Reality?

Every so often I realise I’m not really a very nice person.

For a start, I’m honest to a fault. Brutally so. Pathologically averse to lying. Not even little white ones. This is a good thing though, isn’t it? Honesty is, after all, the best policy.

You think so?

Ask me if those jeans make you look fat.

Go on, ask me.

I dare you…

Let’s face it, there are just times when you should lie. It’s better for everyone. And it’s not just my honesty that makes me a bad person. I gain a perverse pleasure from the misfortune of others. The Germans call it schadenfreude. It’s that tickle of delicious, guilty, ecstatic joy you experience when you see someone trip in the street, when a waiter drops a plate of tomato soup in someone else’s lap, when you hear about someone getting their genitals caught in a vacuum cleaner, when George Bush or Boris Johnson open their mouthes to give a speech. For me schadenfreude is a defining emotion.

But, surprisingly, I hate car-crash telly. I don’t mean shows which feature actual car-crashes. Like most men (and it is all men), I’ll regularly watch shows like Cops and Police! Camera! Action! and Fascist America’s Goriest Police Chases in the vague hope of seeing a horrific car-crash. I don’t particularly want to see a death, I’m not a sick pervert. Well, I am a sick pervert, but if I wanted to watch snuff I’d be surfing jihadist websites. However. If a 14-year old joyrider causes a Blues Brothers-style pile-up of pursuing police cars, I’ll get a visceral tingly feeling. The same one I got from watching Richard Hammond’s rocket ride on YouTube.

J.G. Ballard knew what he was talking about; you can’t beat a good crash.

In fact, back in the 90s, I remember watching a Japanese driver stagger away, virtually unscathed, from a horrendous crash during the Grand Prix only to then be hit by the safety car. I laughed until I wept. I have never laughed so hale or so heartily as I did that day. I laughed so hard, a little bit of wee escaped.

The car-crash telly I hate is reality telly.

While I’m quite happy, even eager, to watch people suffer actual physical damage, I don’t like to see people humiliated. I get no pleasure from it. I don’t see the point in shows like America’s Next Top Model where a bunch of beautiful women are thrown together and, over the course of 10 weeks, have their self-esteem destroyed by a bunch of gay men and an increasingly haggard Twiggy. I don’t understand why people, who obviously can’t sing, cry when Louis Walsh tells them they can’t sing. They should take it as a compliment. This is the man who gave the World Boyzone. He knows a bad singer when he hears one. And as for Big Brother, just the words Davina McCall make me want to vomit, strip naked, smear myself with my own excrement and run through the streets taking scalps at random with a potato peeler.

In fact just writing Davina McCall in this blog has made me puke over myself.

Twice.

So imagine my enthusiasm when watching Channel 4’s new show The Shooting Party. In case you didn’t catch Sunday’s show (and why would you? It was dumped onto the schedule at around 8am, Channel 4’s very occasional Crip slot, when any sane person is in bed or still out partying), The Shooting Party takes a disparate group of Deaf and disabled people and moulds them into a filmmaking team, giving each of them the opportunity to make a 2 minute film which will be shown on Channel 4.

Probably at 8am on a Sunday morning.

When anyone who might want to see it is either in bed or partying.

But the best part is Channel 4 have hit on the wizard wheeze of filming it and turning it into a reality show where the participants are followed through every part of the filmmaking process, allowing the audience to get to know them as people. Not just as the disabled stereotypes they so obviously are. And it’s not going to be just another modern-day freak show, honest! ‘Cause, like, even if the majority of the guys chosen look like they’ve been found on the sea bed, the girls are all, well, eye-candy.

Neato!

The format is simple. The filmmakers have to pitch their idea to a tough team of grizzled industry pros. Well, I say grizzled industry pros but what I really mean is Ash Atalla (produced The Office) kidding on he’s Simon Cowell, a doe-eyed Kate Vogel (Channel 4 commissioning editor) being really, really, super supportive and some scarf sporting a fleshy accessory who gave humanity Skins and says “Mmm,” a lot. So immediately you can tell Channel 4 are setting the quality bar high. I mean, the scarf who thought up Skins doesn’t just work on any old crap. Unless that crap is poorly written, Bristol-set and full of so much young flesh it makes me feel like Gary Glitter at a Balamory convention. This pitching session is then intercut with staged shots of the filmmaker’s personal life (look, Crips do normal things like workout too. Just like normal people) and interviews with the subject, their family and their friends.

