always liked Randy Newman and his songs which I think are very clever; read this from Wikipedia - Newman often writes lyrics from the perspective of a character far removed from Newman's own experiences. For example, the 1972 song “Sail Away” is written as a slave trader's sales pitch to attract slaves, while the narrator of “Political Science” is a U.S. nationalist who complains of worldwide ingratitude toward America and proposes a brutally ironic final solution. One of his biggest hits, “Short People” was written from the perspective of "a lunatic" who hates short people.

He is nominated this year for the song in Toy Story 3 and was on the radio today being interviewed.

On one of the movies (Air Force One) he scored, the director changed his mind about the music at the last minute and asked Jerry Goldsmith to do the music and he (Newman) was asked today how he felt about such things. I mean it takes a long time to compose, score, arrange and record music for a full length feature film.

He said he accepted it; he said in other departments, such as costumes, the costume designer would approach the director to see if a hat is suitable for one of the characters and the director would be the one to choose with no consultation. It was as if the director - who could be just a few months out of college – was suddenly an expert on hats. He said the rejection of his music was exactly the same!!

I like Randy Newman.

Making a film on the cheap.

I made a film once in which I was involved from writing the script, acting and directing in it to putting the china graph marks onto the cutting copy to denote where I wanted cuts, fades, wipes or whatever on the negative.

Then I had to sit and grade it in the studio to make sure the colours were consistent and then take it to Cannes to try and sell it as a pilot for a TV series.

The story was about two antique dealers from the bottom end of the market who find a valuable item at Portobello Antiques market in London, sell it after a lot of negotiations and then lose it before getting paid.

Just a bit of fun, really, but people liked the two lead characters and thought they would look good if the short film was made into a TV series; so I was asked, by a film distribution company, to write some outlines for future scripts before setting off to Cannes - in between helping the sound editor by plying him and accompanying him with many a glass of Guinness; it's a wonder our livers survived.

This might sound a bit like a one man show but there were a lot of others involved and I sorted out a way to pay for it - eventually.

When I was working at the theatre in Northampton, I bumped into a business man on the train coming up from London, who was a big fan of the theatre. He took his wife to every play and invited us to his big house in Northampton one of the nights after the show for dinner.

I stayed on living in Northampton after finishing the season there and lots of times, when I travelled on the train to and from London, I would meet the same businessman.

We would talk of plans for the future and one time I told him of my wish to make a film of my own. He said he would fund it and he said he could easily do it as a tax write off.

So I set about writing the script based on a true incident from the antiques trade which we dabbled in – and still do.

I had directed before when someone asked me to take over on a film so I contacted the director of photography from that film, the DP, and showed him the script.

He wanted to do drama, as he had been specialising in documentaries up to then so away we went; I would get the actors and he would get the crew.

To get everybody to work for nothing we gave the crew a rise in rank; somebody new would be the clapper/loader, a clapper/loader would go to camera assistant (focus puller) a camera assistant took the job of a camera operator and the DP became the DP on a drama as opposed to a DP on a documentary.

The sound was a different story; I had to use about three of four sound people on the film.

When a documentary is planned they hire their DP and he or she would choose where they would hire the camera, lenses and camera equipment from; so we went to a camera house in London and on the promise that he would use them for his next paying project they let us have camera and equipment for nothing.

I told him about the businessman and the fact that he had a very photogenic house which he might let us use for the film.

I had to buy the stock; this is film for the camera, tape for the sound and mag-stock which is what you transfer the sound to edit in an editing machine which is the same size as the film and we planned to shoot on sixteen millimetre.

Shooting on film was and is very expensive as opposed to shooting today on Digital which is relatively cheap.

The two music videos I shot over the past few years were shot on Digital and cost virtually nothing.

The other thing about digital is that you can play it back as soon as you shoot it but the only time you can do that with film is with a video assist – invented by Jerry Lewis – and we didn't have that kind of money; in fact we had no money at all.

I opened an account with the Rank Organisation – J. Arthur Rank of the famous rhyming slang activity – to process the film we shot and the rest of the stuff was begged or borrowed as with the camera and the actors worked for food; even though the crew ate it all – I'm joking I'm sorry.

I remember one of the days I took everybody out for a meal in Northampton and, when they ordered everything, I went to the lavatory to count the money in my pocket to see if I could pay for it.

I hadn't counted in going to a restaurant as I had laid food on for them back at my house – where we shot some of the film – but off to the restaurant they all trotted.

