Rags, Royals, Ratbags and Rehab

The English tabloids are jaw-droppingly trashy, but they come up with some hilarious headlines.

The front page of Tuesday's Evening Standard ran photographs of Elton John and Liz Hurley, taken at the Elton John/David Furnish stag party in Soho the previous night. Liz looked glamorous, but more than a little plastered. The Standard's headline:
I'M STILL STANDING AT 1AM,
AS IS LIZ (....JUST)

X Marks The Spot

This building appeared as a church-turned-library in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. Indy discovers a secret entrance to the catacombs in his search for the Holy Grail. San Barnaba still is a church, as it has always been.

I visited the plaza twice while I was in Venice. This photo was taken on Saturday, when the city was flooded; note the water level, and compare with the other photos from Sunday when the water level was lower.

Venice, Italy

Friday two weeks ago, I called in sick for work. Lucky I happened to have a flight booked to Venice, otherwise I might have had to stay at home.

I procrastinated in the flat for about an hour, making breakfast, packing toiletries, showering, and changing etc, before making the final assault to leave around 8:45, leaving me 2.5 hours for the 50 minute tube ride, and just enough time to make my flight. Dressed and suitcase in hand to walk out the door, it was then that I realised that I'd misplaced my keys. So began an exceptionally stressful 30 minutes of turning my suitcase and flat upside down, before resigning myself to the possibility that I'd left them on the door overnight (a common event, I regret to admit) and they were picked up by some criminal, nefarious and unknown. I grabbed the spare set from the caretaker, ran to the tube station, and sweated it all the way to the airport. Would I make it in time? Would someone break into the flat while I was away? Once at Heathrow's Terminal 1, safely checked-in, I purchased a cup of tea at Caffe Nero (think The Coffee Club with better coffee, but otherwise just another dreadful franchise), and tried to relax. It was there that I remembered where I had left my keys, attached to my USB flash memory key (also on the keyring), plugged into the back of my computer. I was right in thinking the USB key was small enough to lose!!

"Ah, Venice!" Indiana Jones exclaims in his eponymous Last Crusade, and I couldn't put it better myself. So enchanting, so romantic. Venice looks exactly like it does on the postcard, and doesn't fail to impress. The canals, alley ways and piazzas are vaguely familiar, and not just because they look mostly the same. This is the Venice of postcards, paintings, and photographs. And yet it still manages to live up to the hype. Surely only the most hopeless grump could not fail to fall in love with the romance of buliding a city on the sea. Yes, I know that technically it's marshland, in a lagoon, and probably chosen for military and/or strategic significance, but these things are inconsequential - it's Venice.

My little weekend jaunts to the continent aren't intended to see and do everything. With no set itinerary beyond a few landmarks, I set out from my hotel and wander. That works well everywhere else, and even worked well for the most part in Venice, until I found myself totally, hopelessly, completely lost. Normally, my keen sense of direction serves me well, even in a new environment. But Venice is like my magnetic north pole. The problem started when I decided to back-track to buy a jacket I'd tried on earlier. As simple as that sounds, it wasn't long before the alleyways, dead-ends, non-descript plazas, and a myriad of bridges merged into an endless maze. For more than an hour I walked around and around and around, trying to find the street that was somewhere on my map. (I didn't mark the exact location, and stupidly forgot the street name, the nearest church, and adjacent canal). Several times I found myself in a plaza that sufficiently resembled something on my map to warrant making a "fresh start". But ten minutes after my departure I would find myself in exactly the spot where I started, having walked in a circle of considerable diameter. I may as well have been in the Sahara, looking for familiar dunes. Never having been lost like this, it was not long before my frustration turned to panic. In a brief flicker of anxiety-induced paranoia I wondered if the city was conspiring against me, reconfiguring itself to deceive me, like in Alex Proyas' Dark City or the Doctor Who serial 'Castrovalva'. Long drama cut short, I eventually found the shop, bought the jacket, and high-tailed it back to my hotel.

As already noted, Venice figures prominently in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, a film which I adore, but manages to irritate me when the characters refer to the city as "Venice, Italy", on no less than three occasions, instead of plain "Venice". I've often wondered why this to be, and like my theory that the screenwriter was concerned that a few dumb Americans might think the Holy Grail has been secretly stashed somewhere in Venice Beach, California, unbeknownst to Indy, his father, the Nazis, and the Knights Templar. Sadly, some Australians might also fall into this category. Two backpacking Aussies sat next to me on the bus from Marco Polo airport. I was floored with disbelief when the girl had to explain to her boyfriend that Venice is built on water, with gondolas and bridges linking the many islands. You should have seen the look on his face. His genuine surprise genuinely disturbed me. How can he not know this, I wondered, especially when he's planning to visit?


I wonder how the Aussies got on the next day. I was rudely woken from a table-wine coma by the ominous bellow of the flood horn. Venice floods, with some regularity, and especially in winter. Not through excess precipitation, mind you, but because of high winds out at sea that buffet the water into the lagoon. When high tide arrives, it's really freakin' high. The Venetians must laugh at our idea of "rising damp", every time a canal floods their living room. There is talk of a multi-billion dollar flood barrier, and even the fallback compromise of just building higher, but in December 2005 these things are just talk, leaving me stranded in my hotel. The rooms are safely high and dry on the upper floors, but the ground floor dining room flooded (slowly) while I finished breakfast. And the main problem with the rising water level is that the sewrage water level rises accordingly. In the space of twenty minutes, from the time I finished breakfast to when I returned to the lobby to leave, the ground floor toilet had flooded. The smell of raw sewrage was spectacularly overwhelming. I likened it to a ruptured septic tank.

Obviously I was keen to leave, and also to start sightseeing, but by now the water level had completely cut off the hotel. The souvenir stalls sell over-priced plastic bag boots for the tourists (who else would pay €8.50), and you'd think the hotels would jump at the opportunity to do the same. Maybe at other hotels, but not mine. (Which was hardly a fleabag, and actually quite luxurious. I paid €85/night for a room with a listed rate of €195). I asked the imbecile at the front desk what I could do, and he said we'd have to wait. (A gay couple were waiting in the lounge, similarly stranded). "For how long?" I enquired. "Maybe 2 or 3 hours," hotel imbecile answered. I struggled to remain calm, after all flooding is a frequent event in a city where tourism is one of the major industries. After considerably diplomatic persuasion on my part, I managed to convince hotel-imbecile to cross the alleyway and borrow some Wellingtons so I could walk to a souvenir stand and by three pairs of plastic bag boots.

The one thing I learned in Venice that I wish to impart to anyone travelling there: don't waste your money on the plastic bag boots. The Wellingtons might cost twice as much, but at least they will work. The plastic bag boots look durable, with a hard sole, but they are crap. One boot sprung a leak a half-hour after setting out. Another tourist volunteered his spare, for which I was grateful, but I had to endure strange looks from fashion-conscious Italians who viewed me with suspicion for wearing different coloured boots: one green, one purple. I steeled myself by viewing with suspicion a country that idolises a human as God-on-earth.

The epilogue to the plastic boot story takes place in St Mark's Square. The plaza is flooded. Fog enshrouds the Campanile. Tourists wade through thigh-deep water, or scurry along the many catwalks like ants on a mission. The horizon a water-line, shared by tourists, gondolas, and passing cruise liners. And then there's Nick, over-awed by the architectural beauty of this spot, and by now too tired and too lazy to walk the long way round on the catwalks. And why should I? After all, I'm wearing the special plastic bag boots. I step off the catwalk and start trudging through the water. Ten metres out, literally in the middle of the plaza, I feel the rushing sensation of freezing cold water surging through my shoes, feet, socks, skin, and bones, when both boots split at exactly the same time. Ah, Venice!

My Venice photo set is here.

Bruges Photographs

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I have also posted my holiday snaps from Bruges. Check out the set page.