I’ve only just seen the first episode and I want to take a power drill to my own skull and let some darkness out.

So far we’ve had....

The….

Most….

Boring….

Film student….

In the World…. who wants to make a two minute film about an old man dying in a hospital bed, occasionally flashing back to his past, the camera focused on his face, the only sound the old man’s ragged dying breath. The panel were suitably unimpressed, the scarf even commenting sagely, “Mmm, yeah, I’ve just seen so many short films about people having flashbacks on their deathbeds.”

Really?

That’s probably because every film student of the last 50 years has made some variation of that film. I’m fairly sure everyone in my class at film school 12 years ago (including me) made that film. Assuming he went to film school, the scarf probably made that film. That film gets made again and again because every film student is desperate to make something meaningful. And if you’re 22 and at film school, or just 22, DEATH=MEANINGFUL. Anyway, the panel didn’t like his idea but it looks like Boring Guy is in because he has a comedy-value Mam given to pronouncements like “It could be worse son, you could be a cabbage in a chair. All that’s wrong with you is a gammy arm and a gammy leg.” And as we all know, Comedy Mams make great telly. I just hope when Boring Guy is a rich and famous director he buys his Comedy Mam the bungalow she’s dreaming of.

Then there was the nice, bumbling guy with the stutter. The panel weren’t too sure what his idea was. Probably because the nice, bumbling guy with the stutter wasn’t too sure himself. But he’s in anyway because he kinda reminded the panel of Louis Theroux and everyone loves Louis. Except me. And probably Nick Broomfield who really should sue Louis someday for nicking his persona, style and all his ideas. And lets not forget nice, bumbling guy with the stutter has a stutter. Stutters make great telly. Everyone thinks they’re funny and they make you root for the stutterer. If only nice, bumbling guy had an idea he could win. Well. An idea, blonde hair, breasts, a perky attitude and a winning smile couldn’t hurt.

Which brings me to the (probable) star of the show, the lovely Nikki; a perky, bubbly, blonde wheelchair user with a winning smile and a tight top. Nikki actually already has production experience. She works for Maverick (the company making The Shooting Party for Channel 4. Everything above board there then). And she actually has an idea too. She’s gonna make a zombie movie in her local shopping centre. With disabled zombies chasing her in her scooter. The panel got so excited you could practically feel their tumescence. Hell, even I want to see her film. And if LDAF is still around next year to do London’s 9th International Disability Film Festival and I’m Co-Director again, we’ll be showing Nikki’s film. So the lovely Nikki’s in. Eye candy with an idea. Great telly.

My favourite candidate so far though is the stereotypical uppity Crip. By favourite, I mean the one I’d most like to take a potato peeler to. You know the type. Absolutely no filmmaking experience. A creative writing student who’s been working on his novel for “a couple of years.” “It’s about a bunch of students at a residential college for disabled people….like Hollyoaks. But with dribble.” Personally, and I’m sure the majority of the male population of the UK will agree with me, I always thought Hollyoaks was Hollyoaks with dribble. Admittedly, I’m the one dribbling. Interviewed at home, he confidently gloated “I’ve got it in the bag,” which he obviously did as he was the most flamboyantly disabled candidate on the show so far. Still they showed us his pitching session anyway. Which was about himself “the perceived weirdo” becoming a hero. Strangely, the scarf never mentioned having seen that one before. Which surprises me because as Co-Director of X’08: London’s 8th International Disability Film Festival I took a wander through LDAF’s Disability Film Archive and it seems to be one of the films disabled filmmakers make over and over again. Well, that and films about coming out. Anyway, stereotypical uppity Crip is in because quite frankly, despite his lack of an idea or experience, Channel 4 were probably bricking it that if they turned them down he’d sue under the DDA.

And this is why I hate reality telly so much I’m drowning in my own vitriol. Reality telly’s not reality. It’s constructed, manipulated, edited, twisted.

Reality telly is artifice.

Producers and commissioning editors are bastards. I’ve been a screenwriter for over a decade and I’ve never been to a pitching session as easy as that one. Boring Guy is probably quite a decent fella, the kinda guy you’d go for a pint with. And enjoy his company. But the programme makers have decided they need a boring film geek and too bad son, you’re it and they’re editing the show accordingly.

Away from the cameras, nice, bumbling guy with stutter may be a slavering sadist who tortures kittens and bunnies and other woodland creatures while chanting “Hello darkness my old friend….” over and over in a twisted Simon & Garfunkel mantra of evil. But Channel 4 have decided they need a stuttering Louis Theroux and I’m afraid it’s y-y-y-y-you.