When I counted what was in my pocket I found I didn't have enough so I went back to the table and watched everybody eating and asking for more and maybe more wine and what about a pudding? – ha ha ha ha, they were laughing and having a lovely time and there we were; me and the crew, the actors had gone back go London, and I kind of sat there and looked at them having a good time wondering how I was going to pay for it.

“Excuse me” I said and I went out; I stood there in the street and wondered if I should just go home – but I'm not like that.

I tried my ATM card at the bank over the street but it was declined so I found a phone box and called a friend who didn't live very far away; luckily he was in and met me in the street with a hundred pounds which was enough to pay the bill.

Yes you're right; what happened to that businessman. That's what we were thinking!

The last time I met him on the train I told him I was going ahead and he was very excited but when we were about to start I found him hard to get hold of; his secretary took a few messages but he didn't return any of my calls so I went around to his house and knocked the door.

He had a huge glass door and when I rang the bell I could hear his children playing in the hall; then I could see them as they were looking at us through the curtains; but nobody answered; I got the message.

I had shot the whole film, I owed the Rank Organisation and when I took some lights back I was told that money was outstanding on them so I paid.

My daughter's boy friend's father had let me use his big van for the shoot for nothing, so I didn't owe any money there but I did owe everybody in the movie to get it finished.

A few years earlier I did an award winning student film so I contacted the editor to see if he would be interested in editing in editing my film and he said he would do it at the cutting rooms at the film school in Bournemouth but I would have to pay him; so I did; six weeks wages as he could only do it part time.

It was then finished at the cutting rooms at the Royal College of Art in South Kensington – they didn't know; sorry. We would climb over the gate and creep in to the editing suites after the pub closed at night and do it then and it was eventually finished up to a rough cut. The editing and paying the editor cost more than the rest of the film, apart from the stock, even though I didn't have to pay for the use of the equipment.

My solution to funding the film was the same as any, and probably every other, businessman in the UK; an overdraft! So I booked an appointment with the bank manager.

This I did and he gave me an overdraft; with this I paid Rank and anybody else who needed paying and went to see the distributors; they let me use their cutting room for free for the sound editing and that's when I called my pal Giles and we gave our livers the Guinness test.

So I was bound for Cannes to try and sell the thing as a series. The distributors were involved in trying to get funding and set up loads of meetings in Cannes – and what a time that was.

I was asked if I would change the casting of the other character in it for an actor called Iain Cutherberson who was well known; the distributors had a connection with a Scottish TV company and as he was Scottish they wanted him in it.

But it wouldn't have worked; I promised my friend that he would be in it if we actually made the series but in any case I am about 5'9” and Iain Cutherberson was 6'4” - the dynamic would have changed. It wouldn't be about two fellas trying to make money out of antiques – it would have been about the long and the short of it.

At the end of the day we didn't get the series made; a series called Perfect Scoundrels was taken up by Southern TV, one of the people we were talking to, which was about two other guys on the make and which was very good I have to say.

My film sold to Finland and other Scandinavian countries but I didn't see a penny – that's show business.

The bank wrote off the overdraft and I came to Hollywood.

One night I went to the International House of Pancakes (IHOP) on Sunset Boulevard for a short stack of pancakes and coffee. As I sat there I noticed someone looking over at me; he was sitting with his friend and eventually came over.

“Are you Chris Sullivan?” he said.

“Yes” I said “and I know who you are.”

It was the rich businessman from Northampton.

I didn't hold a grudge so I joined them at their table.

“I'm sorry to let you down” he said “I was going through a bad patch.”

“That's okay” I said “but you could have answered your door!”

Sitcoms, laugh tracks and the Audience Response Duplicator

We've all seen sit-coms on TV – situation comedies – with laugh tracks.

When ITV first started in Britain and we got the Lucy Show someone came to our house, who didn't have ITV, and asked who those people were who were laughing and I said it was the audience. Of course I was wrong; I Love Lucy was shot on film with a 3 camera set up and they used a laugh track – or to be more precise – an Audience Response Duplicator.

They were machines that looked like an open pin ball machine full of rods and balls; to be honest I don't think they were invented till the 60's and Lucy was on in the 50s so I don't know what they used; maybe it was, in fact, an audience.

Or someone will write in and tell me it was a machine invented by Dougglas!!

The big shock to a lot of actors like me was when we went to do a sit-com we found that they did, in fact, have an audience. Each time I did one – and I didn't do too many – there was an audience of around 300 people; sitting there with smiling faces ready to laugh.

