In which I somehow end up mingling with quite famous people
I had a curious evening on Monday, when I headed down to London for a Neil Gaiman signing. He has a new novel out: The Graveyard Book, and I have a, er, contact in the industry who invited me to what I assumed was a private signing for people in the book trade. The last time I went to one of his signings it turned out oddly - I stood in a queue for hours before getting himto sign a book on photographic theory - but this was a whole new level. It was a private event, but not like I thought.
There I was, in a private room underneath St. Martin in the Fields church at Trafalgar Square, feeling very out of place and trying hard not to look it. There were maybe 100 people milling about stone columns and becostumed ghouls, all drinking wine, looking very smart, and being worryingly well known. Here's a guy who draws political cartoons in the Observer. Here's the author of that children's series you've been seeing everywhere. This lady runs the purchasing at x major publisher. Over there is a Telegraph reviewer. And is that Ruby Wax?!
I was so out of my depth it's ridiculous. So I instigated Emergency Socialising Plan: stand up straight, keep head up, smile, do not drop glass, stick very close to friend. Thankfully I was at this point unaware of the enormous spot on my upper lip. This seemed to work.
A lady stops my friend to say she likes his shirt. Thank you, he says, and you are...? Oh, I illustrated some of Neil's Sandman comics, she says. Holy crap, I think. General chit-chat occurs. I try to think of something clever to say, but then she's gone. Said author, meanwhile, is mingling gently a few feet away.
Have a copy of The Graveyard Book, my friend tells me. Ok, I say. Do you want the Dave McKean or Chris Riddell version? The Dave McKean, please. Ok, let's go get him to sign it.
Hi, Mr. McKean. I thought Mirrormask was totally beautiful - I made all my friends watch it. Also I want your tarot cards. Would you mind signing this, please? That's wonderful, thank you.
Mingle mingle mingle. Do you work in the book trade, I'm asked. Not so much, but I'm trying to learn, I say. How are things going, asks the publishing rep. Ok, we say. Have you met Neil yet? No, not yet. Ok, I'll bring him to you.
What do you mean, you'll being Neil Gaiman to me? What? How is it possible this is really happening?
After a few minutes Neil Gaiman appears to sign my book, at which point my friend gets called away. I'm in a little bubble with just me and one of my favourite authors ever, and I am obviously unable to think of anything remotely interesting1, so I say something about being a long time blog reader. He's very nice, does a wonderful little illustration in the front of my book, and grabs Dave McKean, who's nearby. We both indicate he's already signed it, and they move on. Not particularly coruscating on my part, but at least I didn't say anything cringeworthy.
Later I'm chatting to Mrs McKean, who is quite possibly the nicest woman in the entire world, and she grabs her passing husband so I can say hello. I expect Dave McKean was sick of the sight of me by the end of the evening.
Overall, I think I held my own. A part of my brain said 'be lively! be impressive! be memorable!', which certainly didn't happen; but I was ok, and I got to meet some very interesting people. And here's the other thing that happened: a woman my own age came over to talk to me. I genuinely cannot think of a time this has happened before (I'm honestly not playing for sympathy, I just don't go to the kind of places/events where it would). Admittedly I think she'd had a bit to drink, and I might have accidentally said something about not being in a cult, which was in hindsight a bit weird, but hey - that's something new.
So it was an unexpectedly exhilarating evening. Worryingly, I quite enjoyed it. I'd quite like to be at such a thing without feeling like I shouldn't be 
Many thanks to my friend for wangling me a ticket.
- ten thousand things occurred on the way home, naturally [↩]
Gotham’s saviour
Here's the problem with The Dark Knight: it was just a bit unrealistic. Here's how things would actually have gone down:
In your heart, you know it to be true.
Crap evening for entertainment news
Well, that sucks. I enjoyed both of those people very much. A twitter friend suggested Steven Moffat should invite Russell Brand to be the next Doctor, which would be tremendous.
I guess it's not too surprising that David Tennant's leaving, but I was hoping the lure of Steven Moffat scripts would be enough for at least another series. Oh well.
It's ridiculous that RB was forced to resign. An apology was obviously appropriate, but demands for resignation? Get a grip. It's all a right-wing BBC-hater's wet dream, and their cacophony of outrage doesn't ring true.
And I bloody wish they'd stop calling them 'prank' phone calls - that's a broken definition of 'prank'. It wasn't set up, preplanned, or, imho, intended to be malicious. Calling it a 'prank' call gives completely the wrong impression. Call it thoughtless, say they should have known better, demand apologies, etc.. But calling it a 'prank' is undeniably unfair.
I still think the whole event is entirely explicable as a regrettable mistake without intentional malice, and that anyone listening to the show would see this. But maybe that's too subtle for the rabid prudes and BBC-haters. Not that everyone who complained can be classified as such, obviously. But many undoubtedly can, and they're very, very loud.
(edit) His resignation video is impressive and worth watching, imho. It confirms the impression I had of the guy, too.
*grump*. The story has caused some fun around here, mind: my Brand / Ross / Sachs post got linked to from Radio 4's Today Programme website yesterday, and that plus Google searches nearly killed the webserver.
