Mike Reid 1940-2007
Ingmar Bergman 1918-2007
I have, to differing degrees, loved both of these men. Mike Reid had, sadly, left EastEnders by the time I arrived there in 2000, but he was already legend on the Square - not least for being one the castmember most likely to add his own lines to the script. There was little point in trying to write for Frank Butcher - Mike Reid knew him best. One such line had gone down in EastEnders history: "What do you take me for? Some kind of pilchard?" If that line isn't etched on Reid's gravestone, there is no justice. Although I was given it as an ironic Christmas present, T'rific, his autobiography, is a stormer, albeit vague to the point of infuriating. Again, more phrases that nobody else had ever used. At one point, the author describes himself as walking around "like prick the bishop." It seems only right that Mike Reid died in Spain, where he had moved. He represents every Englishman who has ever retired to Spain, to turn permanently salmon pink and buy the Sun and speak English in tapas bars.

Bergman, meanwhile, made more of an artistic contribution to the century - he was, after all, the greatest film director working in it - but was no less of a rogue than Mike. He had five wives and nine kids, all of whom he effectively abandoned, dedicated as he was to his art. BBC4 had only just shown three Bergman documentaries, the most enlightening of which was Bergman And Faro Island (the bleak but beautiful Swedish rock to which he moved permanently, and the setting of many of his films, not least my own personal favourite, the ultra-bleak Winter Light). This doc was made for Swedish television about four years ago, and filmmaker Marie Nyerod had unprecedented access to the old recluse, notching up 30 hours of interview. He clearly liked her, and she him. Aged 85 at the time, he seemed spritely and in reasonable spirits - driving around in a jeep like a madman - although he admitted, looking back on his life, that he was "family-lazy" and listed all his demons for Nyerod. He simply preferred his own company. At one poignant juncture, he spoke of his lack of religious belief (something that constantly came up in his films - son of a chaplain, of course), and yet, when his last wife, Ingrid von Rosen, died in 1995, he admitted that for the first time he had contemplated heaven, certain that when he died, he would meet Ingrid again; that she would be waiting for him. I hope he was right. He had a grandfather clock in his house on Faro that ticked loudly, and comforted him. It's still ticking. He, alas, is not.

Still no broadband access. BT inquiry ongoing. Today I am squatting at Radio 4, which seems like a good place to be on the day of Bergman's death.

Anything else? Yesterday I had my office phone cut off by BT, due to non-payment of my first quarter's bill that was sent (along with the reminder and the red reminder) to the wrong address for my office because someone at BT took down my address wrong, and these letters were sent back. Thus, I have no broadband, nor phone. I am posting this from someone else's computer. Sorry about this, but apparently it will take seven days for my phone to be reconnected.

Bear with me, once again.

Clapham Junction
Centrepiece drama in Channel 4's 40 Years On strand, commemorating the anniversary of the decriminalisation of homosexuality, written by Kevin Elyot, who may or may not be gay (I hope he is) but certainly hates Metropolitan middle-class dinner-party types, a bunch of whom form the hub of this five-stranded narrative. At two hours long, this was a slow-paced but well-constructed story, most of which - necessarily - happened around Clapham Common (not Clapham Junction, but perhaps that made a better title), except the bits that happened on Hampstead Heath, just to confuse everybody. Anyway, I won't spoil it for anyone who taped or Sky+-ed it, but there's a violent incident that unites all five, seemingly disparate, stories, and that's the kind of drama I like. Solid performances from Rupert Graves, James Wilby (a class reunion from Maurice!) and Paul Nicholls; a rather hyseterical one from Phoebe Nicholls (not Cates, as I orginally wrote), which really unbalanced the climax of one of the strands, and one or two smaller ones that strayed into caricature, such as Samantha Bond's paper-thin, self-deluded liberal fraud and Neil Pearson's venal, bored commissioning editor. Congratulations to Elyot for getting a drama commissioned by Channel 4 which opens on the Channel 4 building and shows said commissioning editor, idly tapping his BlackBerry, dismissing Graves' writer around an enormous, caricatured boardroom table, because his proposed drama is about gay people ("Aren't we over the whole gay thing?"). How self-referential is that? Anyway, no commissioning editor would play with his BlackBerry while talking to a writer, nor do Channel 4 use huge boardrooms for one-on-one meetings with writers, but the point was made. This was not a documentary. And you've got to watch out for a young actor called Luke Treadaway, who, fortunately, was not as young as the character he played, who was 14 and got up to some of the most graphic, horse-frightening shenanigans, which was nothing we haven't seen on Channel 4 before. He's 23. One problem for me: I know that certain aspects of the gay lifestyle are played out in the shadows, despite decriminalisation, and some of them in public toilets (I've been down in the famous ones in Clapham Common that featured here: a bit like descending some stairs into the 1950s), but Clapham Junction lingered somewhat on this aspect. Even the gay wedding, which gave celebratory heft to the subject, involved one partner getting off with a waiter at his own reception. It seemed to be suggesting that gay men can never commit, which surely isn't the case? Anyway, vividly directed by Adrian Shergold (who did, among others, Births, Marriages and Deaths) and packing a few surprises. And depressing as hell, which must have been the point.

