Citizen Kane's Thatcher and Gertie Ford . . .

Well I didn't say anything about Margaret Thatcher did I? And why would I when the name Thatcher was on the TV wall to wall 24 hours a day. I don't think even Winston Churchill was mentioned that much when he died but there again they didn't have cable and 24 hour news channels in those days.

What I thought was a bit below the belt was the fact that politicians 'cashed in' on her death and the funeral to make political points: we're all Thatcherites now!! I don't think so. Before the Conservatives had anything to do with the railways you could buy a ticket and jump on a train. Not now – now you have to pay a lot of money for a relatively short journey unless you book well in advance.

But it's all gone into history and it's time to move on.

I remember the name Thatcher as being one of the characters in Citizen Kane – I can't remember what he was but I remember what the fella looked like who played him.

A strange film, I have always thought; dark and mysterious and then when I grew up I found people saying it was their favourite film and then finding out that they hadn't even seen it.

I appreciate some things about the film; the fact that it was shot in long focus and that there were ceilings in the shots. Doesn't mean a thing these days does it as a lot of films and TV shows have ceilings in and because of television there has to be 'close ups' in movies or the TV companies wouldn't show them – so much for 'long focus.'

Some of the old films are a bit frustrating to watch when there are no close ups; it's because we're used to them these days and you can't see the facial expressions and images a couple of inches high from your sofa.

Another film everybody goes on about is Battleship Potemkin; great editing on the Odessa Steps sequence but I remember at a lecture the lecturer pointing out that soldiers were walking down the steps but up the screen they seemed to be walking up hill from the bottom to the top; how clever, I thought!!

That was when I did a film studies O/A level Course and I have to say it was harder than other subjects; maybe because they were my own opinions and not necessarily those of the teaching staff.

So off I go to Los Angeles for ten days and I'll write some news here when I get back – I might even write from over there but I'm going to be busy so maybe it'll be in May before I write.

In the meantime look me up on Amazon and buy my novel – Who Was Gertie Ford?

Col Needham's Story.

There he is – the man himself: one Col Needham; the man a lot of people aspire to be.

At one time everybody wanted to be Clark Gable then other movie stars or pop singers of the day; I wanted to be Elvis, Steve McQueen or James Dean then later Robert De Niro and then James Joyce. Of course as a child I wanted to be Superman, Roy Rogers and then Geoff Duke!!

Women wanted to be the female equivalent - shall we say Marilyn Monroe, then Marilyn Monroe again, then Gertrude Stein.

Others wanted to be sports figures like Joe DiMaggio, George Best and now David Beckham but that man above has taken over; and who is he? He is Col Needham?

Col was born in Manchester on January 26^th 1967; I don't know if his birth name is Colin but he is known as 'Col' and he is one of the hand full of multi-billionaires who have made their fortune by accident, out of a hobby or a convenience they invented. I don't mean a public convenience, like a public lavatory, I mean something they made or adapted or, in the case of Col, wrote a computer programme for.

I made a movie in the 90s in the north of England and next to the place where we shot the scenes, there was a young man listing every film he had ever seen; he was entering the titles, the stars, the directors and the writers and he was filing them away. This was in Cheshire and I often wondered if that was Col; the time line seems to fit.

Because that's what Col, himself, says he was doing around that time!

He wanted the information for easy reference when he wanted to find something. Just the fella to meet at a party eh?

Rather like the driver who always has spare bulbs, spare tyres, a full petrol can in the boot so that when he breaks down he can look rather smugly at everybody else. The last time I had a puncture it was a 'double blow out' in Los Angeles when my two off side wheels went down a sharp pot hole; so my spare was no good as I needed two and to make matters worse, I had just watched a documentary on TV which said that two tyres blowing out in pot holes in Los Angeles was very common after huge downpours of rain!!

Back to Col; he was doing all this stuff before the advent of the world wide web so he invented a little data base to share with friends and to make easy access to it he wrote the computer programme.

When the Internet started someone contacted him and said his site was great but needed writers' details as well so that particular person was asked to put the writers information in; then someone said the site needed composer information and that someone was recruited too.

Of course this led to the giant Internet Movie Data Base which is what it is now – the IMDb – or the imdB (whatever).

In 1998 he sold it to Amazon but he still runs the company and is the CEO or the Managing Director – he runs it with a staff of between 100 – 200 from his office just outside Bristol.

I want to ask one question: why would Amazon want to buy it? Why did Ebay buy everything from Paypal to Skype? Why did Google buy YouTube? Why do they want so much power.