Comedic differences
Two links on international comedy that made sense to me. First, here's Stewart Lee on Germans' supposed lack of humour:
At a rough estimate, half of what we find amusing involves using little linguistic tricks to conceal the subject of our sentences until the last possible moment, so that it appears we are talking about something else. For example, it is possible to imagine any number of British stand-ups concluding a bit with something structurally similar to the following, "I was sitting there, minding my own business, naked, smeared with salad dressing and lowing like an ox ... and then I got off the bus." We laugh, hopefully, because the behaviour described would be inappropriate on a bus, but we had assumed it was taking place either in private or perhaps at some kind of sex club, because the word "bus" was withheld from us. Other suitable punchlines for this set-up would be, "And that was just the teachers", "I was 28-years-old" and "That's the last time I attempt to find work as a research chemist in Paraguay."
There is even a technical term used by those who direct comedy on camera to describe this one-size-fits-all mechanism. Eddie Large is gasping for air as a hot dog falls into the end of his snorkel. The shot widens to reveal Sid Little, whose sausages are flying into the air out of his hot-dog buns because he is using too much ketchup. Pull back and reveal. But German will not always allow you to shunt the key word to the end of the sentence to achieve this failsafe laugh. After spending weeks struggling with the rigours of the German language's far less flexible sentence structures to achieve the endless succession of "pull back and reveals" that constitute much English language humour, the idea of our comedic superiority soon begins to fade. It is a mansion built on sand.
and Simon Pegg on the (lack of) differences between UK and US comedy:
I hated Friends when it first aired. The very title was anathema to me. It immediately evoked the embarrassing, droopy-eyed longings of the sickeningly hug-happy new American youth. The thought of all that togetherness, untempered by ironic undermining, made my skin crawl. Yet it drew me in. Due to a fine ensemble cast and some genuinely funny scriptwriting ("You're over me? When were you under me?"), Friends was readily accessible, even to us closed-off Brits. In fact, it arguably even opened us up a little. I certainly went from sneery to teary at Ross and Rachel's passionate, reconciliatory smooch. This moment might actually hold the key to a middle ground between British and American humour, specifically when it comes to heartfelt, emotional expression. The British aren't against it; we just believe it comes at a price. The success of the emotional climax in that particular scene is due entirely to the comedy preceding it. Ross's perm, Monica's fat suit, Rachel's nose all go toward setting the tone for the payoff, which the audience wholeheartedly accept. The sentiment is a reward, rather than a device to engender a sympathy laugh or, worse, a big, soppy, "Awww".
This device works in the best situation comedy on both sides of the Atlantic. The difference is perhaps simply that the average American is prepared to accept it sooner. Still, who could deny Del Boy a tearful pat of Grandad's chair, after his Keaton-worthy tumble through the wine bar? Or scoff at the field of poppies that fills the screen at the close of Blackadder Goes Forth? Similarly, Hawkeye's breakdown in the final M*A*S*H or Sam's switching off the lights of the Cheers bar for the last time both suggest we are prepared to take our comedy with a side of emotional drama. So perhaps we're not so dissimilar, after all.
I'm not so keen on the generalisations of how British / American people react, but it's certainly true for some people. Maybe it works if you average it out. Maybe. He's also good on Americans' supposed lack of irony, which is always a red flag of this-person-is-worth-ignoring.
Both links via Mind Hacks.
You wouldn’t want to be miserable
Clearly the Guardian website has an editor with a sense of humour. There's no other way this article on annoying atheists could have been published:
Far from relaxing and enjoying life, most atheists I have encountered are gloomy blighters with a depressing and nihilistic message that there is no purpose to life so where's the point of anything? They so often fall into the category defined by GK Chesterton: "Those that do not have the faith/Will not have the fun."
I've never really understood why 'there not being a purpose to life' would imply there being no point to anything. I also like the argumentative tactic of quoting someone else talking bollocks in the hope nobody notices. But I only quoted the above to show the context of her next line:
You only have to attend one of their dreary humanist funerals to see that – I am never going to another of those, just to be made miserable.
I don't think there's anything to say to that. Via B&W.
Brand / Ross / Sachs
Russell Brand has apologised to Andrew Sachs for answerphone messages left during the former's Radio 2 show. Now, I listened to that particular episode yesterday, and I laughed a lot. And I'm the first person to turn off comedians who crudely insult people for laughs - that's not my thing at all. So I think this is all a bit odd.
This particular episode had been on my to-listen list for a while, as the guest co-host was Jonathan Ross. I'm a great admirer of both men, and I was looking forward to hearing them spar. And I wasn't disappointed - I like that kind of fast wordplay and wit. I don't remember thinking they were doing anything particularly offensive or awful, but here's how the BBC described their actions:
Both Brand and Ross made obscene comments about Sachs' 23-year-old granddaughter on a series of messages which they left on the actor's voicemail during the segment.