Just found out I can do this.



And this. Did I mention I have work to do? David Mitchell got it right.

Which famous album sleeve are Jon Holmes and I recreating?



For the answer, go to The Day The Music Died homepage, such that it is. Gosh, it's nice to be back blogging again.

And this is a mirror-image photo of me taken using my new laptop and its rather silly Photo Booth application [see: previoius entry about new laptop]. I am actually thinking, "What the fuck?" when it is being taken.



And this is a mirror-image photo of my hand pointing at the wet patch on my office ceiling where the water that killed my PowerBook came through. Must do some work.

I am male, therefore I am excited about owning a new toy that plugs into the wall. My PowerBook could not be rescued. I have yet to find out if they've managed to recover all my data, although it was sounding hopeful when I lasted called the computer A&E on a South London industrial estate. However, knowing my old laptop had perished, on Friday, I bought one of these, a MacBook, in black. Naturally, I am in love with it. It's a whole lot faster, as my old PowerBook was starting to reach its memory limit anyway, and there's a stupid Photo Book application which takes a picture of you with the laptop, except the resulting photo is a mirror image. What use is that, really? (Sorry, I'm starting to sound like David Mitchell.)

The good news is: when I presciently backed up all my documents at the end of April onto a brand new portable hard drive, it turns out I also backed up all of my photos, which was a massive bonus when I plugged it into this little fella on Friday evening and copied across. I'm currently going through the laborious process of re-bookmarking all my favourite websites and re-inputting all my bloody passwords and usernames. (I've already had to call up the 123-Reg helpline to recover one lot that I couldn't remember, but this is par for the course, and I had to re-sign in to Flickr using a password I originally invented for a Yahoo account about seven years ago!) I have learned never again to trust anything to a piece of metal - or at least not to one piece of metal - and to back up daily. It's nice to have 15 years' worth of writing back. I think I might copy this archive - which goes back to the very first satirical items I wrote with Stuart Maconie for Mark Goodier's show in 1992 - onto a variety of different hard drives and hide them at different locations around the country. (Excuse any typos - I'm learning to cope with a slightly different keyboard.)

Anyway, I went to see Die Hard 4.0 at the weekend and of course it's about what happens when evil hackers bring the Eastern Seaboard to its knees by mucking about with some files. A very apt subject. I really enjoyed the film, by the way. Clearly it's not a patch on Die Hard, Die Hard 2 or even Die Hard With A Vengeance, but it could have been a whole lot worse. Preposterous, but isn't that the point?

Must go, as I'm precisely one week behind on the final script for series two of Not Going Out. Thank you for your patience and your computer-empathy.

(By the way: main advantage of working on a Mac - there are only really two laptops to choose from in the shop, whereas if you want a PC there are about 20. It certainly cuts down the time spent in PC World, who, it turns out, offer £15-a-month insurance that includes free back-up and recovery, but not, if you read the small print, for Macs! What second class citizens we are.)

I hope nobody was really flooded, by the way. What did for me was a leaky roof one floor above my office, but that's hardly being trapped in Tewkesbury with no drinking water is it?

Boo. The office that I rent flooded over weekend. My laptop has died in the downpour. It's all very annoying. Excuse me if I don't post for a bit. I'm having it seen to.

US Drama Update
Just to keep you in the picture, I am currently watching two US dramas religiously, one of which is about to end, and I've had a look at the first episode of a third. Heroes (Sci-Fi) is one episode off finishing, and it's been a fabulous series. It begins on BBC2 almost immediately, so I won't give too much away for terrestrial/Freeview viewers, other than it's about a load of superheroes who don't know what to do with their powers and have a lot of angst about it, and are treated not as heroes but as freaks, and as the episodes go by, a greater narrative linking them becomes apparent, and evil rears its ugly head. No big stars, apart from cameos by Christopher Eccleston, George Takei, Eric Roberts and Malcolm McDowall, but the story is the thing.