Brussels Town Hall, Grand Place

I have posted my holiday snaps from Brussels. This is the beautiful town hall rising from the central plaza of Grand Place. The rest of the photos are on the set page.

London from Waterloo Bridge

Taken on Guy Fawkes Night, with the London Eye on the left and the Houses of Parliament at the rear right. The tall building at the rear, just left of centre, is Millbank Tower, an oft-maligned 60s office block. (I quite like it, actually.) Crossing the frame is Hungerford Bridge. It's actually a triplet of bridges: two pedestrian bridges located each side of a railway bridge terminating at Charing Cross station on the northern bank.

Guy Fawkes 2005

5 November 2005 was the 400th anniversary of the Gunpowder Plot to blow up the Houses of Parliament. Each year on that date, the Brits celebrate Guy Fawkes' failure by setting off fireworks. I have more photographs on my set page.

Hampstead Heath

I ventured out to Hampstead Heath in mid-October, which is a huge park in North London. Unlike London's other parks, the Heath looks like it is rural wilderness when in fact it is a totally planned garden! This photograph was taken on Parliament Hill, which is used to launch and fly kites. There are more photographs on my Hampstead Heath set page.

Kenwood House is located at the park's northern limits, and has turned in several London-set films, like Notting Hill. Hampstead Heath also turns up in An American Werewolf In London as the setting for one of the werewolf's murders.

Royal Opera House Backstage Tour

The impressively-proportioned Royal Opera House dominates Covent Garden. Following a series of renovations and extensions it is now home to the Royal Opera and Royal Ballet companies. The Opera House is on Bow Street, across the road from my apartment complex. I still managed to arrive late for the backstage tour. Photographs can only be taken in the front of house areas. The few I took are in the set page.

Madrid Photographs

I visited Madrid with Doug the first weekend in September. Here is a link to my Madrid photo set page.

Brunel Tunnel, Wapping Station

I snapped this photograph at Wapping Underground Station during London Open House weekend. The tunnel visible in the background is Marc Isambard Brunel's Thames Tunnel, and is historically significant as it is the world's first tunnel bored under a navigable waterway. 162 years after its completion, it is still a working tunnel, used by Underground trains on the East London Line. There are more photos on my London Open House set page.

King's Library Tower at the British Library

I previously blogged about the King's Library at the British Library. My pics are now uploaded and ready for viewing on the set page.

The set page also has photographs of St Pancras and Kings Cross stations, which are located right next to the British Library. The stations are one of London's major transit centres, with a sprawling underground tube station linking many lines. St Pancras being renovated to become London's new Eurostar terminus.

Liverpool Street Station

What is better than setting out to find a film location? Surely, it's the surprise realisation that a familiar place has featured in a favourite film.

Such is the case with Liverpool Street Station. The Underground station is buried in the bowels of the mainline terminus used by Essex-bound trains, requiring one to walk through the concourse to access the tube. The concourse is impressive, with an airy vaulted ceiling, a distinctive arrival/departure board, and the little mezzanine mall of glass-roofed shops.

I pass through the station quite regularly, averaging once per week in my first three months in London. From the first visit it seemed familiar, although I could not think why. Successive visits fostered this niggling sense of familiarity, until a search on IMDb solved the mystery. Liverpool Street Station appears in Brian De Palma's Mission: Impossible. It's the location for a meeting between spy master Jim Phelps (Jon Voight) and disavowed agent Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise), where the latter discovers that seeing is not necessarily believing.

GQ Men of the Year

I snapped this photograph at the GQ Men of the Year event at the Royal Opera House in Covent Garden, just as Jerry Hall emerged from the silver Audi. I have more photographs in the set page. Here is the GQ list.

Millennium Bridge

This is the pedestrian bridge which opened in 2000, and was closed shortly thereafter due to structural flaws that caused it to dangerously wobble. Engineers added peripheral stabilizers, and now it doesn't wobble quite so much. The bridge is actually a suspension design, with the distinction that the suspension cables are attached to the sides of the bridge. With this design the bridge is high enough to allow boats to pass under, without being so high as to obstruct the view of St Paul's Cathedral, the latter being one of London's quirky civil planning regulations. The Millennium Bridge is the first new Thames crossing since the Tower Bridge in 1894, providing a convenient link for pedestrians and cyclists to travel between the City of London and the Tate Modern, located on the south bank in the renovated Bankside power station. In recent years the bridge has become one of London's new cinematic cliches (along with the London Eye), and is frequently exploited by film-makers in establishing shots. I have more photos of the Millennium Bridge and the Tate Modern in the set page.

Postman's Park from Closer

If you've seen the fantastic 2004 film Closer, starring Clive Owen, Julia Roberts, Jude Law, and Natalie Portman, then you have seen Postman's Park. This memorial to lost souls plays a pivotal role in the film's plot. I knew it was somewhere in the City, but discovered it quite by accident one afternoon, during peak hour, as I walked home from the nearby Museum of London. I have more photos of Postman's Park here.

Temple Bar, City of London

These little guys guard the entrances to the City of London. There is a dragon at each road entrance, marking the boundary of the city limits. This monument marks the entrance once known as Temple Bar (because of its proximity to the Inns of Court, Inner Temple and Middle Temple).

The modern-day City of London is built on the same site as the ancient city of Londinium, which was once bounded by the London Wall. Various gates in the wall have given their name to streets and regions in the City, such as Aldgate, Bishopsgate, and Moorgate. The ancient wall is still visible around the City, with the largest segment revealed by a Blitz bomb near the Museum of London.

These days the City is the financial heart of the city, and still one of the world's leading financial centres. It's nicknamed The Square Mile because of its approximate size, which is less of a mouthful than The Square 2.6 Kilometres.

I have more photos of the City in the set page.

South Kensington

South Kensington is home to some embassies, some very expensive real estate, and some fine museums in the Albertopolis region. This photo is of the Museum of Natural History. There are more photos in the South Kensington photo set.

Piccadilly Circus

You can view a few more photographs from Piccadilly Circus here.

I have finally uploaded all of the photographs I have taken since leaving Brisbane. You can view all of my photograph sets here.

I'm still organising the photos, but most of the recent uploads are already in the right place. I will steadily blog a photo or two from each set over the next few days.

Birthday Bouquet from Kerby!

The Anti-Climax of 31

So I'm finally 31. Not that when I was younger I ever spent too much time (if any) postulating where I would be at 31. Nevertheless, as much as I don't want to be 31, I have little choice in the matter. I am however grateful that I have a few years longer until I have to "switch boxes". By that I mean those horrendous forms that require you to approximate your age into one of several bands. You know the kind that are like 25-35, 35-50, 50-65, 65+... or similar. That a 35 year old gets lumped with someone fifteen years older is frustrating, and I'm sure it's no comfort when you reach the upper limit of the range, instead being a painful reminder of years gone by.

Thank you to all those who sent birthday greetings. They were really appreciated on a very cold London day. It was 3 degrees when I walked to work yesterday. And supposedly 1 degree today. My work colleagues tell me that the mysterious nightmen are starting to throw salt and grit on the London streets, although I haven't seen this yet myself.

In spite of being 31, life in London is wonderful (excepting how much I miss Paul) so I have a lot to be grateful for. I haven't planned any birthday extravaganze, preferring to let last year's blow out resonate for a little longer. I am heading out for after work drinks at The Box with Patrick and Peter, so it's quite possible the low-key start will parlay into a bigger commitment.

I did plan a few little birthday treats for myself, like my trip to Brussels last weekend. Then on Monday evening I splashed out on a front row ticket to Chicago. Lynda Carter has been a special guest in the show for a few months now, playing the prison governor Mama Morton. Her run ends tomorrow evening. Her role is small, but she was very good, holding her own with some long-time professionals in the continuing cast. And she looks fantastic. And she's stacked. I know she was "built" when she played Wonder Woman, but her chest was huge in real life. I had a row BB ticket, with no seating in front of me. I think the first few rows are the only way to fly, and well worth the extra £££. I really, REALLY enjoyed the show, which was surprising given how much I LOATHED the film version of Chicago. The stage production is very sexy, aided by some very sexy performers, which is lost on the screen. I think the visual candy holds the audience better during the musical's filler parts.