I may even have been overly harsh on stereotypical uppity Crip. He may be a sensitive, genuinely talented writer and filmmaker who’ll give us a life-changing two minutes of cinematic genius rather than the arrogant dim knob he comes across as in the programme. Then again he’s spent the last couple of years writing Hollyoaks: The Novel so maybe I was on the money with him.

Still, I’m pretty sure Nikki is as bubbly, perky, winning and lovely as she seems.

The biggest problem with The Shooting Party however is it’s such a step back. Last year, Channel 4 and Maverick collaborated on New Shoots a series of 25 minute documentaries made by 12 Deaf and disabled debut directors. They were all watchable. Some of them were even bloody damned good. I naturally assumed that as the series had been quite successful, Channel 4 would commission another and that this time maybe not throw the films away by dumping them onto the schedule at 8am. But no, despite the fact the New Shoots films were successful and a real progressive chance for disabled directors to play on a level playing field and show what they can do, they’ve decided that this year they’re not trusting the gimps with a full 25 minutes each. This year the gimps get 2 minutes. And the rest of the show is the plucky underdog story of how these losers overcome their disabilities and differences and bond, working together to fulfil their dreams. The sheeple out there in TV land love a plucky underdog story. Look at Rocky. Look at The Muppet Movie. Look at My Left Foot. And the public love reality shows. Let’s give ‘em a reality show full of cripples. They’ll lap it up.

Except we won’t.

Because The Shooting Party lacks that one vital ingredient necessary for a reality show. Our old friend schadenfreude. There’s no undercurrent of sneering nastiness, just the cloying, sickly sweet taste of condescension.

Where’s the fun in that?

Still, I’ll be watching the next 8 episodes. Partly because it’s my job. But mostly because I’m hoping for a horrific inferno of a car crash….

Relight my fire....

A week after London’s farcical leg of the Olympic torch’s “journey of harmony”, the controversy is still whining on, with various World leaders suddenly rethinking their decision to attend the Opening Ceremony in Beijing. The fragrant Carla Sarkozy’s hubby is only going if China has a chat with the Dalai Lama, the Germans aren’t going and depending on which day you ask him (and whether or not he’s on a state visit to China at the time) you get a different answer every time from Gordon Brown. The only person who’s definitely said he’s going is that good ol’ boy Dubya. He’s going to be so disappointed when he realises they don’t have midget clowns on the back of steers like they do at the rodeo.

Now, this might just be me, but I rather enjoyed watching the Olympic torch bearers try to cross London. Mainly because every so often some protester would try to thump Konnie Huq and be beaten to a pulp by the Chinese ‘flame attendants’ (torch thugs). Admittedly, I’m not a sports fan. I find any sport, with the possible exceptions of ice hockey and bull-fighting, tedious. They bore me. But a healthy dose of ultra-violence does pique my interest in them. In fact, most sports are crying out for more violence. Formula 1 would be much more fun if the cars all had spikes on the wheels like the chariots in Ben-Hur. Football would be much more watchable if one team got nets and tridents and the other team got short swords and shields like in the gladiator movies. And how awesome would synchronised swimming be if they had spear guns? But, I digress.

Unless you’ve been in a coma since, oh, I don’t know, 1950 when the Chinese rolled across the border and invaded Tibet, it probably hasn’t escaped your notice that China gets a bit of a bad press and that a great many people, particularly Tibetans and people who believe in a free and liberal democracy, are a bit miffed that they’re hosting the Olympic Games. But, according to Britain’s Greatest Olympian™, Sir Steve Redgrave (a man known not for his political incisiveness and staggering IQ but for the fact he used to row a bit), writing in the Guardian, the Olympics shouldn’t be used as a political football. “People have realised athletes are a cheap hit, a way to get publicity for whatever cause they're trying to fight for. Sportspeople... should not be misused to make a point.” That just wouldn’t be Olympian, would it? I mean, the Olympics have never been political, have they? Except for that time the 2 guys gave the Black Power salute from the Winner’s Podium at the ’68 Mexico Games. Or that time the Yanks boycotted the Moscow Games because the Russkies invaded Afghanistan. Then there was the time the Hungarians and the Russians (again) got into a punch-up during a water polo match because the Russians had invaded Hungary. And that time the PLO killed a bunch of Israeli wrestlers and weightlifters.