Brothers And Sisters (C4) is, meanwhile, big on star names, with Sally Field, Calista Flockhart and Rachel Griffiths "heading up" a strong cast of recognisable character actors - and Matthew Rhys from Wales, who is the best thing in it, and does a superb American accent - who make up the extended, LA-based Walker family at the centre of the show. There's a lot of hand-wringing, and smart-mouthing, and hugging, and lessons are constantly learned, but I like the characters and the set-up (Flockhart is the estranged, Republican daughter who went to New York to become a talk radio pundit and has returned to the fold to make it on the telly; her brothers are, in order, dull, gay and mad, and her sister is bored with her nice husband). It's a bit like thirtysomething for the 21st century. I'm informed that it's a bit slushy, and it is, but I need a bit of slush in my life, as long as it's well-written. I'm sticking with it.

Meanwhile, I don't know about Dexter even though it stars Michael C Hall, off of Six Feet Under as a serial killer (yes, a serial killer - my favourite!) who's also a Miami forensics expert, working for the police. It's a wilfully dark show, with plenty of nearly-gore, but nothing you wouldn't seen on the average British forensics procedural, and the supporting characters are helpfully kooky and/or disturbed, but it wasn't until the end of episode one, when I realised the murder plot was ongoing, rather than tied up before the end credits, that I realised I wanted to keep watching. We'll see how it goes.

I understand all three series have been successful in America. I also realise that Studio 60 is coming soon to More4, so I'll soon have a replacement for Heroes. Anyone else watching any of these?

America is a superpower when it comes to TV drama, it really is.

I forgot to mention The Day The Music Died, which is back on Radio 2 this very Saturday at 1pm. It's our sixth series, although, sadly, the first without Robin Ince, with whom we have split due to comedic differences. But we are still friends. (Also, he didn't look sweaty enough in the publicity photos, and there's a very strict shine level we expect.) So it's just Jon Holmes and me, fighting for airtime with our loud, ironic voices, and some other people, including Mister Phil Cornwell! (The reason I forgot to mention the programme coming back this weekend is that I thought it was coming back next weekend, but our "people" got the air-dates slightly mixed up. Better bloody go and record the first show then.) Read some funny things about it, and get all the links herein.

More books.



Totally different, they just happen to be the last two books I have read. Bit Of A Blur has been hard to avoid, with Alex James doing all the press that I didn't get for my book. (I blame him, naturally.) It's as you'd expect: the louche, fag-perched Blur bassist's own take on the Blur Years, with the added hook of a guided tour through Soho's bars and clubs, and of course, the decisive move to a very big house in the country, seemingly to give Alex something to write a column about in pretty much every newspaper in the land. I spent a lot of time with Blur in the 90s, and found Alex easy company, if a little distant at times. (Graham was always more volatile but, I found, warmer.) This book is not the biography of Blur - Stuart Maconie's already written that: 3862 Days - and it's in Alex's gift to leave out bags of detail, and surnames, and dates, to make room for his own personal reminiscences, which are, on the whole, insightful, candid and beautifully written. He is a very fine writer, spare, fluid and unshowy. Also, funny. He offers a very instructive view inside the recording and touring processes, enough to actually put you off wanting to be in a famous band, were it not for the sheer magic of playing with Damon, Graham and Dave, which cures all hangovers and puts all differences on hold. You can't, it seems, legislate for that. Alex makes no effort to big himself up. When he's the world's most unfaithful man, he admits it. At his nadir, he describes himself as a fat, drunken slag. You may, like me, be bored of the incessant learning-to-fly bits, but there's much to compensate. I've read negative reviews on Amazon that seem to want a different book. You can't legislate for those either.

