And elves, too.
Posted on | May 27, 2009 | 2 Comments
Sly
Posted on | May 26, 2009 | 7 Comments
As part of a captive audience at Disneyland Paris, we had limited choice when it came to eating. This limitation is what found me dining in Planet Hollywood.
I’d never eaten in Planet Hollywood before but was relatively sure of what to expect. Mediocre food and loads of movie tat on the walls I thought and that was, pretty much, the way it panned out.
I hadn’t, however, expected to see a customer pointing out, to a waiter, something on the floor, only to have the waiter chase said ‘something’ and capture it in a glass. I’m not certain what it was as the waiter, for the benefit of the diners, popped a small bag over the glass to obscure its contents before carrying it into the kitchen. There are so many things wrong there that it’s hard to know where to begin.
I also hadn’t expected the movie tat to be quite so extensive that I would have to sit and eat my uninspiring burger under this:
The picture was taken from my seat. You try eating a burger as a, mostly naked, Sylvester Stallone stares down at you from above. It’s more than a little disconcerting, I can tell you.
Tags: Demolition Man. > Planet Hollywood > Sly > Sylvester Stallone
Surviving Walt
Posted on | May 26, 2009 | Comments Off on Surviving Walt
Made it through my second Disneyland Paris tour of duty. You can forget about firemen or soldiers fighting wars – until you can face down a huge, trundling, simpleton of a woman trying to push her way through the crowds to be at the front for when Pooh Bear’s float goes by, you don’t know true bravery.
My daughter enjoyed it immensely though, and that’s all that’s important.
To be fair, other than daughter’s nosebleed, mid-ride, on some spinny thing (our slasher-movie, blood-stained clothes drew some interesting stares afterwards) it was a relatively incident-free trip .
I did notice some interesting tattoos, though. Disney ones. On adults. Who should really know better.
At breakfast, one day, I spotted a woman who had a young Lion King on her arm. Similar to this:
Later the same day, another woman, this time with a massive dragon tat all over her back. She displayed it proudly. It was pretty much the image below, minus the background.
Massive, it was. Honestly.
I find it weird, but then the world confuses me pretty much all the time.
Tags: Disney > Disneyland Paris > weird tattoos
The place where dreams are manufactured
Posted on | May 16, 2009 | 2 Comments
As long as they’re plastic dreams, wrapped in sparkly cynicism and tied with a big, money-grasping, bow.
Yes, I’m off to Disneyland Paris.
Four glorious days of that rictus rodent gurning and waving with his podgy, gloved hands at me. Four days of Heston Blumenthal prices for sub-fairground fast food. Four days of educationally sub-normal adults pushing kids out of the way so they can be in the front for the parade. Four days of watching the characters’ cheeks twitch uncontrollably from being forced to constantly smile as they’re closely monitored by Disney security for the slightest deviation in ‘sunniness’. Four days waiting, praying, for Cinderella to finally crack and go mental in a massive murder/suicide spree. At least it’d be a break in the trudging, monotonous, veneer of happiness thinly pasted onto a bundle of depressed, and depressing, fibre-glass structures in a gloomy, jaundiced, manufactured suburb of what is, otherwise, quite a nice city.
Four days. Expect me to come back with a substantially lighter wallet. I’m guessing there is considerable expense involved in keeping Walt Disney’s head frozen and that’s the justification for the avaricious prices charged in, and around, the park. Of course, I don’t mind paying for the ambience of a faux-jungle-hut or for the service-standards of those who know they have a captive audience- “Don’t like it? What you gonna do, queue for another fifty minutes over in Aladdin’s Pizza Palace? Ah haaa haaa haaaaa!”
Four days watching George Lucas, who, thanks to some sort of weird LucasFilms licensing thing, can often be seen standing by the shop selling bad copies of Indiana Jones hats or over at the X-Wing fighter, rubbing his hands in glee, only stopping to occasionally argue with a customer that Jar Jar Binks is a wonderful character and shout that, when the prequels are remastered, Binks will be, incongruously, CGIed into every single scene.
Four days of standing in lines, in the rain, for forty-five minutes for a forty-five second ride in a plastic, hollowed-out Dumbo. Four days of the lifeless, insentient, and, yet, somehow malevolent eyes of the racist puppets in It’s A Small World After All (one of Walt’s personal favourites, apparently).
Four days.
God help me.
In which I, mostly, name vegetables.
Posted on | May 7, 2009 | 3 Comments
The character Beenfeeld, that I’m writing for Resonance FM’s Whale In The Room play, is like me in many ways. One of these, in an odd fortuity, is that he is now growing his own vegetables. We both have a fine, nascent crop of foodstuffs on the go.