They would be warmed up by a comedian and the last time I saw a warm up man that I got to know he was warming up audiences in Nottingham on a quiz show that shot 3 episodes a day. I can't remember the name of the show but over here it was hosted by Bob Barker who, incidentally, lives almost next door, and had the phrase 'come on down.'

The machine I mention above came to light on the American version of the Antiques Road Show this week and was valued at many thousands of dollars; have a look on You Tube; an Audience Response Duplicator.

There was a show in the UK which was a mock documentary called 'People Like Us' which was a comedy show with no studio audience. I think the guy who played the lead and devised it got into some kind of trouble with the law and it was dropped but it was very funny.

Anyway it started the fad of not using studio audiences and maybe that's where The Office got the idea. All new comedy shows over here – well most of them – do without the laugh track (live or otherwise) now and the ones that still use it have failed; Kelsey Grammar to name one, but there are others.

The number one sit-com here at the moment is The Modern Family and that goes without canned laughter.

The trouble with having a studio audience is that they would not laugh at the same joke twice so if you needed to do a re-take the sound editor would cut and paste a laugh from somewhere else in the show. They would do this when a gag didn't go too well too.

Then something happened here in the 90s. A show called The Nanny became a hit and for that show they used professional laughers, for want of a better word.

Here's how that came about; in 1985 the star of The Nanny was, unfortunately, raped by two men who broke into her home with guns and raped her and her friend.

When The Nanny started to become popular the star, started to be stalked. The two men who broke in and raped her, by the way, were in prison, so there must have been some other kind of weird psyche that led other nutters to bother her.

So she asked if there was some way that the audience could be vetted as she felt vulnerable playing in front of an audience that were so close.

They got rid of the audience altogether and went to Central Casting.

Central Casting is a very famous agency for extras and they asked for about 35 people from there for the audience. Then the idea hit them that if they were going to hire the audience they might as well ask for good laughers.

The casting director made the calls to the artistes and asked them to laugh over the phone; some of these people were in the supermarket or the laundry or even in the hairdressers and went straight into their laugh as soon as they were asked; they had to explain themselves to some of the people they were with that they were doing an audition of course.

They became very good at their job on The Nanny and knew what kind of laugh the producers needed and suddenly they were being treated differently.

Usually extras don't get spoken to by the actors; it's a kind of class system – the leading actors stick together, then the featured ones, the day players and then the extras; a terrible pecking order.

The laughers were getting invited to the Christmas Parties and soon other shows heard about the laughers and hired them in other sit-coms and talk shows and soon they were doing 3 shows a week.

In those days they were being paid $75 a day and any of them on therapy suddenly didn't need a therapist as laughter is a cure all – if you ever feel down just try it; force yourself to laugh; it's amazing.

Of course all good things come to an end; at the end of the 90s reality shows became popular and they didn't need audiences any more; then the sit-coms dropped them, as I have said before, so now the laughers are looking for a laugh.

I am due to take a show to Edinburgh this year, again, this time a play, and I could do with a laugher or two. A friend of mine, and he knows who he is, is the best laugher I have ever known. If ever he comes to my show I know I'm half way there as laughter is infectious; $75 a day in Edinburgh? Who knows?

By the way - it's Hogarth above.

Acting in Hollywood

All that stuff about the British Royal Family being lizards, and 9/11 being an inside job and all the rest of it including the so called murder of Princess Diana was not a joke; I was pointing out that people actually believe that rubbish. And why do they believe it? Because they are paranoiac – not paranoid but paranoiac; I am paranoiac about the use of the word paranoid; I don't know why it's replaced paranoiac in the vernacular.

They are paranoiac because they believe that the reason they being left behind is because of the world wide conspiracy – but I don't want to write any more about it as I know as soon as I put a certain word in here a red flag will go up in CIA Headquarters, the game will be up and I'll disappear.

I have written the above in response to about 10 e-mails which, if I haven't replied to them already, I will soon.

By the way I have had a few complaints about not being able to leave comments on here and sometimes I have the same problem in replying to a comment. I think if you have a G-mail account you can sign in using that or maybe if you are a 'follower.'

Even though I get loads and loads of hits and page-loads I don't have that many followers. It doesn’t matter I can see – well I used to be able to see – who's reading it. I say used to because that was when the hits were low. For example I have had over 400 hits on the Julian Assange story, over the past two weeks, and over 300 on the one I wrote about The Golden Globes and Javier Barden.