In fact, wasn’t the whole Olympic torch bearing concept thought up by that bundle of laughs, the Nazis, for the ’36 Berlin Games?

Yes, China are despicable and evil. We’ve known this for years. You can’t trust ‘em. Have the tales of Fu Manchu taught us nothing? And the Tibetans are a spiritual, peaceful people. Certainly the ones who tried to thump Konnie Huq last weekend seemed peaceful. Poor little Konnie. You just want to hug her, don’t you? And like everybody else, I applaud the decision of Francesca Martinez and other mildly-known celebs not to carry the torch as a protest against Chinese oppression and human rights abuse (and certainly not because it was a relatively safe way to get publicity and boost the profile).

Not that I particularly care about Tibet. To be honest, I’d punch the Dalai Lama just because I’ve never met a Buddhist yet who wasn’t unbearably smug. (I posited this notion over lunch the other day and was met with genuine shock on the part of my co-workers, one of whom blurted, “But how could you punch the Dalai Lama? He’s such a happy man, he’s always smiling.” I rest my case).

But….

Wouldn’t the celebrity protest have been so much more meaningful if just one of them, instead of boycotting the event, had simply extinguished the flame while they were running with it?

It would only have taken one deep breath followed by a big blow.

Wouldn’t that have been one in the eye for totalitarianism?

Admittedly, it would probably also have been one in the eye (not to mention several in the ribs, stomach, groin and limbs) for the lucky celebrity torch bearer as the Chinese ‘flame attendants’ (torch thugs) turned on them and beat them into jam. But it would’ve been a genuinely courageous act, a true stand against oppression on the World stage.

How can you tell when a politician's lying???

His lips move...

It's an old joke...I first heard it when I was about 8.

Doesn't make it any less true though.

I went to a public meeting on Thursday night at the House of Commons about the Arts Council Cull chaired by Conservative MP and Shadow Arts Minister Ed Vaizey.

Just me and 50 or 60 other representatives of the condemned.

And no, Vaizey's not the untrustworthy politician of this blog. He actually seems a decent bloke, genuinely concerned about the Arts Council's wanton decimation of the Arts.

Andrew Whyte, the Arts Council's Executive Director of Advocacy and Communications, on the other hand...

On Thursday night it was my privilege to watch him obfuscate...dissemble...verbally bob and weave as he sought to shape reality, spin it through a combination of doublespeak and bovine scat, weasel words scurrying from his lips and nipping at the audience's ankles.

A snakeoil salesman of the highest order, a 21st Century Elmer Gantry, you had to admire Whyte for staying unwaveringly 'on message' in the face of both the facts and his audience's hostility.

Slicker than babysnot, it really didn't matter that his arguments were dubious, based on half-truths and factual inaccuracies. I doubt he believed the gobbledygook and bunkum he spouted any more than we did.

He's a game-player. All that matters is the game.

Sure he'd try to persuade us that the Arts Council was right and justified, that there was no hint of croneyism or bias in their decision-making, no whiff of corruption, no conflict of interests. He'd seduce us, cajole us, pontificate and posture, arrogantly assert his own version of the truth.

But none of it matters. Truth doesn't matter. Accuracy doesn't matter. Honesty. Fairness. Justice. Morality. Trust. They're all meaningless.

To the Whyte's of this world, truth and accuracy are far less important than the ability to lead your audience by the nose. Dazzle them with your rhetoric. Dance around them like a prizefighter, just out of reach, before slipping through their defences and WHAM!

But for Whyte's magic to work, for him to convince us his sow's ear was a silk purse, that his magic beans were really worth buying, we have to be culpable.

For his seduction to work, we have to be on the market.

We have to want it.

And on Thursday night no-one in Committee Room 6 was buying.

He was a distraction and he knew it.

A henchman offered up for sacrifice, running interference for his absent boss, Peter Hewitt.

Who was far too busy to grant us an audience.

After all he had a party to go to.

His own leaving do. A private and very exclusive celebration, attended by the cream of the Arts Establishment, at the top of the South Bank Centre. One of the biggest winners in the Arts Council's Cull.

So nothing whiffy there then, everything above board...

Blood and the Arts Council

I need a holiday.

I’m tired.

Frazzled.

Absolutely knackered.

Since before Christmas, since joining LDAF in April as editor of art disability culture, it feels like I’ve never had the chance to stop and smell the roses. For me its been a steep learning curve. I’d never edited a magazine before. I’d never worked in Disability Arts before. Suddenly, I was thrown in at the deep end writing, editing, redesigning and revamping Europe’s only disability arts and culture print magazine. I’m a glutton for punishment though.