That's one way of phrasing it, but it's hardly fair. They make it sound like a cruel prank, which it wasn't - if you listen to the show, it's clearly neither malicious nor deliberately insulting. Russell had, it turned out, slept with said granddaughter, and he and Jonathan agreed that this was something they definitely shouldn't mention. Like, you know, the war. But when ex-Fawlty Towers star Andrew Sachs wasn't in, they got his answerphone. And while trying to think of a message, things degraded into innuendo. I'm sure you can imagine. They later agreed that they felt bad about this message, so phoned back to apologise. This took a few phone calls, and the final one was pretty much 'sorry. we're sorry.'
I found it pretty funny. Others likely didn't, which is fair enough. But to call it anything more than joking around is to assume a certain malice on the part of the presenters, which I don't see. If you've spent any time watching or listening to Jonathan Ross, he's obviously either kind, liberal and decent, or one a hell of an actor. Russell Brand is less someone I'd like to be friends with1, and he can sometimes be unpleasant during his trademark flights of verbal diarrhea, but when push comes to shove he has - to my view - a similar sense of kindness.
But still, even if you've never heard either of them before, listening to the show in context should clear it up. They simply weren't being nasty.
It's unfortunate that Andrew Sachs apparently reacted badly, and I suppose the whole thing hinges on his reaction. Many people would, I suspect, have found the messages amusing. But that's just unfortunate, and it shouldn't be difficult to explain and demonstrate that no offence was intended. But a quick google blog search finds lots of reactionary right-wing whiners calling for them to be sacked. Which isn't surprising, but is a bit pathetic.
These situations always remind me of the spectacular hissy fits after Jonathan Ross asked David Cameron whether he'd ever masturbated over Margaret Thatcher. Lots of prudes old right-wing prudes decided it was 1875 and any talk of sex in public should result in a jolly public hanging, or at least the stocks. It's vulgar and disprespectful and blah get-off-my-lawn blah. They, as ever, failed to appreciate that rational people can talk in this way without being unpleasant. It's about intent, not the simple words themselves. If you watch the video, the style of interview and questioning is obviously not cruel or malicious, and the reasons it's funny are interesting in themselves. I'm not going to start analysing the comedy, but if you can't figure out what's going on there, maybe you shouldn't be commenting on appropriate behaviour. If you don't find it funny, fine, but to declare outrage and indecency and disrespect is making yourself look like a stuffy, empathy-less Victorian with no sense of nuance. If you can't handle jokes about masturbation, I really don't know what to say.
Anyway. If you'd like to hear the show for yourself, it's still on the podcast feed here (it's the show from the 18th October).
- My Booky Wook isn't the nicest read ever [↩]
Not Taking the Mickey? Stuff and Nonsense?
I haven't done much this week other than work on a 'film stills' photo project. This has seen me, amongst other things, splatting fake blood onto my parents' drive, gaffa-taping a monkey to my steering wheel in a public car park, projecting a silhouette of Mickey Mouse onto the side of a friend's house, and visiting Tesco late at night to buy a long, black wig and a bunch of roses. This is great. So it's been an interesting few days, and it's a good job I haven't had much proper - you know, paying - work, but sometimes you get lucky.
It's finally all done, anyway. It's about malevolent toys, and the flickr set is here. I haven't properly named it yet, mainly because I can't think of any atrocious puns. There's gotta be something...It's not due in till tomorrow, so I'll see if anything comes to mind.
On the difficulty of visually representing abstract stories
The main item on the BBC News technology page as of five minutes ago:
Yeah, I'd say that's analogous.
This evening didn’t really go like I expected
(not part of a series. It just kinda happened)
The Atheist Bus
This morning a Comment is Free post (of all things) launched a campaign to counter religious advertising on London buses. Quite brilliantly, it's already raised enough to buy space for an advert on 30 buses, which will say:
There’s probably no God. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life.
Love it. It's in response to adverts for the Alpha Course, which linked to a website telling of the tremendous suffering that will come to unbelievers. That kind of thing really pisses me off. The Alpha Course isn't on the fringes of UK Christianity - it's everywhere. If it were all flowers and bunnies, it might be polite to let it go by. But it's not, and I'd say it's rude not to counter it.
I'm looking forward to the whinings over this one. Not from the religious lobby - though that could be entertaining - but there'll be claims of militancy and why are you being so aggressive and this isn't the best way to do things and blah superior blah. Fun times.
Hello!
Hey, thanks for coming! I'm Andrew, and this is where my headthinks come to breed. They often meander around humanism and photography, but they're flighty and you can't trust them, so anything is possible.
Do feel free to email me - I get lonely:
Your hair looks swish, by the way - have you done something new?
Recent Comments
- vicky: going up this weekend having done all the welsh peaks except 4 snowdon, cant wait
on Climbing Snowdon. - vicky: what, how can u live in the 21 c and say that, probably a sexist thing
on Climbing Snowdon. - vicky: da iawn laura, cant believe what im hearing, all this fuss, anyway love the site, and i agree, normal people who swear and curse clomb mountains cos we live in the...
on Climbing Snowdon. - Andrew: Did a few quick test shots to check the light levels, then balanced the camera on the arm of a bench, set it for a 20s exposure and hoped for the best
on ISS. - lynsey: Wow, how did you take that photograph?
on ISS.