Maybe I would make some money out of it if they'd have clicked on to the advertisements.

I wanted to follow up about the pilot season; I was asked what the pilot season is like in the UK; well there isn't one. Acting and entertainment is a totally different ball game over there but I have been here for 16 years and what I'm about to say will probably be out of date.

When I first came over here I noticed how professional it was; on the corners of most streets, instead of a pub or a bookies like in London, there were offers for head shots – actor photos.

Head shots were used as a calling card and I could buy 200 or 300 for less than $100. In London the actors would pay a lot more than that because their agent wanted quality shots and they would usually want their head shot back after they sent it to some casting director, which is why they would enclose a stamped address envelope.

Here the idea of a head shot is to get it so it looks like you, it has to be 8”x10” and your resume gets stapled on to the back.

If you are up for a job you just stick your head shot in the mail and nothing else; no 'dear sir would it be possible' you just stick it in the mail and make sure your agent's number is on there somewhere. You might just stick the character's name you or your agent is suggesting you for but nothing else; there is no need.

Digital photos and the internet have put a lot of the head shot shops out of business now, by the way.

The other place I was told about, on the first night I was here, was Frenches Book Shop on Sunset Boulevard. That place has everything for the actor.

In London there is a publication called 'Contacts' which gives you the address of every agent, film and TV company, prop house and lots more – a good digs guide too.

I always thought that would be a good idea over here but in Frenches you have a book, published every month or so, that is exclusively for agents. It gives you the names of the particular agents, what type of actors they are looking for and other useful information.

Of course it will have CAA and ICM in there but I'm sure nobody applies to them; when you are ready they will seek you out. But not all stars are with those big agents. Jack Nicholson and Harrison Ford, I believe, are still with their original agent.

Also in Frenches it gives you tips about how you should do most things – audition being one of them.

Casting directors were asked what annoys them more than anything about actors and the answer most of them gave was actors borrowing their stapler to stick their resume on the back of their head shot.

In London you have The Spotlight and in Hollywood there is The Academy Players – one big difference: the last time I advertised in The Spotlight it cost me a few hundred dollars for a half page. Again over here they don't care about the prestige of having a half page; there are 10 photos per page and for the year that costs $36 – that's about £24.

Don't you feel you are being ripped off over there?

The casting director wants to see what you look like not the fact that you can afford a half page!

The other places casting directors find actors, these days, is on the Internet Movie Date Base – the imdB – and you can usually tell who the British actors are on there as they rarely put a photo up.

Casting directors cast from the imdB so why don't they use it?

There are 300 million people here and when things get big they get big. I know somebody who was paid £250,000 for a commercial; it was a buy out for two years and when the two years ran out they renewed his contract.

That's why actors in Hollywood always carry their head shots and the guys who go for many commercials have heads shots and a change of clothes in their cars all the time.

I was out one day – British trained which means I don't go to the rip off acting coaches here and I was in my shorts – and my agent called me and told me to go over to West LA for a commercial audition; by the way they are all called auditions here not meetings etc – they tell it like it is.

There I was in my shorts at The Farmer's Market with my wife eating doughnuts and drinking coffee and the agent told me to get over there and to be wearing a suit. I came home, grabbed my suit, shoes, shirt and tie and got back into the car and went to West LA.

When I got there I got out of the car and got changed in the parking lot; no problem. On with the shirt, the tie, my trousers and socks and then I noticed; I had brought two odd shoes; they were both black but they were both the right foot and one was a tap shoe; so I had to wear my trainers/sneakers in with the suit.

But getting back to the pilot season in the UK which doesn't exist:

Because there are 300 million people here they have to get it right. When John Cleese wrote, with his then wife, Faulty Towers he wrote it to be broadcast on BBC2; the minority channel; he had plenty of time to write it and record it which is why it was so good.

That's John Cleese above with a reverse moustache - and me below stuffing cake into my mouth in a play - many many years ago; neither of them good headshots.

Anyway that's over 1300 words today so I'd better sign off.

Are the Royal Family Lizards?