On Wednesday evening I watched David Lean's Lawrence of Arabia at the National Film Theatre. This mammoth epic of a picture is almost four hours long. The session started just after 6:30pm. But add to that a half hour of speeches before the beginning and a twenty minute intermission, I didn't get home until 11:30!! The event was in a memorial presentation for the film's production designer John Box, who died earlier this year. I'd never heard of him before the evening, but apparently Box is the most awarded British filmmaker, having received four Oscars (which were on display) and several BAFTAs.

I really enjoyed the film, even though I was terrified I'd fall asleep. Once I got passed the first half hour I didn't lose interest for the rest of the evening. The film was shown in 70mm on the large screen in NFT cinema 1, which helped immensely. The 70mm process is wonderful for epic pictures. It's like seeing the very image for real with my own eyes. Fearing the long running time, I had cold feet in the days beforehand. In his review Roger Ebert said that this is one film that must be seen on a big screen, and he is so very correct. Otherwise, many of the wonderful images are lost in a mass of yellow desert blur. And if you're going to sit through a four hour movie, I thought, just do it properly once, the first time!!

Before the film there were tributes from Box's daughter, highly-regarded English costume designer Anthony Powell (he worked on the Indiana Jones flicks, is a protege of Box's, and also worked with Lean), Harry Potter production designer Stuart Craig, and one of the film's stars Omar Sharif. All of these people are highly regarded within the film industry, but it came as no surprise that Sharif received the biggest applause. It's funny how our celebrity-obsessed culture works.

Speaking of which, I passed Sigourney Weaver in Drury Lane street yesterday. Just like when I passed Michael Palin in the street (elsewhere in Covent Garden) some months back, these events are those matter-of-fact London moments when the film world enters the real world, even though I'm totally unsure where to draw the line between the real world and the film world. Anyway, it's quite exciting.

The Sound of London

What am I listening to these days, when it's not Hung Up? My gym plays this great CD, Tokyo Project: The Collection, produced by the same people who released the Hed Kandi series. All the tracks on Tokyo Project, and especially the selected mixes, get a lot of playtime in the clubs here, and for good reason. It's sensational. Buy, beg, steal, borrow. Just get it. I am convinced it will actually change your life.

Bruges

Bruges (pron: Broojsh) is an hour's train ride from Brussels, affording me an opportunity to see some of the countryside, and the rural towns that we passed along the way.

The Bruges train station is a modern Art Deco-ish structure at the edge of the town. There were buses into town, but I opted to walk, as most tourists seemed to do. The medieval township has retained its old-worlde feel, with winding cobbled streets, low-rise shoppes, two huge towering cathedrals, and several large old buildings that now house museums. Bruges is situated on a series of canals and islands, which are used to ferry boatloads of tourists on tours.

The town's services seem to be structured around tourism. I wasn't expecting to see a Marriot, nor the expensive prices that abounded. The town is quaint, and a lovely way to spend an afternoon, or longer as I inferred from conversations at neighbouring tables. But it's almost a victim of itself, or at least the service providers, and the tourist-trap odor is hard to ignore. On more than one occasion I felt like I had wandered into Ye Old Euro-Worlde in a theme park.

After Bruges, I caught a train back to Brussels for dinner, then rushed back to Bruxelles-Midi station to catch the last Eurostar back to London-Waterloo. The train is under the Channel Tunnel at the moment, a twenty-minute trip that evokes mixed emotions of thrill and anxiety. I'm no expert on these matters, but security doesn't seem sufficiently tight to safeguard against an 'incident' on a high-exposure target like the Channel Tunnel. I know that sounds paranoid, and it is, but it's also a fair assessment of the minimal checks that screen baggage and passengers. Warner Brothers put me through me more stringent checks to review Matrix Revolutions prior to its release!!

On a happier note, the Eurostar service trip has been particularly pleasant. My first thoughts on Friday night were that the Eurostar isn't as smooth as Japan's Shinkansen, but that has more to do with the sub-standard tracks arond London. The English side of the network has always been the weakest link. While we've sped through Belgium and France at speeds up to 300 km/hour, the train crawls into, and out of, London on pre-Eurostar tracks that are shared with other mainline services. That will change in 2007. A high-speed track is being tunneled under London to St Pancras station, a beautiful Gothic-styled, red-brick structure, reminiscient of Brisbane's old museum. The restored St Pancras will become the new London terminus, and the high-speed track will shave twenty minutes off all Eurostar services!

Brussels

One of London's many benefits is the ease with which one can travel to Europe. A flight of a few hours can take one to many European cities, and with the Eurostar one can literally go to Paris for lunch. I'm determined to have a European weekend getaway once-a-month while I'm living in London. Madrid last month, and Venice next. But this weekend I'm in Brussels, and I'm a little embarrassed to admit that my initial rationale for visiting the 'official' European capital is that it's the furthest one can travel on the Eurostar without changing trains!

Not that Brussels isn't interesting, or beautiful. In fact, it's architecturally stunning, especially in the centre of town around the Grand Place where the Town Hall's spire rises a few hundred feet from the piazza to the sky. And then there is the Palace of Justice, occupying prime position on the top of the hill. No photograph can truly give justice, pardon the pun, to the building's mammoth proportions. Designed in a classical style, it is the largest building constructed in the 19th century, between 1860 and 1880.

The less said about my hotel, the better. Let's just say it's been quite a while since I've slept in a single bed. A true single at that, and not even a 3/4. At least it encouraged me to get out and
about yesterday morning. I spent Saturday wandering through the city centre, sightseeing and shopping. (I picked up a great winter jacket and leather shoes at a third of the London prices). Brussels is an especially compact city. It has a tram network, that runs underground in parts, but I didn't use it once, opting to walk all day.

The Palace of Justice was the first stop. From there I walked down the Rue de la Régence boulevard to the museum district. I wanted to visit the Museum of Modern Art and, elsewhere, an exhibition of Faberge eggs, but the queues were truly horrendous. Still, there was plenty to see and enjoy, as I walked through the old town with cobbled alleyways lined with street-side restaurants. In the French style, most of these restaurants display signs for la carte fixed menus. When I returned later in the evening, I picked the most inexpensive (€12.50, $20) and was pleasantly surprised by the quality of the food, wine, and service.

A funny thing happened to me as I walked around the town. Not long after I set out I walked passed a building draped in German flags. "A-ha", I thought, I have found the German embassy, either to Belgium or representative to the E.U. A short distance later, I found another building that matched the same description. This must be other embassy. This happened on a few more occasions before I realised I was confusing the German flag with the similarly-coloured Belgian flag. I'm sure there are lots of Belgian embassy buildings in Germany.

Would I recommend a trip to Brussels? Absolutely. Would I go back? Most probably. Would I want to live here? Definitely not. With each passing hour I wisened to the realisation that I was in the Canberra of Europe. Like the Australian capital, Brussels is stunning, with great restaurants, and significant cultural attractions. But lacking the spark of other mid-sized cities like Madrid or Toronto, I found it a wee bit boring! I'm sure it's lively, and all that, once you get to know the place. But I found myself longing for the flash 'n' trash that is easier to come by in the bigger cities!

Not wishing to brave the crowds at the museum, I would have been at a loose end today, had it not been for my work colleagues. Several recommended a day trip to Bruges. So as I write I'm on a domestic train hurtling through the Belgian countryside toward this medieval town.

Eurostar

I'm writing this post from the Eurostar, en route to Brussels. We cleared the Channel Tunnel about fifteen minutes ago, and are passing through the French countryside. At least, I think we are. I can't really tell because it's pitch black outside, and it's only 6:10pm.