One of the first things I learned when I joined LDAF was that not only had there been a Disability Film Festival, there had been seven of them. Which surprised me. Mainly because as a screenwriter who’d worked in the film and TV industry for the last 10 years, as a writer who’d contributed film-related articles and film reviews to several magazines and journals and, more importantly, as a disabled person, I had never heard of it. I’m not quite sure how it happened but somehow myself and LDAF’s Business Development Director, Peter Kinkead (who has 25 years of experience in film and TV), took it upon ourselves to relaunch and co-direct the eighth.

So, I’ve had a fair bit on my plate.

Apart from a romantic weekend in Venice that was slightly marred by a stinking cold (hers) and a boil in the ear (mine), I haven’t had a holiday this year.

Admittedly, I went to a wedding in the Czech Republic. But it was anything but restful. I almost bled to death.

Long story short.

Had tonsillitis.

Had a swollen throat.

Took some ibuprofen to reduce the swelling.

Ibuprofen reacted with some aspirin I take for high blood pressure.

Burned a hole in my stomach.

Bled internally for over a week.

Almost died.

Never felt a thing.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not the Man of Steel or anything, I just don’t feel pain. I had a couple of strokes 12 years ago and ever since I…don’t feel pain.

Which is a bit of a bugger really.

Pain is good. Pain is our friend. Pain warns us of impending doom. Most people, sensible people, if they’re at work, and they’re doubled in two with agony and they’re throwing up black gunk constantly, well, most would think “This can’t be right. Maybe I should visit a doctor.” You take pain out of the equation and all you’ve got is a little vomiting. Might be mild food poisoning. Certainly nothing to see a doctor about. And if you’ve got a deadline, if you’ve just been off on a jolly to Prague and now you’ve got a magazine to put together and get to the printers, its certainly nothing to take the day off for.

Even if you start passing out through blood loss.

Without pain, it takes pulling an Elvis in the disabled loo at work and waking up in a puddle of fresh, red blood while alone, working late, for the penny to drop that maybe, just maybe, your tonsillitis/mild food poisoning may be serious.

And it’s not like I got much rest in hospital. My folks came to see me. Came from Scotland. Just to see me lie in a hospital bed. Now, I remember, when I was a child, visiting hours were strict. 2pm to 3pm in the afternoon and 7:30pm until 8:30pm in the evening. At the end of visiting time on the dot!, Nurse Ratched would appear, ring a bell and throw all visitors off the ward. Happy days. These days, it’s pretty much an open door policy. And it’s Hell. Not only do you have to put up with your own relatives, you have to put up with the chav in the next bed’s. Hardly a recipe for recuperation. So Christmas and New Year was going to be my first chance to have a break. For Christmas, I planned to go home to Scotland, spend some time with my nieces, see some friends, get miraculously drunk. New Year, I planned to spend in a pub in Stoke Newington with my girlfriend and some friends. And get miraculously drunk. Above all, I planned to unwind. De-stress. Relax. Then we got a lovely Christmas card from those Scrooges at the Arts Council adding LDAF’s name to their death list. Which kinda put a damper on the whole festive period for me.

A big chunk of which (when I wasn’t doing jigsaws with my two-year old niece or watching In the Night Garden) was spent working on our appeal. Ever since coming back to work on the 2nd I’ve been working my arse off writing appeal documents, redrafting appeal documents, re-redrafting appeal documents, re-reredrafting…well, you get the picture.

But quite apart from the Arts Council riding in like the Sherriff of Nottingham and cancelling Christmas, everything at LDAF has had to be put on hold while we’ve sweated blood writing our appeal.

Which probably won’t be read.

Not that I’m implying the Arts Council aren’t conscientious but I still haven’t formally met our lead officer. He briefly grunted disinterestedly at me and shook my hand while picking something from between his teeth at last year’s ICI exhibition. That hardly counts as an introduction. I’ve been stabbed by people who showed more interest in me. Good to know our future’s in such safe hands.

So now the appeal is in and all I have to do is put the next issue of the magazine out. And organise the Film Festival. And sit around waiting for the Arts Council to decide LDAF’s fate one way or the other.

My girlfriend’s already decided my fate for me. She took the bull by the horns and booked a holiday while I still have a wage. Turkey in May. A whole week in Kas, home of dolphin therapy. Maybe I’ll give it a go, see if the pings can reroute my brain.