I started this veg lark only in the last couple of years but it’s pretty cool. Secreted deep beneath the dark soil in my garden and, since this year, in my tiny greenhouse are spring onions, rocket, radishes, peas, and a few varieties each of carrots, beans, lettuce, tomatoes and chillies. On the Herby front, my sage, oregano, rosemary, thyme, coriander, parsley, mint and basil is coming along nicely. And, lastly, I’m only slightly fruity, possessing just strawberries, raspberries and blueberries. I’m keeping my green fingers crossed for a bumper crop. Much depends on whether the sun actually shines this summer as it has failed to do for the last two.
Why am I telling you this? No idea. I know you’re not bothered. Truth is though, I quite like my little bit of the Good Life. Granted, my wife’s arse is bigger than Felicity Kendal’s but there’s still the vegetables.
Also, I’m reducing the quality of my posts in order to attain more quantity. It’s a strategy that’s certain to work.
Oh, and if you’re reading love, I was just kidding about the arse thing.
Tags: beenfeeld > Felicity Kendal > Good Life > Radio > Resonance FM > Twitter > vegetables > Whale In The Room > Writing
In which I receive good news…
Posted on | April 27, 2009 | 4 Comments
…About a slightly odd writing gig.
Resonance FM are putting together a new radio play called The Whale In The Room. Nothing odd about that, you say. Well, if I told you that the script for this play was to comprise entirely of the Twitter status updates from six different people, you might begin to see a different picture. Resonance, in their wisdom/insanity, are trying something very original and quite experimental here.
They called for potential writers for each character a couple of weeks ago (which got picked up by the BBC Writers’ Room site too) and I applied. The Resonance guys monitored each prospects Twitter feeds for a fortnight and, for reasons I can’t quite fathom, they decided that my procrastinatory ramblings were sufficient to write for one of the characters.
I say write. It’s a weird sort of writing. The gig is to write as a character for a fortnight and to tweet and react as that character might. Strange, but interesting.
If you’re on the Twitter, you can follow me as I tweet in character at twitter.com/beenfeeld (that’s me – Benson Fielder @beenfeeld).
To make the most of things, you really need to follow the other five characters too. So, join Twitter and also follow @cynpa, @tomxart, @fragharpy, @rhiannon97, and @Sidebird.
It’s all very new and I don’t know how it will end up. I’m interested to see though. Why not pop along and see?
Tags: BBC > beenfeeld > Radio > Resonance FM > Twitter > Whale In The Room > Writing
Just frickin’ weird
Posted on | April 13, 2009 | 2 Comments
Last night, I had an odd dream.
I was Telly Savalas. You know, Kojak.
Wait, it gets weirder…
I, as Telly, was going to meet the Pope. The actual Pope. The Big Catholic Cheese.
In the Vatican, a cardinal (possibly, my knowledge of the upper echelons of the Catholic hierarchy is limited) asked me to wait as he went into the next room to see if the Pope was ready for our meeting. He came back out and told me to go in. Bit of a shock as the Pope was sitting on the toilet in a vast, sumptous bathroom. All marble and fancy red carpets with not a drop of wee on them. Even the toilet roll holder was gold.
The Pope waved me in and offered his ring to kiss (no making up your own jokes). This I, or Telly, dutifully did. We even said “Your Holiness” and it was all very respectful. I remember thinking that it was a bit odd to have a meeting while on the toilet, but Telly had important stuff to discuss and so he and I put that to one side.
His Holiness and Telly chatted for a while – I can’t remember the content – and then the Pope asked if I/Telly would like some food. Food in the bathroom? Perks of the papacy, I assume. I sat on the red carpet and a lady (I know) came with a sandwich. It had turkey and some other stuff inside but, and this is the important bit, it had mustard. Really strong mustard. Telly didn’t realise and a big glob hit the back of his throat and began to burn there.
At this point, I woke up hacking and coughing at the mustard in my throat.
Think it means anything?
What? You’re still here?
Posted on | April 11, 2009 | 1 Comment
Too long, man. Too long.
Seriously though. It has been too long. In my defence, I’ll simply say that I’ve been busy/lazy. Only one of these is a half-lie.
It’s the Twitter, you see. The Twitter is taking up my time and, more importantly, taking the tiny kernels of ideas, thoughts, whines that I might have and allowing me to express them in tiny, tiny, 140-character chunks. They get tweeted and never gestate sufficiently to allow an actual blog post of more that 140 characters. Don’t hate me. All the cool kids are doing it. I’m not strong enough to go against the crowd.
And, worse still, now that I’m used to thinking in 140-character bursts, I don’t think I can sustain anything longer. It’s like our ADHD society took a giant leap away from any meaningful, significant discourse and instead chose to blurt evertything in staccato bursts instead.
I’m not doing a good job of selling this, am I?
It’s not really like that at all. The truth is, I really like the Twitter. I like the communication with people I know in real life, people I already know virtually and with some people I’m just getting to know. It’s all good but it’s a get-it or don’t-get-it sort of thing. Some people like it and some don’t. That’s ok. Incidentally, if you get it, or want to try get it, I’m here.
Soon I will post an actual post. About actual stuff.
Please forgive any grammatical or spelling errors. I’ve been drinking. Mmmmm, beer.