We Need To Talk About Kevin by Lionel Shriver is outside of my reading comfort zone. I'm not much for novels, or haven't been since I was in my twenties, as I've established elsewhere, but my desire to write one has reawakened my interest in how it's done. In the case of this book, it's done magnificently. So good, in fact, it makes me think I could never do it. But as a reader, I'm not complaining. I didn't know much about Shriver beyond her moany American-in-London Guardian columns, but it turns out she was a failed novelist for years, and it was this book that turned it around for her. You can't even get her first four novels in the shops, or so it seems. It won the Orange Prize and the next thing you know, she's famous. Quite, quite justified. If you don't know already - and this is not a spoiler, it's written on the jacket - Kevin is a 15-year-old kid in upstate New York who kills nine people at his school. The book takes the form of letters written by his mother, Eva, to her estranged husband, Kevin's dad, Franklin, through which the years leading up to Thursday (as it's meaningfully italicised) unfold: the couple's reasons for having a child in the first place, Eva's immediate regrets on falling pregnant, Kevin's difficult upbringing, and so on. You know the ending, which is what makes the writing so powerful. It's not about what, it's about why. At the end of the day, Kevin is not about school shootings, it's about a marriage, and about what having kids does to a marriage, especially when the parents are in their late-30s/early 40s. I must admit I was put off at the beginning by the too-good prose - Shriver writes eloquently and insightfully throughout, nailing those difficult emotions beautifully with metaphor and simile - but as soon as it becomes apparent that Eva is a writer, my doubts were dispelled. Fair enough. I couldn't stop reading it once I'd started. I raced to the end at the weekend, and the end, even though you think you know it, does not disappoint. One for parents, or prospective parents, or non-parents of the same age as Eva and Franklin. It could put you off having kids for life, though. (Shriver is in a relationship, and has been married, but has no kids, and is about to turn 50. I wonder if this explains why she might write a scary book like this. I must read up on her a bit. She certainly once wrote a column telling all women to have kids, fearing that she would be seen as "the anti-Mom" after this book.)

I'm having a go at Shriver's new novel, but the reviews on Amazon, again, seem wracked with disappointment after Kevin. We'll see. Others must have read this. What do you think?

First, here's a picture taken by Dan Thompson at Friday's Waterstone's event in Worthing. You can see almost all the audience too! (And a table that, according to the man from Waterstone's, is going to be replaced in a refit because it's not giving out the right message in corporate imaging terms. I think that's what he said. Perhaps it will be replaced by a giant bagel or scatter cushion.)



Second, I've just found out that a documentary I've been working on with a smart chap called Toby at BBC Bristol is airing this Saturday on Radio 4. It's called Shots From The Hip and is a 30-minute one-off about the state of music journalism. I haven't heard the final edit, but the raw material is strong: interviews with Paul Morley, Charles Shaar Murray, Caroline Coon, Betty Clarke, Conor McNicholas, Keith Altham, David Hepworth, Jake Burns and Tom Artrocker (some of which I conducted, others that Toby did). This is all it says on the Radio 4 website:

Shots from the Hip
Saturday 14 July 2007 10:30-11:00 (Radio 4 FM)
Music criticism began as an art form, delivering the kind of scathing wit and opinion capable of making or breaking a band. Now, with the broadsheets, fans on the internet, and even the band themselves weighing in, journalist Andrew Collins asks whether the lone voice is still relevant, or just another voice trying to be heard.

(NB: This is exactly the sort of post I'll be putting on my Newsblog, once the website's had its springclean and the blogs are properly signposted and linked to.)

Hope you all had a nice weekend. First up, thanks to those who turned up to see me at Waterstone's in Worthing on Friday night. It was hugely sociable and rewarding and a nice day trip. Thanks to Dan, whose tireless work with the Artists & Makers Festival is a community-based example to us all.

Second, because I don't have broadband at home, I leave my little office on a Friday night and pick up my emails again on a Monday morning. It also means that quite often a lot of comments are left on the blog over those two days. Too many for me to reply to individually. This weekend, rather than watch the tennis or Live Earth or the Big Brother live feed or relax with friends and enjoy the sunny weather, someone anonymous (what a surprise) repeatedly flamed what was a perfectly nice thread about British Films and the flawed Radio Times poll.

He - and let's push the boat out and guess that it is a he - mainly seemed to want to have a go at me, but along the way, he also insulted Betsie, which was uncalled for. I apologise for his comments staying up for so long. I've removed the thread for now. If I had broadband access I'd have dealt with them as them as they came in. There's a fine line between joining in a dialogue and just showing off. The internet makes it all too easy. You too can be king for the weekend! See how many comments you can leave!