Did you know the royal family in Great Britain are lizards?
Did you know that the sudden deaths of all those birds being found and all those fish suddenly dying is actually a sign that 'something' is going on?
What about those 'chem trails' we see in the sky all the time? Did you know that some trails left by aircraft are chemical or biological agents deliberately sprayed at high altitudes for a purpose undisclosed to the general public in clandestine programs directed by government officials?
There are people that think all of the above statements are true; I hope you don't.
They think the 9/11 bombings were fixed, that Princess Diana was killed by the Lizards (the royal family); that the Federal Reserve System is designed to transfer wealth from the poor and middle classes of the United States to the international bankers of the New World Order; that Barack Obama wasn't born in America (so is not qualified to be President) and radio talk show host David Emory claimed that the Nazi leader Martin Bormann never died and built a global empire involving, among many others, the Bush family.
And on and on they go – did the Royal Family find out that Princess Diana wasn't a lizard and so did away with her?
Look at this picture of the Royal Family. This is supposed to prove that The Duke of Edinburgh is a lizard because reptiles suffer from uncontrollable flatulence and there he is blowing off???

The picture at the top of the page is part of a portrait of Elizabeth I; on David Icke's web site they report that a mysterious snake has appeared in one of her portraits.

The serpent was depicted being clasped in the Tudor monarch's fingers in the original version of the work - but it was painted over at the last minute and replaced with a more decorative bunch of roses.

Deterioration over time has meant the snake has revealed itself once more, with its outline now visible on the surface.''
So why do people believe in all this stuff? Isn't it some kind of paranoia? Or even schizophrenia?
People who suffer from schizophrenia hear voices – well what voices is David Icke and all the other conspiracy theorists hearing before passing the news on to their acolytes?
I remember a few things about David Icke; I think he was a goalkeeper and was injured and then went on to be a football commentator and general football pundit; then he disappeared.
So believe what you want to believe folks and in the meantime you won't have to bother with the real problems of the world.

The Pilot Season

Here we are on another January morning in Hollywood; Los Angeles, really, but Hollywood when we talk of the film business as that is what the industry is here.

Januarys have usually been around the start of the pilot season when mothers bring their kids here to try and get a job in a TV series; try and get a job in a pilot which they hope would be a TV Series more like.

Most of the pilots the kids would be aiming for would be situation comedies – sitcoms – as there were very few children needed in the cops shows or hospital shows.

Between where I live and the Valley proper, there are apartment buildings which used to temporarily rent apartments to the mothers and their, usually, precocious little brats.

I've worked with few children in my time and most of the time they have been well behaved – not so much their mums – but we had to watch our language and watch when their little kids would do a tap dance on the set.

If the kids were well known they seemed to have a certain confidence – and maybe precociousness – and they would give opinions about things and people would listen to them; this would give me the cue to go to my dressing room. Don't get me wrong, I love kids – I used to go to school with them – but I always hated kids in the cast.

But back to the pilot season; well it doesn't seem to exist any more; they (the royal they whoever they are) make pilots all the year round. They make hundreds of them if not thousands. I have seen many; I saw one about a gay robot butler, one about cavemen and one with Tom Conti playing a drunken grandfather who pals up and takes his grandchildren to night clubs.

These pilots cost a fortune and George Clooney appeared in so many, before he made ER, that he became quite rich. They would pay – and I stand to be corrected – about $40,000 for the pilot not even knowing if the pilot would be picked up.

When you go for an audition for the pilot you get the sides (the pages they will want you to read for the audition) 24 hours before the audition. This is a great SAG (Screen Actors Guild) rule which doesn't happen in the UK which enable the producers to cast the best actors in their projects; they are after talent and not the best readers.

After the audition with the casting director, the casting director recommends a short(er) list to come in the for 'call back'. This may still be a 'pre-read' and if you get through that you will be asked to come and audition for the director or one of the producers.

This can happen numerous times till you get to meet the executive producers, their wives and other hangers on.

Before you meet the executive producers, their wives and other hangers on, and you may be down to half a dozen people for each role for the show, your agent will be called and they will do the deal – there and then before the final audition – and you will be told (maybe after negotiation but I doubt it) what the terms of the contract will be.

You will see the increments over the next few years of the show – how much you will get per show, what the residuals are (which will be standard), how much you get if the show goes into syndication and a lot of other imponderables and terms.

The contract will blind you with figures and will be worth many hundreds of thousands of dollars and sometimes will go into millions. You may be offered maybe $40,000 per episode and projected to shoot 13 or 26 episodes per series and then get an increase in the second season and so on – and you haven't had the final audition yet!!!!

This final audition may go into another call back but eventually a pilot will be shot.

When the pilot is shot the producers will show it to the studio executives who will pick it apart and maybe re-cast some of the roles and they will re-shoot those roles and then when they are finished again they will take it to a market research company and focus groups will gather around Los Angeles and watch them; some if these people will be paid.