British Summer Time ended a few weeks ago, and the difference in temperature and sunlight was quite surprising. When I usually leave work at 5:30pm it is totally dark and quite cold, a big change from the week before when daylight saving was in effect. Today, I walked from work to Waterloo Station just before 4pm, and noticed that the sun had started setting well before then!

I tried to submit this post using a wi-fi hotspot at Lille station. Sadly, no open hotspot. Of course, I could use a bluetooth connection from my PDA to my mobile, using the phone's GPRS to connect to the internet, but O2 have thoughtfully disabled my global roaming and data services. Will my telco troubles ever cease?

Time Goes By, So Slowly

Indeed, time does goes by so slowly, when waiting on BT, or any other British telco. After a mammoth 6.5 week ordeal, I finally have broadband internet at home.

The saga started when I called BT in the last week of September, to connect the phone service. The earliest they could send a technician out was 2.5 weeks later on 10 October. I decided to go with UK Online for broadband services, because of their £14.99 deal for unlimited 2MB ADSL. I couldn't sign up with UK Online until after BT connected the line, and then I was advised I'd have to wait another two weeks. That was a lie. As the two week limit rapidly approached, and not having heard from UK Online, I decided to call them for a status update. It seems my order was rejected by BT on the grounds that UK Online don't own the equipment at the exchange, whatever that means. So my rejected order sat in a "rejected order" queue, where it was ignored until my call ten days later. I enquired with the UK Online operator what would have happened if I hadn't called. The poor lass isn't too bright, but at least she is honest, for she replied, "I don't know."

UK Online said it might take three weeks from the date of my phone call to connect the broadband service. It actually took ten days, but in the intervening time my phone line mysteriously went on the blink. Cue BT, enter stage left, who disconnected my phone service due to an earth on the line. In a perfect world, BT would contact me to let me know what they did. In England, I have to ring BT to find that out for myself. The fault caused my phone line to periodically ring the 112 emergency service. As serious as it sounds, I like to think of this as a good thing, a preventative measure on my phone's part, because the fiasco was rapidly sending my stress levels through the roof, on their way to grand mal. BT flagged the call for priority, but that means nothing to the socialists who work there. Despite my repeated calls to BT, forcing me to endure the faceless bastardry of call-centres from Sheffield to Glasgow, it still took ten days to resolve the matter, with a BT technician in my bedroom. The technician isolated the problem to the bedroom's unused extension socket, rising damp being the culprit. The icing on the cake was the BT technician's parting salvo, delivered with grace and aplomb, that I will be £120 charged for the repair, as it was caused by internal wiring.

It's wonderful being connected to the world once again. One of the first things I downloaded is the video for Madonna's Hung Up, which I am in love with. As previously blogged, I love the remixes, but thought the single a little lacking. The video clip is amazing, and makes the song a stand-out, surely to go to number one. The "time goes by" mantra is so catchy. Did anyone else pick up on the little lyrical reference to Madonna's turn as Evita?

The video reminds me of Spinning Around, with Madonna's Kylie-esque hotpants, and some similarly synchronised dance moves. Watching it over and over (and over), it seems the intent was to present an especially youthful Madonna. Soft-focus lensed, Botoxed, and jaw-droppingly fit, she looks great, especially when dancing like someone half her age. The 80s dance studio sequence is cute, and you've gotta love her spinning towards camera at the song's start. But it's the clip's end that has me mesmerised, reminiscient of Vogue's climax, with Madonna's frenetic explosion on a Dance Dance Revolution video game machine.

According to two net-based sources (1, 2), the clip was filmed (mostly) in London, on location at Elephant & Castle, the Jubilee Line on the Underground, and at Redcross Way in Southwark/Borough where Madonna struts her stuff under the railway viaducts near the Bridget Jones and Lock Stock locations. The Gherkin appears in the background of an early shot where the kids are stretching on a residential tower's rooftop.

Last weekend my cousin Diana was in town for a few days. We had lunch in Chinatown, and then went to Portobello Road market. I remember, as a child, reading that Paddington Bear shopped here. As an adult, I was most impressed by a bakery on the hill that specialises in the most delicious fairy cakes, only £1.75 each, and no larger than normal! The market's goods were also pretty impressive, and worth a trip out there.

This afternoon I am off to Brussels for the weekend, via the Eurostar. Yay!

London Film Festival 2005

The London Film Festival has wrapped up its two week run. Many of the interesting films are scheduled for commercial release, so I saved my pennies for those that might not.

Like They Came Back, a Romero-inspired zombie drama where the zombies wake from the dead with a burning desire to return to their families and jobs, as if their lives had never ended. Hijinks ensue. The best thing about They Came Back is that it is a drama, offering a different spin on traditional zombie fare. The worst thing about They Came Back is that it is a drama. Zombies are great entertainment in suspenseful and comedic situations, but give them a mortgage and aspirations and they become as boring as the living.

Tristram Shandy: A Cock and Bull Story is Michael Winterbottom's adaptation of the classic English novel of the same name, universally regarded, until now, as unfilmable. The film's conceit is clever, with the film's story being about the making of a film adaptation of Tristram Shandy, which is the very film you're watching. The idea isn't as fresh as it was with Adaptation, but the film was still pretty funny. Steve Coogan is very funny, playing himself and Tristram Shandy, but I particularly enjoyed a cameo by Gillian Anderson, playing herself.

My favourite film at the festival was Lemming. This is the second film from Dominik Moll, who directed the little known Hitchcockian thriller Harry, He's Here To Help, a few years ago. The story revolved around two couples. The young couple are madly in love with each other, while the older couple can barely stand the sight of one another. The lives of all four people become dangerously entangled when they meet over a disastrous, and excruciatingly embarrassing, dinner engagement. After dinner, the younger couple discover a lemming trapped in their kitchen drain. It's a strange film, melding Hitchcock with Polanski and Lynch, made all the more interesting with Charlotte Rampling playing the older woman.

I also saw Michaelangelo Antonioni's The Passenger, which has been unavailable for 30 years. Jack Nicholson, who stars, owned the film rights, and rarely allowed it to be shown, despite believing it to be his best work. He plays a journalist who becomes entangled in international arms trafficking, perhaps willingly so, so that he can escape the misery of his failing marriage back home in London. There is lots of location shooting, and I will shoot some contemporary photographs of the London locations as soon as I have the chance.

The Film Festival's best attributes are the film-based events where film-makers and actors talk about their work. I attended two chats towards the end of the program, with Gael Garcia Bernal and Terry Gilliam.

Mexican-born Gael García Bernal shot to international fame with Amores perros, and has subsequently appeared in Y Tu Mama Tambien, El Crimen del padre Amaro, and Bad Education, and The Motorcycle Diaries. He was in London to promote his controversial new film, The King, the first entirely in English, in which he co-stars with William Hurt. Bernal was wonderfully engaging with the audience. He comes from a family of stage actors, although he didn't consider that he could make a career as an actor until Y Tu Mama Tambien. His gregariuos personality suggests that no-one is more surprised by his success than himself.

The most interesting story concerned Amores perros. In 2000, he was studying in London at the Central School of Speech and Drama. Alejandro González Iñárritu, a radio DJ back in Mexico, tracked him down to offer the lead role in what was to be the director's first feature film. As the drama school expressly forbids its students from taking work, the film's shoot was planned for Bernal's four week summer vacation. When the producers realised they needed a fifth week, everyone conspired to fabricate an illness that prevented him from returning to London to study. When he returned to London, his student friends were convinced of his illness because of his shaved head, which was necessary for the film role (his character winds up in hospital). Bernal didn't tell anyone about the film role, for fear of expulsion. Not even his friends knew. And he figured he'd get away with it because he expected the film to barely be seen within Mexico, let alone outside. Bernal said that his parting words to the producers were along the lines of "could you send me a VHS copy of the film?" Cut now to a year later, you can imagine the surprise for Bernal when Amores perros screens in competition at the Cannes Film Festival. When telling the story to the audience, Bernal expressed his embarrassment at the whole incident because the drama school organised a Get Well card!