BBC Writing Workshop
Posted on | March 11, 2009 | 6 Comments
I was too tired and lazy to write anything about this yesterday but, if you’ll remember, I was in London for a couple of days to attend a writing workshop with the Beeb.
Looking back, the whole thing’s just a whirlwind of planes, dodgy hotels, writing and ladyboy escorts. I turned up at the Beeb on Monday morning and I, and my fellow writers, were thrown in at the deep and pointy-rocked end.
“You’ve got 15 minutes to have a think about a sketch and then you need to pitch it to us”, we were told.
“Zoinks!”, I said, inwardly. On the surface I was a cool, coy-filled, pool of Zen calmness. With flop-sweat.
Fifteen minutes later, I stuttered something about pirates and knobs and then it was all haste to the laptops. When the time was up for first drafts, I actually submitted two sketches for ridicule and scorn.
Then, we had a bit of a talk from Gareth Edwards, Head Of BBC Radio Comedy. He played us some sketches and told us why they were funny. Sounds like it shouldn’t work but it was actually very enlightening. He chatted about the advantages of comedy for radio and give the astonishingly good advice of not writing stuff that you don’t personally find funny just to ‘fit’ a particular show. Obvious, but I bet everyone who’s written sketches has done it.
When he was done, GULP, the feedback. A game of two halves really. They loved one of my sketches and told me not to change a thing but found the other one had a few too many ‘whores’ in it. Censored by the BBC – I am Russell Brand (except not so annoying, stupid-haired, and skinny). In fairness, their feedback was spot on and once mentioned, I could see where they were coming from. Off to rewrites, although the pressure was off for me as we were each just getting one slot and I had one that didn’t actually need any work. Hurrah.
Another talk, this time from Micheal Jacob who is the Head of the BBC Comedy College. Talk about pools of Zen calmness. He mainly did a Q&A and I got the impression that he’d have been completely unfazed if we’d just sat there staring at him for an hour. He was completely unrufflable. Serene and yogi-like (not the bear). He also had a noodle full of good information and he happily imparted some to us.
That was the workshopy bit over with. Off for a quick shower and a cheap burger before heading to The Albany for, DOUBLE GULP, the performance. Yep. The damn sketches we’d written were going to be performed. To real people. And not just real people. Who should turn up and take a seat in the front row? Only David bloody Mitchell, that’s who. David Mitchell is going to watch the stuff we’ve just written? No pressure then.
As it happens, the four performers doing our stuff were fantastic. Everything went down really well and Mr. Mitchell didn’t seem ready to gouge his eyeballs out at any stage. He even laughed. Which was nice. My own sketch seemed to go pretty well and I was happy with the response (in no small part, due to the excellent performance). It had laughter in the right places which I’m taking as a good sign. Mitchell left pretty sharpish after the final sketch so I didn’t get a chance to ask him for any money.
Had a couple of beers and some pleasant chat with some of my fellow workshoppers, including Jason Arnopp (who has a coat with the most capacious pockets I’ve ever seen – I understand that one was being rented to rich businessmen looking for a place to cheat on their wives). Incidentally, Jason’s blog has a much more thorough run-through of the days happenings than I could be arsed doing.
That was it. A pleasant stroll back to the Hotel Unhygenic, clean up the hooker’s body, a quick fix from her stash and to bed.
Thanks should go to Ed Morrish and Sam Michell from the BBC for organising and running the workshop – cheers guys.
Helen’s update
Posted on | March 8, 2009 | 1 Comment
I’m only posting because Helen insisted I update my blog. Who does she think she is with her bloggy demands? She reads and reads and reads but never comments. Are you happy now, Helen? Are you happy to have me dance to your whims? Dance, monkey, dance.
In non-Helen related news, I’m all packed for my sojourn in London. My non-explosive toiletries are in tiny bottles and shoved into a freezer bag lest I attempt to hijack a plane with some toothpaste and shampoo. I’ve also packed my best pants – no superfluous holes at all. I am determined to make a good impression with the BBC chaps.
So, I get to London on Sunday evening. BBC writing workshop on Monday. Writing sketches and whatnot. Some acty-type people will then perform the sketches that we’ve workshopped on Monday evening as I sneakily drink beer and prepare to embarrass myself and alienate a number of BBC producers in one go.
If anyone laughs at one of my jokes, I’m going to ask them for money. Much like I do all the time, really. Wish me more luck than usual.
So then, if, over the next couple of days, you are in London and see a moderately bemused looking bloke with a funny little beard, do say hello won’t you? As a stranger in a strange land, I’ll certainly appreciate it.
Is that enough for you Helen? Is it?
« NEWER Entries — OLDER Entries »Gerry Hayes
I mostly sit around all day and drink tea. Occasionally, I write stuff and send it to strangers so they can humiliate me and deride my efforts. Other than the self-harm to dull the shame of failure, it's not a bad life. Like I say, there's tea.
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