They will gather in theatres, offices and small screening rooms; sometimes the executives will watch the audiences through a one way mirror to see how they react and the audiences/focus groups will be made up of a sample of the population – some black, some white, some Latino, blue collar, white collar and all the other ethnic and sexual persuasion that it's a wonder anything comes out of it.

The one group of people that they never want in the group would be actors; in a company town it is very hard to throw a stick any day of the week without hitting an actor; I don't even have any idea how many actors live in this building so sometimes they go 'out of town.'

After this they may re-cast and re-shoot yet again because a character may be disliked or an actor may be disliked or even be the wrong colour or race.

So after all this they eventually have a show; then they show it to some critics and they let us all know which ones are going to be hits; the one they said would be a hit this last season was one called Lone Star.

Every critic loved it and it was going to be a big hit – the hit of the season and everybody who had anything to do with it was delighted and optimistic; it was cancelled after just two episodes.

Here's what Fox said about the cancellation:

While speaking at today’s Fox Winter TCA tour in Pasadena, CA, Fox Entertainment Chairman Peter Rice spoke about why he felt their Fall series LONE STAR failed after only two episodes.

“We made a show we really loved, and thought the creators were very talented and made an excellent show,” says Rice. “ [The critics] believed in the show and liked the show, but not enough people showed up to watch it. We were very disappointed in that. It’s the reality of the business we’re in. It’s intensely competitive and you make the best shows you can. The truth is, it failed to meet the expectations we had. That doesn’t mean we don’t like the show and respect the people who made it. I would much prefer to fail with a show we’re creatively proud of than fail with a show that we’re embarrassed by.”

What is not mentioned above is that it was put on opposite the American version of the BBC Show Dancing with the Stars produced by the BBC over here – now isn't that a dumb decision? It was buried and I have to confess I don't know why they buried it there; so the advertisers who bought space on the opening night were not satisfied with the amount of people who watched the show; by the time the second episode was shown the writing was on the wall and Fox pulled the show.

So after all that work, the auditions, the call backs, the contract talks, the rehearsals and the rest of it the show is history.

These people are professionals and they know what they are doing but there was no way an excellent show could be saved.

Let me put my oar in here and as usual I will say I am not an expert on anything – the advertisers are always looking for a specific age group to aim their advertising at; 18 to about 40 – maybe even younger – and I have to ask why?

People with the most money to spare are the senior members of society and they are usually over 40 and watch mature shows and things like Dancing with the Stars so why don't they aim more shows at them?

I only watch Jeopardy so I'm out of it!!

By the way Skins, the hit TV Show from the UK about teenagers, has just opened on MTV here and already some advertisers who bought time in the first episode have cancelled; one of them General Motors.

A Boys Adventure; It's a good job we got a navy!

Years ago – many years ago when I was a young pup I joined the Army Cadets; when the neighbours saw me in my army uniform they said “It's a good job we got a navy!”

Then I went into the house and what did my dad say? “It's a good job we got a navy!”

But I was 14 years old and when I left school at 15 I know I was 4'9” so you can imagine; I did shoot up to average height but I was never tall and the first thing I thought when I looked in the mirror that day was “It's a good job we got a navy!”

After a couple of years, when he was 14, my brother Pat joined the cadets too and we walked into the barracks at Thorpe Street, Birmingham a few nights a week and at weekends. This is where I learned to fire a rifle and got my marksman's badge and passed the certificate A parts one and two faster than any other cadet in our troop.

I was working at the post office at the time, before going on to the motor bike job, and told my mates at work that I'd passed my Cert A and they were so impressed they forgot about it immediately.

So when my brother joined I would be about 16 or so and we made many friends at the cadets; I eventually became a sergeant and I was the solo drummer in the band and Pat was the tenor drummer. On the big bass drum there was a big kid called Pete Rivers and my big competition on the side drum was my pal Lenny Ferris.

The biggest of us was Pete and he was also 17 years of age and had passed his driving test; in those days – the late 50s – you could buy small cars from the 1930s for a few dollars so Pete bought an old banger for very little money; ten of fifteen dollars and one Sunday we went for a ride.

He called around to our house and my pal Lenny was already there and off we went.

The weather was beautiful as we set off from the inner city conurbation where we lived to explore some of the greener parts of Birmingham.

We headed for the South West part of the city and went out to the suburbs to places like Northfield, The Lickey Hills and Harborne.

Green places for four green pals to explore.