Terry Gilliam was an absolute joy to listen to. I have seen him in a filmed Q&A on the Lost in La Mancha DVD, and he is just as animated, funny, and interesting in real life. The interviewer took us through almost all of his films, to illustrate his transition from Monty Python to The Brothers Grimm, his latest film. Gilliam is renowned for the difficulty he encounters in getting his wonderfully elaborate cinematic dreams from his head to the screen. As he put it, The Brothers Grimm experience was made all the worse by the collaboration with the grim brothers Weinstein, best exemplified by the story about Matt Damon's nose. To cut a long story short, Gilliam had decided that Matt Damon needed a nose prosthetic to conceal the cuteness of the actor's stubby upturned proboscis. And the results, apparently, were astounding. The second Damon put on the prosthetic he started to walk differently, and perform differently. Gilliam said he looked the spitting image of a young Brando. After countless weeks of rehearsal, and on the very night before the start of principal photography, the Weinsteins sent a a missive that the prosthetic was not to be used. After all, Miramax wants to be able to sell Matt Damon as Matt Damon on the movie poster. Gilliam was so incensed that he very seriously considered scrapping the whole movie, all over the prosthetic. He buckled, the film was made, but it nags him to this day that he might have balked too early, and could have shot the film with the prosthetic!

Gilliam said that the favourite of his films is Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas, because of its subversive subject matter detailing Hunter S. Thompson's drug-drenched trip to Las Vegas. Gilliam loves the fact that its the most popular DVD among students at Eaton and Highgate. And he is tickled pink that the North American disc was the first Criterion-branded DVD (famously expensive) to be sold in Walmart (famously cheap), where teenagers shop for DVDs!

But the most interesting anecdote concerned Brazil. Gilliam was in L.A in the early 1980s, trying to cast the film. He looked at every young actor for the lead role. Around this time, he saw a snippet of Risky Business, directly on the Steenbeck being used to edit the film. The clip was the Old Time Rock and Roll sequence, which convinced Gilliam that Tom Cruise was perfect for Brazil. He called Cruise, and explained that he wanted the actor to audition for the lead role. Gilliam had committments back in London, and explained that he would video-record the audition, to show other people, and help with the process. This ended up being the problem. Gilliam chased Cruise for a few days, and eventually spoke with the actor. Cruise said he really wanted the role, but explained "they won't let me do it", meaning the video-taped audition. In Gilliam's summation, "they" were the people behind the scenes managing his career. Even at those early stages his career was being managed with excessive caution, and "they" didn't want a videotape floating around that could turn up later with unforeseen results.

Ripped Whores and Fogged Streets

Mike Leigh (Naked, Secrets and Lies, Vera Drake) is a remarkable director whose moving character studies of the working classes are, in my opinion, among the best films of the last twenty years.

Mike Leigh is also an arrogant old fart, and after my recent encounter with him, he can get stuffed. I'll soon tell you why.

For many weeks I've been planning to write more on the set-jetting phenomenon. Just to recap, set-jetting is the recently coined term that describes the activity of visiting movie filming locations. The present Ground Zero for set-jetters might be New Zealand, where fans of Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings epic can tour Middle Earth. As previously blogged, I set out from Australia on this trip to do a little set-jetting myself, albeit on a much smaller scale. The places that interest me are smaller, quirkier, more personal locations, like Michael Caine's town house in Dressed To Kill, the elusive Ambrose Chapel from The Man Who Knew Too Much, or the New York City skytram that featured in Spiderman and Nighthawks.

Not every film is filmed on location of course, so the first job of the set-jetter is to separate the real from the fictional locations. Then there is the task of locating the real locations. These tasks aren't as difficult as they may seem because of the internet, that sanctuary for the obsessive, and home to the compulsive. Film freaks everywhere have compiled a wealth of information on film locations, all a quick googling from your fingertips. These websites range from spartan lists to rich multimedia experiences that compare movie stills with contemporary photographs of the actual location. For a film nut, researching locations can be addictive. Think of it as location porn. I lost many hours in Australia satisfying the urge. So much so, that by the time I actually visit these locations, the whole exercise is a fait accompli.

Most of the fun of set-jetting is usually in finding the place, if it still exists of course. Some locations are demolished, buildings are altered, or redecorated in such a way as to make them hard to find. And even when the location is left untouched, it still might appear quite different to the human eye for any number of reasons: set-dressing, camera lens, lighting, matte paintings, the position of the camera, or through the use of post-production visual effects. Sometimes a location hunt is like trying to solve a thirty year old jigsaw puzzle, that I know is missing pieces.

When I arrive at a location, I have a tingling sensation of discovery. I might see hundreds of people walk past, oblivious to the place's history. For me, it's like opening a Faberge egg, hidden in plain view. Temporarily transported into a film world, I spend a few moments comparing the location to my memory, then snap a quick photo, before moving on. After all, what else is there to do? With few notable exceptions, Himeji Castle (Ran, You Only Live Twice) being one, most film locations are not open to the public. So to the people who aren't film buffs, set-jetting must seem pretty strange. This is anorak territory. After all, the film's stories are usually fictional, the characters don't exist, in many cases the working function of the actual location is quite removed from its fictional role, and quite often, I've made a hell-of-a-detour to get there. So, you may ask, what's the attraction?

I think the answer lies with good storytelling. When I read a novel or watch a movie, I feel drawn into a parallel world, which might look very much like our own, but is still a world of fantasy. Gangsters run riot, conspiracies are real, and true love is just a corner-turn away. And whether the protagonists are heroes or anti-heroes, we identify with their motivations, their history, and their desires. For me, the sign of a good book or film is the sense of dread that overwhelms me when I finish the last page, or watch the closing credit crawl. It's a dread borne from the realization that something I have immensely enjoyed is now finished, never to be continued, nothing before, nothing after, "THE END". Until, that is, I decide to re-enter the finite confines of that world by starting at the beginning. And with a good film or book, it might only take a few seconds to slip back into that richly drawn world. Surely this is the magic of storytelling?

Some years back I was stuck in an unfortunate rot of desperately wanting to travel overseas, but being unable to do so, for a variety of reasons. A film freak for longer than I care to recall, I turned to the cinema as a form of escape. Watching a movie wasn't just about enjoying the story and appreciating the art, but also about appreciating the artifice of film production . Movies filmed on location suddenly gave me a portal that spanned the seas and offered an up-close view of foreign lands. It was irrelevant whether the fictional location corresponded with its actual location, because the film making process, the art of artifice, is half the fun of it. For example, in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, Indy and his father journey into the Turkish desert to the Canyon of the Crescent Moon, where the Holy Grail has been safeguarded for a millennium. A moon-shaped canyon doesn't really exist, but there is a canyon, at Petra in Jordan, where one can see the ruins of an ancient civilisation that carved extravagant buildings directly into the rock face.

In the same way, we can watch To Catch a Thief or Dirty Rotten Scoundrels to enjoy Riviera glamour (at a fraction of the price), or travel to the suburbs of Los Angeles by slipping in a disc of E.T., Back To The Future, or Halloween. Even a futuristic sci-fi film like Blade Runner offers little treats. It depicts Los Angeles in 2019, wet and grim, no longer sunny, but still the home city of the Frank Lloyd Wright designed Ennis-Brown House, just as it is now. And to those who might question my ability to differentiate between art and real life, I can merely offer the simple suggestion, tired as it may be, that life informs art, and in turn informs life. Consider the spectacle of September 11, playing live on our televisions like a Jerry Bruckheimer / Irwin Allen co-production.

