| LETTERS FROM LONDON |
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| REASONS TO BE CHEERFUL 10 January 2012 |
| THE HAIR AND THE SPARE: A god to some (sorry, not to me – too suburban, sentimental) Steven Spielberg was upstaged by a mass of mane: ex-Waity Kaity. Ex-WK and her extensive Essex tresses stole the attention from the acclaimed novel, play, now film War Horse as well as Joey the staring horse at the premier of the film. Treated like a goddess rather than a common commoner transformed into a duchess; all adoration, gushing glorification, endless exaltation. So what was in her handbag then? Hair products, eye liner surely. No Kleenex. Spielberg recounts how his wife had to pass one over to ex-WK. Evidently ex-WK doesn’t read or she would have known everybody was in floods of tears at the play and as she is in complete command of her every hair flick and lowered glance – a bit curious. QUIET ON SET: I don’t think it’s because silent films set off in me a state of anxiety and claustrophobia propelling me to run screaming audibly from the room. I have no problem with subtitles, although I hate mime. Hate it. Perhaps it's the inappropriate music or the awareness that no one will be uttering a single word for approximately 90 minutes. Whatever it is, the effusive adulation over The Artist eluded me. Yes. It’s charming and entertaining. There are quite clever moments. A French homage to silent and 1930’s films set in Hollywood. To be honest, I’d much rather see the actual The Thin Man series than observe the obvious references. Berenice Bejo (wife of the film’s director Michel Hazanavicius) is lovely and looks terribly French...Uggie the Jack Russell dog is terribly sweet and lovable... but “the best film I have ever seen”... “a magnificent piece of film-making"...“I can’t wait to see it again”. Really? Did I see the same film? Silent star Jean Dujardin won the Best Actor Award at the 2011 Cannes Film Festival where the film premiered. The film has six Golden Globe nominations. On balance, the last scene is worth the exorbitant price of that box of popcorn. LOTTERY PAY OUT: PM CallMeDave has shown his cultural erudition. He wants the lottery money which funds independent, proper films to support more commercial, ‘culturally rewarding’ films (aka American drivel) instead. CMD wants film makers to be ‘entrepreneurial’. What? Mainstream box office hits – like The King’s Speech? The small independent film costs £9M and made £250M. There is an annual £4.2 billion return from British films. It has been noted that he and SamCam haven’t one book in their domestic environment. CMD has just discovered Fruit Ninja and dropped Angry Birds. What a twit. THE ‘P’ WORD: Wouldn’t Mrs Slocombe (Are you Being Served?) be proud? I think not. 29 year old now Notting Hill resident Jonnie Shearer “knew it would stand out and get talked about. I just wasn’t sure what to do with it.” Oh dear me. I have a few suggestions. According to an article on entrepreneurs, Oxford Brookes University student admired Richard Branson’s Virgin brand and came up with the word ‘p---y’ and clearly decided to do something with it. Moving in with his parents in South Kensington, “All my friends were working in the City and I was in my old bedroom launching a drink called P----. They thought I was an idiot.” Or sad. Acquaintance Holly Branson, who helped choose the flavours, is on the board of the company helping with the branding as is her brother. The slogan: “The drink’s pure, it’s your mind that’s the problem.” Very creative. Let’s see here; a naturally flavoured anti-Red Bull drink and sweet meowing kittens leaping in the air, chasing their tails and running up the curtains...hmmm. Bit of a stretch. “Make mine a P----.” “I’ll have one of those P----s.” Calico or black? In the UK 200,000 cans are sold a month. Tesco (the very same who in their wisdom had sold padded bras for 8 year olds and porn-inspired expressions on T-shirt for toddlers until they were forced to remove them) sells 50 cans a week at each outlet. “I want to be the biggest energy drink brand in the UK.” P---- is also available in Russia, Germany, Australia and Spain. Is the P word universal then? I do despair. How much lower can the image of women go? Perhaps it’s already there. Thanks Jonnie for your valuable contribution to gender consciousness. Don’t choke. |