After about an hour of driving and some ice cream at the Lickey Hills we had some kind of blow out in one of the tyres. We were strangers to cars as none of our parents had a vehicle at the time and the bang frightened the life out of us. There we were about 15 miles from home and we broke down – what to do?

Well Pete was a big lad so he set about changing the tyre as he had a spare wheel in the back – but no jack.

For some reason, there seemed to be loads of bricks lying about so the plan was to collect some bricks and put them under the car for Pete to change the wheel; so that's what we did; we looked around for bricks. Pat went one way, I went another and Lenny went another – the mission to bring back as many bricks as we could!

Pete stayed with the car and started to loosen the wheel nuts.

Eventually we came back with bricks – the next thing was to pile the bricks underneath the car till it almost reached high enough so if the car fell it would land on the bricks and that was easy; the trouble was the next move would probably take all of us to lift the car – but Pete was a big lad.

Anyway we all got around the bit where the bricks were piled up and there was a brick put there ready to move into place as soon as we got the car high enough; heave ho and away we go we all shouted but Lenny was messing about and pretended he had his foot under the bricks – then he ran off just as we were about to lift the car up.

When he eventually came back we all lifted and would you believe up it came – but not high enough so I couldn't quite get the brick on to the top of the pile before the car came back down again.

We tried again with more shouts this time and just when we got it to its full height I managed to slip the sucker on to the top of the pile. So the car was there securely on bricks.

Pete did the rest of the unscrewing of the wheel nuts, got the spare wheel ready but we couldn't get it on; the other wheel was flat and the new wheel had air in it which meant we had to lift it again.

We were worn out after lifting the first time and we lay down wondering how we would do it then we realised we had no choice – we had to lift it or walk 15 miles home.

So that's what we did! Pete changed the wheel and we were on our way again.

This time we went to a couple of the parks looking for girls - we had a car why wouldn't they fall for us?

There was a very modern hospital called The Queen Elizabeth Hospital not far which was a long way from anywhere and had its own drive called Queen Elizabeth Drive.

We drove along Queen Elizabeth Drive's leafy highway and then it happened again – Bang!!

Another puncture but this time when Pete looked the tyre was ripped to shreds – now how were we going to get home?

We scratched our heads and had a smoke; we used to love to smoke and maybe that was the reason we joined the Army Cadets in the first place. Our parents didn't know we smoked so we lay in the grass smoking whilst Pete worried about his car.

Then one of us came out with a stupid idea; why don't we fill the tyres with grass?

We laughed and sat back and smoked; then someone said 'well what else can we do?'

And that's what we did; we had the bricks with us and hoisted the car up on them again but with more confidence this time and took the burst tyre off. Then we got the other tyre, the one with the mere puncture and gave as much grass to Pete as we could; Lenny said he wouldn't take part as it would be dangerous so he lit up another cigarette whilst me and Pat collected the grass.

As we collected the grass we noticed we had stopped near some apple trees so we picked an apple – it tasted terrible! It was a green granny Smith cooking apple so we picked loads of apples to take them home to our mums to make cook apple pie.

Eventually Pete had a pile of grass and we stuffed the grass between the wheel and the edge of the tyre – although I can't think how – and when we thought we had enough Pete put the wheel back on.

These were old tyres with inner tubes and that's where we had stuffed the grass.

There the car stood in all its glory and you wouldn't be able to tell which wheel had the grass filled tyre on if you didn't know – well maybe the bits of green grass on the wheel might have given you a clue.

We got in we took off and I sat in the back and to this day I can still see the car going up and down as we travelled with all the apples in the back seat flying all over the place - like apples in a barrel - as we travelled the streets of Birmingham and eventually home.

Gabrielle Giffords, Sarah Palin and Christina Taylor-Green.

The world knows what has happened here in the USA, in the good old boy state of Arizona, with the attempted assassination of Gabrielle Giffords, and the murder of six others, including a nine year old girl who was actually born on September 11^th 2001.

What a tragic little life that little girl lived, her life framing two horrific events in American history which she had no control of but by all accounts she lived a very happy one.

She had just been elected to a student council and wanted to meet Gabrielle Giffords.

Her name was Christina Taylor-Green and she was the granddaughter of an ex-manager of the Phillies Baseball team and the daughter of one of the Dodgers Baseball team's scouts; she was featured in the book Faces of Hope which was about babies born on nine eleven; who would have thought that someone from that book would die in such circumstances but on the other hand who would have thought otherwise with the way the world is going?