So what is the relationship between story and location? Many filmed stories are universally themed. A simple love story, for example, might be set in Darwin or Dallas, with little difference to the end result. Some other films, I reason, need to be set in a specific location. No amount of skill and know-how is going to make a Godfather-style mafia epic work when it is set in Brisbane. (Which incidentally, is the problem inherent in so many Australian films, slavishly produced in the American style, but without the budget, the production values, or the locations).

Then there are other films, I'd argue, like Frenzy, that are inextricably bound to their setting. The location informs the story by providing a context for the action (like all films), but goes further than that, because that particular story simply could not be told by that director without that specific location, without it's colour, light, or atmosphere. With Frenzy, Hitchcock made a film about the rough hustle and bustle of blue-collar life in Covent Garden's fruit and vegetable market. It's a world which weaves together the certainties of life (food, sex, and death) with a world he knew, being the Covent Garden markets attended by his father, a greengrocer. Hitch paints the picture, we enter the dream world, soak up its atmosphere, and are readied for the sex, violence, and serial killer melodrama that unfolds.

Several times already I've blogged my thoughts of my time in New York, and specifically feeling tha I was trapped in a movie, 24/7. I think there is a very good reason for that. Storytellers use locations like shorthand, drawing on cliches (in turn, hyper-realities) to paint the background with a few quick brushstrokes. This is the trick of the establishing shot, those few seconds of long-distance photography that tell us where we are before we see what we're doing. But until this trip I had never considered the importance of location to good storytelling. Of those films which I describe as being bound to a location, it always seemed to me that the location was a character, alongside the actors. But now I'm beginning to think the relationship is deeper than that. Stories come from experience, and experience relates to character within an environment. Put simply, to tell a story well, it needs to be influenced by the very place where it is told. The character need to be influenced by their environment, otherwise they aren't of that environment. The longer I spend in London, the more I recognise the subtleties that differentiate character traits here, compared to those back home in Australia. Neither is better than the other; just different.

In New York, I found a non-fiction text called Celluloid Skyline: New York and the Movies, by James Sanders, which attempts to address this phenomenon by taking New York City as a case study. The book's premise is that there are two cities of New York: one being the real city, home to millions, the other being the mythic city that is represented in the movies. More than a "mere mirror", Sanders writes, the mythic version is an "adjunct or underside or dream version" of the real city. This duality is shared by the other "storied" or "fabled" cities like London, Paris, Venice, and Rome. But today, Sanders writes, "we tell our fables with celluloid", and there is no better place to do that than New York, the very place where cinema was invented. The book provides a lengthy quote from Jean Baudrillard (whoever he might be) which sums it all up for me:

"[There is a] feeling that you get when you step out of an Italian or Dutch gallery into a city that seems the very reflection of the paintings you have just seen, as if the city had come out of the paintings and not the other way around. An American city seems to have stepped right out of the movies. To grasp its secret, you should not, then, begin with the city and move inward toward the screen; you should begin with the screen and move outward toward the city."

And that's exactly how I felt when I was in New York. Sure, there are actual film locations to visit. But just by being in New York, one gets the sense of having seen it all somewhere before.

One of London's little surprises for me was the belated realisation of just how much of this city has entered the public consciousness of popular culture, be it through cinema, music, performance, and literature. Through a mixture of plan or chance, the last five books that I have read have featured locations that are within a half-mile from my flat in Covent Garden. It's a weird thrill to read about Tom Ripley visiting Bedfordbury Street, mere metres from the Tesco supermarket that I visit every other day. Or reading about late-night cabarets at the Cafe de Paris, where the Salvation parties are held. Not long after moving into the area, I took a detour off the Strand, and happened upon a little Roman bath, hidden in an alley running through King's College. The heritage plaque disputed the antiquity of the baths, but noted that Dickens refers to them when writing as David Copperfield. I think that's wonderful.

We have this in Brisbane, of course, although to a much, much lesser degree. Books like The Mayne Inheritance, Johnno, and Nick Earls' work do very well because of the accessibility of the locations to the local readers. It's simply easier to imagine a place that you know, and much more fun. It makes books accessible, and easier to read. That's how I got myself to read the early Agatha Christie thriller The Seven Dials Mystery. It's definitely lesser Christie, but made all the more tangible by its setting around the Seven Dials intersection in Covent Garden.

For twenty years, Helene Hanff corresponded with the staff of Marks & Co., a little bookshop at, and featured in, 84 Charing Cross Road. I pass the address every time I walk up to Soho, and never fail to think of this charming story of loss, and lost opportunity. The bookshop is long gone, now replaced by a franchised bar, but the book and its sequel, The Duchess of Bloomsbury, remain with us. Reading both books, back-to-back, was a delight. When Hanff finally visits London, she does exactly what I did when I got here... she set-jets, albeit exclusively to locations of a literary kind. While her first visit to London, the landscape is familiar, having discovered London long before through literature. And now, in turn, I had the opportunity to do the same with her book.

The loss of the little bookstore at 84 Charing Cross Road brings me to my final point tying story to location. Once again I return to Frenzy, and its setting in the Covent Garden fruit and vegetable market where little had changed since the turn of the twentieth century. Hitchcock learned that the market was soon to move to Nine Elms, forever vanishing from central London's landscape. Distraught at the potential loss of a part of his personal history, and with a career in tailspin, Hitch set about making a film on location in Covent Garden (even though he detested location filming), so that history would have a record of something that held sentimental value for him, and presumably others. And there it is, Covent Garden frozen in time, perpetually stuck in 1972, in a film which, I believe, is the master's last great film. A final gift, if you will, for the fans of traditional Hitchcockian cinema.

One of my favourite exhibits at the Museum of London is the on-line archive of turn-of-the-century film footage where I saw Queen Victoria at St Paul's, streets filled with hansom cabs, and other Victorian delights. According to Mike Leigh, the British Film Institute holds three hours of 19th century footage, which was a useful reference for his period film Topsy Turvy, concerning the first production of Gilbert and Sullivan's The Mikado. I learned this at one of two film chats last night, both held at the National Film Theatre as part of the London Film Festival.

Both events concerned the relationship between London and film-making. The first was an opportunity to view some experimental films inspired by London life. The second chat was chaired by Time Out, to coincide with their recent article surveying the 50 greatest films set in London, as chosen by Time Out writers and film-makers alike. Mike Leigh was on this second panel, along with Sue Hayes (Film Commissioner at Film London), and Stephen Woolley (producer of Scandal, Absolute Beginners, and The Crying Game, and now a director himself with Stoned). Given my recent pre-occupation with London locations, the chat was an engaging exploration of the relationship between story and location.

The film-makers mentioned the various period films they had made, from Vera Drake to Scandal, that recreated parts of London now lost to time. Their comments were interesting, especially as they described the ease or difficulty, as the case may be, to recreate London's past. The audience was invited to ask questions of the panel. I thought I was on to a winner when I asked the filmmakers if they felt it incumbent on directors to make films that capture a snapshot of contemporary London life , for the benefit of future generations, just as Hitchcock did with Frenzy. For reasons unknown, my question must have offended Mr Leigh. Missing the point completely, Leigh launched into a bombastic tirade shouting at me, although I sat only a few metres away, "Frenzy is a horrible film. It's sloppy. It's superficial. It says nothing about London life, and it shouldn't be in the Time Out list. I hope to never make a film like Frenzy. I'd be very happy if none of my films ever stoop to the levels of Frenzy."

"Hey Mike", I screamed, "at least Hitch's film tells us the world isn't a shitty hole of despair. At least I can watch his films without wanting to slit my wrists by the third act. Unlike your stuff..."
Well, actually, I didn't say that.

The audience seemed to be waiting all night for a classic ouburst from the easily irritable Leigh, and with my question they got it. Their cackles of laughter grew to howls, as I tried to shrink into my seat and disappear. It wasn't his criticism that bothered me, it was the tone of his accusatory tirade. At somewhat of a disadvantage, I felt helpless to respond. I just smiled meekly and pretended to laugh along with the audience, all the time praying his outburst, and my restraint, was definitive of our respective characters.