Underneath all the pram-rattling, there was a vague insinuation made about the Radio Times film section - and a running joke about Barry Norman being my "boss" and me being "sacked" from Empire. For the record, then ... I wasn't sacked from Empire. I left the editor's job to become editor of Q and continued to write for Empire. Barry Norman is a columnist for Radio Times. He is paid to write a column for the magazine. My short tenure as editor of Empire is a source of some amusement, but I have never been shy about referring to it. There's a chapter about it in my book. I am currrently the Film Editor of the Radio Times, a job I have been doing since April 2001 when then-editor Nicholas Brett gave the magazine a makeover and "personalised" the various sections. At the time, I was hosting Back Row on Radio 4, which was the reason I was approached, not my three issues of Empire in 1995! All this means is that I oversee the film section. I don't work nine to five in the office. I go in once a week to personally see the front of the section through and sign off on the Films Of The Day and Film Of The Week once the TV schedules are confirmed. I am certainly not anyone's boss. I have no executive power over anyone. I am part of the Film Team, a large and dedicated body of film enthusiasts who do the proper work of putting the section through every week. What I do, in conjunction with the head of the team, is commission and sometimes write the small pieces that appear at the front of the section. I also help to sub-edit them onscreen to fit the spaces left by the designers. For this, plus a weekly DVD review, constantly building and reshaping the film reviewing team, and for acting as an "ambassador" for the magazine on TV and radio, I am paid a retainer. Barry Norman is paid to write his column. I hope this is clearing up any misunderstanding.

One of my other duties as part of my retainer is to act as consultant editor on the Radio Times Guide To Films, which means keeping an eye on the database, where the film reviews live. It's constantly being updated. Individual reviews are occasionally rewritten, or given a new star rating, if they stick out like sore thumbs and were perhaps marked up or down in the heat of the moment by the individual reviewer. Although individual reviewers' initials appear after the reviews in both the book and the magazine, these reviews are intended to act as a guide to the Radio Times reader, and this is why they are, hopefully, free of hype and soapboxing. Of course, you may disagree with individual star ratings, but it's pretty easy target practice, and not worth getting wound up about. It's a listings magazine with a readership that covers a massive age range, so it's hard to please everybody.

The Great British Films online poll has its flaws (and because the shortlists were amalgamated from mine and Barry Norman's, and put up on the website, almost secretly, without me overseeing it, errors were made - too late to change by the time I'd seen them, as votes were already coming in). This won't affect the results anyway, the first of which were sent to me this morning and make interesting reading. They are desinged to cause debate.

I have no problem with debate. But posting endless snide comments is not debate. I am really resisting the option of going back to Comment Moderation. But it is the only way of weeding out show-offs. (By the way, I am allowed to be a show-off - it's my website and my blog. They're cheap and easy to set up.)




I watched less of Live Earth than I watched of the Concert For Diana. What a horribly awkward television event it was. Whether or not you think that some rock concerts can help to raise awareness of climate change is almost a moot point. What bothered me about it was the sheer uneasiness of the presentation. It had unsavoury echoes of Live 8, which I hated. Jonathan Ross, a presenter of consummate skill and confidence, was at sea. Was it OK to make jokes about climate change? Russell Brand had a go. Dara O'Briain had a go. A carousel of green experts were wheeled before Ross to make pertinent points about what we can do (not leaving the TV on standby and recycling being the Main Two), and he dealt with them professionally and jovially, as did Graham Norton backstage (although Eddie Izzard was a bit insincere-sounding, maybe it's his new American accent), but if the BBC wanted to point up the serious aspects of the event, why did they have Edith Bowman interviewing sweaty bands, just offstage, while what sounded like actual green issues were discussed or highlighted from the stage? These messages were either considered too boring, or too contentious. I'd like to know what was actually being said. You could hear voices coming across the PA behind Edith and Keane. As with Diana, the cause and the event sat uneasily.

I'm not going to comment on the music. I don't like Keane or Bloc Party or Snow Patrol - indeed they represent to me the nadir of British rock music - but they all had a good old go at filling the void of a stadium that must still smell of fresh plastic. There's nothing profound you can say about climate change between songs. It's such a big issue, it's beyond slogans. Yes, we as individuals can make an effort, and we should, as it has to start somewhere, but the real villains of the piece are governments and corporations. They have the real power. (And yes, we can vote governments out, but it's been fairly comprehesively proven that it doesn't matter who's in, they're still in thrall to corporations, so the private sector holds all the cards.) This is why is reminded me of Live 8, which boiled its message down to the armband Make Poverty History - which you'd have to be a misery not to agree with, in principle, although wearing armbands is more about showing off - when in fact it was a situation made complicated by free-market economics, and the freeing up of debt for African countries usually involves forced privatisation of utilties, so that Western companies can move in and make some cash - what a surprise. This, amazingly, never came out in Jonathan Ross or Fearne Cotton's interviews. I'm not having a go at him, or her - it's the sheer unworkability of the set-up that's at fault.

Oh, and Chris Moyles hosting it. They would never have let someone so fat do Live Aid. That would have been rather rubbing it in.