I know why Amazon bought Love Film, because they couldn't buy Netflix; Netflix was started by a couple of computer geeks from Silicon Valley in Northern California (computer guy again) who returned a DVD back to Blockbusters and had to pay a $40 late fee so decided to start his own little business with a partner and what a little business it turned out to be. It's now one of the biggest companies of its kind anywhere in the world – all because he kept Apollo 13 too long and Blockbusters were too greedy. That's the one I'm really pleased about and I'm glad they didn't sell it to the man.

One mistake may I point out to Netflix – you didn't design your envelope too well as you had to put that little sticker to keep the DVD in the packet. You can't see it in the picture but there's another sheet of paper you have to tear off before returning the DVD.

 But back to Mister Needham the IMDb boss: casting was always run by people in the business and records kept by people like The Academy Players and Spotlight but now the casting directors in Los Angeles use the IMDb and that might happen in the UK soon who knows? It'll mean the British actors will have to put their head shots up on there like they do in the USA.

Before I close I have to thank all those who sent emails to me following my last post commemorating my dad's centenary – it was appreciated and I'm glad you liked it.

But who was the guy keeping all the film records if it wasn't the Col?

My second novel has just been published in paperback and is available from Amazon – here we are - http://www.amazon.co.uk/Who-Gertie-Ford-Chris-Sullivan/dp/1482691973/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1363609040&sr=8-1 that's for the UK and this is for the USA:

http://www.amazon.com/Who-Gertie-Ford-Chris-Sullivan/dp/1482691973/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1363613415&sr=8-1&keywords=who+was+gertie+ford%3F You'll have to copy and paste.

Jameson's Whiskey from Rock and Roll Ralphs and more.

Sorry to have been away for so long; I had a chest infection last week and it put me back a lot on my recording. So this week I have been almost exclusively making sure the chapters in my audio book are the right length for the CDs etc and now I have finished it.

The title – Who Was Gertie Ford? - will be available on Audible.com soon.

Sometimes when I am driving around Los Angeles I realise that there are things that happen here which don't appear to happen anywhere else.

In Britain at Christmas time the shops are full of things needed for Christmas; things you can buy for presents, food, turkeys, booze, clothes CDs etc – all at top price. Then on Boxing Day the sales start; here the sales start before Christmas so people can buy those bargains and in the long run the shops make loads of money and people get their presents before Christmas.

On Thursday it was St Patrick's Day; the local supermarket, Rock and Roll Ralphs, reduced the price of Jameson's Whiskey from $27 to $15; I bought two. In the UK they increase the price because when they think there's going to be a run on something.

I have been to Cannes a few times and the bars and restaurants would increase the cost of beer and wine for the rush at the festivals but places like Ralphs, and other stores over here, make a load of money and make everybody happy; especially the droves of people walking up to the check outs clutching their bottles of usquebaugh.

Last week I was taking my wife up to Ventura in our old Volvo Station Wagon when it blew up – gone!! The engine is now kaput and never to be driven again.

I had barely looked into my wallet to call the breakdown service when I saw in my mirror the So-Cal metro free breakdown service. I told the fella what had happened and he said they would come and tow me off the freeway within half an hour. If I'd run out of petrol they would have replenished my tank for free or even changed a wheel if I'd had a puncture – all free; California.

The breakdown truck arrived and dropped us at Denny's where we had a grand slam – 2 eggs, 2 sausages, 2 slices of bacon and 2 pancakes all washed down with coffee; $6.99.

When people visit me here they kind of stare gobsmacked in the street when they see a bus; nothing strange about the bus but they have bikes on the front on a special bike rack at the front for the passengers; they also have great room for wheelchairs.

You can just about make out the bike rack, above; I couldn't find a picture with actual bikes on them.

People put their bikes on the rack themselves and get out near a bike trail or even anywhere they want to ride their bike.

Yesterday in the San Fernando Valley I was stopped at the traffic lights when a light next to the traffic light started flashing – it said 'bus.' Then a bus came across unhindered as if it was a train.

So there are lots of things here in Los Angeles – including the weather – which add to the quality of life.

Of course there are a lot of silly people here who rush out and buy potassium iodide pills to try to prevent the radiation from Japan giving them thyroid cancer; it can protect against thyroid cancer, but not any other organ, and the people who need it are in Japan not California and because there has been a run on the pills here in the good old US of A the people in Japan, who need the pills, can't get them.

So it's not all sweetness and light – and last night, would you believe it rained!!!