There is a lot of talk about Sarah Palin since the shooting and the cross hairs of a gun sight she put on one of her web sights which included the district Gabrielle Giffords looked after.

Giffords herself had previously raised concerns about Palin's map: "The way that she has it depicted has the cross hairs of a gun sight over our district. When people do that, they have got to realize there are consequences to that action."

Not long after that a shot was fired – a pellet gun I think – into Giffords' offices.

The cross hairs were placed over Democratic Congress members who had voted for Obama's healthcare reform; read it yourself above.

Even though I wrote a post, Sarah Palin, The most dangerous women in the world, I'm not saying that Sarah Palin is directly responsible for the shooting but what do you think hateful rhetoric does? It stirs up hatred.

The person who shot her – or should I say allegedly shot her – was a conspiracy theorist; he had crazy ideas about what the government does and how if you have your name written on your birth certificate in block capital letters the government would be after you and . . . do I need to even repeat this verbage?

His favourite books are Mein Kafmpf, The Communist Manifesto and one of the Alice books - through the looking glass or in Wonderland.

He had met Gabrielle Giffords a couple of years ago and had taken a dislike to her; now I wonder why a conspiracy theorist would have anything against a Jewish Congresswoman?

So I'm asking the question again – what do you think hateful rhetoric does and what does it cause people slightly mad and confused to do?

And where do these slightly mad people get their information from?

The answer is the mass media – TV and radio.

I hate to compare one country with another but in Britain it is the law for television and radio companies to be non-partial – if you put one view of anything you have to put the other point of view. It may seem strange but it works.

Of course the law doesn't include the printed word and newspapers there are committed to one of the parties; the Murdoch papers have dictated to their readers who to vote for and the sheep have voted for them each time. He followed Thatcher, Major; then changed parties to follow Tony Blair and last year he changed parties again and went back to his usual Conservative Party with David Cameron.

In America we have cable channels such as Fox News and MSNBC – the first one Republican the latter Democratic; there are others of course but those are the main ones.

Up to 1987 you wouldn't be able to do that in America; there was something called The Fairness Doctrine which was abolished by Ronald Regan in 1987.

There's Gabrielle below - or Gabby as her friends call her; let's wish her well.

a very short French story.

Happy New Year to you on this the date when the rest of the world write it the way America does – 1/1/11.

There have been many many hits and people are looking at this blog all over the world – there is a map of recent hits above.

I say looking at it and I hope most of them have read it but thanks in any case.

After the Christmas break and holiday with all the turkey, mince pies, sausage rolls and Christmas pud we ventured out to one of our check point Charlies – The Farmer's Market of course – and went to the French Restaurant Marcel's for lunch.

We couldn't quite make up our minds about the special or anything else on the menu so we both settled for Coq au van; we've had it a few times before and, I have to say, it's usually very good and a good stand by.

I have never been let down at Marcel's and have eaten loads of things on their menu. It usually has quite a pleasant ambiance with an accordion player wearing a striped shirt and beret (I kid you not) adding to the atmosphere; especially in the evenings as the tables, as with every other place there, are in the open with a canopy over the top.

So the French music, the hub bub of the market with the occasional chiming of The Farmer's Market Clock adds to a very pleasant experience.

As I sat there looking at the menu it reminded me of one of the times I was at Cannes trying to sell my film; I was with an old, dearly departed friend David Capey; he was a fine editor and general film maker.

During various festivals in Cannes the restaurants and bars increase their prices many fold but we knew of a place at the base of the Palais where the workers would go for their food. The menu there, as in Marcel's, was on a chalk board and on one of the days it said frits and something as the special so we settled for that. We hardly spoke any French but we knew that frits meant chips – French fries.

So we settled down at our table with a couple of glasses of red wine.

We would drink complimentary pink Champagne all day and red wine at meals.

The food in front of us looked very strange; I recognised the chips, of course, but what was that with them? It didn't look too good and from what I can remember didn't smell too good either.

It was piled up with onions and when I looked closer at it it reminded me of a body part; not a pretty body part in fact a naughty bit; not too naughty but a naughty bit shared by men and women and not the cheeks in fact the bit in between.

Was I going to eat this thing on my plate; this thing that looked like somebody's arse? I looked at David and he tried a fork full; “not bad” he said.

I tried some and it tasted awful; the worst taste I have ever experienced ever ever ever!!

“We're eating tripe, matey” he said.

Not long after that I took a course in French.