And then, from my extreme left, I heard someone interrupt the director's ranting. This lady informed the audience that she had once met Hitchcock, and even interviewed him. She tried to elicit more information from Leigh, informing both him and the audience, that the British press slated Hitchcock over Frenzy, feeling it was not representative of 1970s London. Sadly, that line of attack didn't succeed in furthering a constructive exchange. Leigh grumbled along the same line, the laughter slowly subsided, and the "chat" eventually got going again, on a different topic.

At the conclusion of the event, I had a brief conversation with the lady who interruped Leigh. She mentioned that the Brits, in her experience, are very sensitive of how foreigners perceive London, which might explain (i) the British press' condemnation of Frenzy as old and tired, and to a lesser extent (ii) Leigh's outburst. In her words, Londoners don't want to be reminded of "Jack the Ripper" London. And with that, I was reminded of something I read in Anthony Shaffer's autobiography (he being the screenwriter of Frenzy, playwright of Sleuth, and third husband to Diane Cilento).

Shaffer wrote that tourists comes to London with an expectation that the streets are shrouded in fog, and the alleyways are littered with ripped whores. This is the mythic city of London. A fictional mirror to its real twin. Art informed by life. It's the very city that the tourist read about in books, or watch on the screen at the cinema. And whether motivated by film, literature, or pop culture lore, these tourists are set-jetting. Hitch knew this, being more astute than some of his contemporaries, or even some contemporary film snobs, will acknowledge.

There is a dual irony to the Leigh fiasco. Apart from completely missing the point of my question, the panellists did eventually answer it, although in response to another. The subject of the chat had returned to "disappearing London". We heard sentimental stories from Leigh and Woolley, both lamenting the closure of favourite cafes and the redevelopment of railyards etc etc, but the consensus was that these things are on their way out, going or gone, and the filmmakers are powerless to do anything about it. While this is partly true, as very little gets in the way of "progress", let's not forget the source of London's rich record of its own history. That "source" being the decision by many people, from Samuel Pepys to Chris Petit, to record the city they know.

Oscar-nominated or not, I wondered, have these filmmakers learnt nothing from their work's potential, from a man like Hitchcock, or their city's own history?

Dannii Minogue @ London Astoria

Last night Troy and I went to G-A-Y club, at the London Astoria, to see Dannii Minogue's half-hour show. She was there (on her birthday, no less) to promote her new single Perfection, which was an unfortunate choice for an encore as it's very blah. The pre-encore costume change didn't help, as the hotpants came off as lesser Young Talent Time.

But the rest of the show was fab. She sang Put The Needle On It and I Begin To Wonder, and covered Blondie's Heart of Glass. Dannii shook her booty as she sang, keeping up with her dancers. She also engaged the audience with a little conversation, and was quite genuinely appreciative of the support.

We managed to score a table at the front of the balcony. The Astoria was packed. Check out the number of mobile phones in the blogged photo. The rest of my photos are on the set page.

Hung Up @ Beyond

On Sunday I went out with Patrick and Peter to Beyond. This day club is located in Vauxhall, a once industrial area that is now home to the MI6 headquarters, and many a gay club and bar that is rivalling in size the traditional village in the West End.


One of the last tracks of the day was the SDP Extended Dub remix of Madonna's new single, Hung Up. It's a great track, with a minimum of vocals on the remix. You have to listen very hard to hear Madonna's voice, as it is drowned out by the heavy sampling of ABBA's Gimme Gimme Gimme (A Man After Midnight).

In the November issue of Attitude, Madonna is quoted as saying, "I'm not in the mood for a ballad. I can't be bothered. I wanna dance!". We all know that's PR code for, "my last album tanked, and I have to do a Kylie-esque return to my pop roots to sell some discs". But not a minute too soon, I reckon. The track is released this Friday.

You can also check out more pictures of Beyond in my Beyond photo set.

Fiction and Salvation

Our regular favourite nightclub is Fiction, a Friday night party at The Cross nightclub. It's located just north of Kings Cross station, under the arches, near the goods yard. The location and decor is best described as casbah-meets-bomb-shelter. Check out my Fiction photo set for more photos.

My favourite London night out is at Salvation, a once-a-month party held at the Café de Paris on Coventry Street between Leicester Square and Piccadilly. Unfortunately I only have some grainy photos at the moment, in my Salvation photo set.

This is the party that I described as like walking on to a Falcon film set. The venue is something out-of-this-world. Built eighty years ago, it was the London nightspot for a very long time, favoured at variuos times by Princess Margaret, the Duchess of Kent, Jerry Hall, Mick Jagger, Boy George etc etc. Now it's used for functions and regular special events. Located two stories below ground level, it was the only London nightspot allowed to remain open during World War II. The owner claimed that the five stories of masonry above the club would protect the partygoers from a direct hit. That proved false when the building suffered a direct hit, with the bomb landing on the Cafe de Paris dance floor!

And Then There Was A New One

Before I discovered Hitchcock, I was obsessed with Agatha Christie for some time. (Before that James Bond, which confirms my Anglophile status, but that's another post). My favourite of the Dame's stories is And Then There Were None, previously titled Ten Little Indians, but (famously) originally titled Ten Little Niggers. The old Dame was clever, but not known for her cultural sensitivity.

Long before the idea became a cliche, Christie wrote an ingenious story about ten people who are invited to an island, and slowly killed off one-by-one by a sadistic murderer re-enacting a children's nursery rhyme. The pace of the novel is breathtaking. Of all her stories, this was one of the few read from cover to cover in the fewest of sittings. I think its success lies in the originality of the plot, and its good fortune to not be a run-of-the-mill detective story. The suspense mounts as the bodies fall, leading the reader to the dark, but inevitable conclusion. And it's that spectacular ending which places the book, in my mind, well above Christie's other work.

There were film adaptations, between 1945 and 1989. The first film, directed by Rene Clair is regarded as the best and fairly faithful to Christie's story, but far too dated to appeal to modern audiences. Then there are three films from B-grade producer Harry Allan Towers, each more outlandish than its predecessors. The 1965 film is set on a remote Swiss mountaintop, and featured the voice of Christopher Lee as the mysterious host, but is mostly forgotten, save for the 60-second "can you guess the killer" gimmick near the end. This was followed by the all-star big-budget 1974 film set in the Iranian desert, with Oliver Reed, Richard Attenborough, Elke Sommer, Herbert Lom, the voice of Orson Welles, and no less than two former Bond villians in Gert Frobe (Goldfinger) and Adolfo Celi (Thunderball's Emilio Largo). The film tanked. But that didn't stop Towers from making a third film, and the worst of his run, in 1989 starring Brenda Vaccaro, Frank Stallone, and Donald Pleasance. Seriously, Frank Stallone?

Despite their own intrinsic flaws, each of these films has the same common problem. The ending is a happy one, as each script was adapted from Christie's stage play, which in turn she adapted from her own novel. There are various reasons why she changed the ending, but none stand up in my mind. This is a seriously dark story, and deserves the seriously dark ending. Only an obscure Russian film adaptation had the balls to adapt the novel and not the play. Desyat Negrityat takes its name from Christie's original title, and is faithful to the novel's ending. While well made, it's unfortunately in Russian, and the DVD transfer is terrible... if you can get a copy outside of Russia. It took almost a year for my copy to be delivered.

Desperately wanting to see a decent screenplay adaptation, I even toyed with the idea some years back of trying my own hand at an adaptation, purely as an academic exercise of course. That idea went by the wayside, probably a week later, but fortunately there are better placed and more motivated Christie fans who have taken the initiative. Kevin Elyot has written seveal of the recent Poirot teleplays, and his new stage adaptation of And Then There Were None opened last Friday 14th October at the Gielgud Theatre. There are bill posters plastered all round London at the moment, so hopefully it will do well. I especially like the sly advertising tagline of "someone's taking the law into their own hands".

This is all part of a revitalised effort to market Christie's stories. Her descendants sold the majority of their interest in her work a few years back, to an entertainment company called Chorion that specialises in exploiting the merits of older artistic works. It also owns the copyrights to the works of Enid Blyton, Georges Simenon, Raymond Chandler, and Roger Hargreaves (famous for Mr Men and Little Miss). They've even licensed a new computer game based on And Then There Were None.

At short notice, I was fortunate enough to get a third-row seat at last night's show. The play is well-cast, and features a few famous cinema names like Gemma Jones (Bridget Jones' mother) and Sirens' Tara Fitzgerald. I really enjoyed the show, especially the over-the-top theatre tricks and slight-of-hand that made the audience, myself included, gasp and scream in horror. The play is quite faithful to the novel, with only a handful of changes. For obvious reasons the children's nursery rhyme has become Ten Little Soldier Boys, and the setting is now called Soldier Island. Most importantly, the ending is very dark, and will please the Christie purists. For staging reasons, this new play is not totally faithful to the novel, with room for improvement if ever adapted for the screen... but secretly, I'm thankful for that. ;-)

Red Carpets, Pouting Spice

Check out Victoria Beckham pouting like Nicolette Sheridan at the Swarovski Fashion Rocks show. Her photo is gracing the cover of today's dailies. Also check out Debbie Harry who is looking fabulous, as always, and especially at 60.

I always thought that red carpet photos were candid shots, quickly taken by professionals as the subject slowly moved along the carpet. I've since learned otherwise. Five weeks ago, on the afternoon of my job interview, I decided to destress by walking up to Soho for a pre-dinner coffee. I got as far as the Royal Opera House, about 50 metres away, which was showered in floodlights for a special event. At the entrance was a red carpet, flanked by about fifty press photographers, all clamouring for a clear shot of the carpet. Behind the photographers, and across Bow Street where I stood, were several hundred spectators waiting to see who would arrive. Now I have to admit there were many "celebrities" that I didn't recognise, presumably from sports and local television. But I did see Eva Herzigova, Jerry Hall, Dannii Minogue, Paula Abdul, Simon Cowell, Bob Geldof, Bryan Ferry, and S Club 7's Rachel Stevens. Most arrived in chauffered Audis. Simon Cowell turned up in a huge and brand new Rolls Royce with opaque rear windows. The limousine purred at the entrance for a minute or two, generating palpable suspense, before Cowell stepped out. But the biggest surprise of the evening was when one bearded and greying 55 year old man stepped out of his car. The crowd erupted with simultaneous screaming and cheering, as the street showered with thousands of camera flashes, fired off in quick succession like lightning. All for a very calm and bemused Pierce Brosnan.

After each guest stepped from their car, they walked on to the red carpet and posed for about 15 seconds for each set of photographers, standing so-very-still and barely blinking. It seemed so artifical. (What am I saying? It's marketing.) I wondered if these people take red-carpet courses, or just stumble through the first few times. Camera whore Paula Abdul spent about five minutes on the red carpet. I wonder how, if every, they'd get her off it. She did look good, though. It was all a lot of fun. I have photos, which I'll post as soon as I have broadband at home.

On the subject of red carpets, the Odeon cinema at Leicester Square is host to many UK film premieres. Sometimes they close down part of the square and/or decorate it for a premiere, as was the case with War of the Worlds. Check out these photos, snapped by one of my neighbours.

Hot Lunch

Some weeks back I wrote about The Firm's fantastic staff cafeteria. Here's a photo of today's lunch: Thai red chicken curry with stir-fried vegetables. Check out the dessert. All for the princely sum of £4.30, which is a steal for London.

Where Am I?

There comes a point in everyone's life when they ask the important questions like Who Am I, and What Am I Doing Here? Usually, I'm busy enough with the question of Where Am I, and Who Are You?

If you're curious, click this link to browse to a Google Maps reference centred on my flat. Click the Satellite button, and then repeatedly click the + button to zoom right in.

You might also like to pan the map over to Hyde Park (or use this link as a shortcut). I'm not sure when this satellite photo was taken, but I'm a little scared Hyde Park does not look like the lush and green oasis that I've seen so far. In its place is a brown blot with areas that look like they're covered with something white. Is that snow? Everyone tells me that it doesn't snow that much in London. Does it really get that cold here?

We've had a few very cold days (by Brisbane standards) over the last five weeks. Mostly it has been pleasantly cool. But according to today's Evening Standard, the first half of October has seen daytime maximum temperatures higher than the average by eight degrees. The same article goes on to say that this winter is forecast to be the coldest for ten years. The 1995-6 winter was the last time that the UK even reached "average" winter temperatures, where it was 3.5C in the South. Brrrr.

Drunken Monkey

Not me. This is a pub at Shoreditch.

Bland, James Blonde

Why, oh why, did they go with Daniel Craig? Isn't it obvious that Clive Owen is the only contemporary contender for James Bond? Obvious, it seems, to everyone but Owen (who doesn't want to be typecast) and the people at Eon Productions. Admittedly, Craig does have the weathered features of the James Bond novel covers, but he looks like he needs a good scrub followed with diction lessons.

I know that they're stripping the Bond formula back to bare basics with Casino Royale, something long overdue for the franchise, IMHO. No gadgets, Q, or Moneypenny. But is this going to work, or is it some half-assed attempt to mirror Batman Begins?

As for Owen, he is in London filming the thriller The Children of Men, based on a P.D. James novel. Set in a dystopic near-future where humans cannot conceive, Julianne Moore plays a woman who falls pregnant, and Owen is the bodyguard assigned to protect her. Shooting is planned for the Fleet Street area all weekend. I know this because we got an e-mail about it at work. Fleet Street is totally off limits on Sunday to allow some effects sequences to be shot. Apparently, a cafe will explode, and a vehicle will crash. I'm sure it will be more exciting than it sounds.

¡MADRID!

A blog update is well overdue.

Two weeks ago, on a Wednesday afternoon, I left work and headed to Temple tube station where I met Doug, a friend from Australia. Doug was on a round-the-world trip and had visited Greece for some weeks, and Copenhagen, before arriving in London. for a few nights. In spite of the pressures of travelling, Doug was calm and looked relaxed. I was reminded of how I felt just a few months earlier when I was travelling.

Doug brought me the most wonderful gift from Australia - Tim Tams and Cherry Ripes!! I quickly devoured one box of Tim Tams, but am savouring the rest.

It was so exciting to see a familiar face from back home. Most of the night was consumed with discussing stories from our various trips, and news from back home. It was a wonderful catch-up, aided in part by a really fine dinner at a restaurant on Garrick Street. We wandered, and wandered, until we found something that looked good, and it was. As I explained to Doug, there is so much choice in London (in restaurants, bars, clubs, parks, activities, etc etc etc), that I easily become overwhelmed. There are quiet simply too many options to consider one's options before making a decision. Very different to back home, where one might travel halfway across town to go to a place they know and can trust!

After dinner we haunted a variety of bars in Soho, and I think Doug left with a pretty overview of the London scene. I'd have loved to stay out longer, but 1:30AM was pushing my limits given that I had to be up for work by 8. Hangover aside, Thursday was a pretty shitty day for me. I really wondered what I was doing with this stupid job that seemed so far removed from my area of training. So you can imagine my surprise when I got home and discovered a parcel from Mum and Dad. Inside the huge Australia Post box was two Ekka showbags, a copy of the Weekend Australian, Cadbury chocolates, and a jar of Vegemite. I can buy Vegemite at my local Tesco, imported from Australia, but it's frightfully expensive. The jar has pride of place in my fridge.

The next morning, Friday, Doug and I rose early and took the tube from Covent Garden station to Heathrow. One of the benefits of living on the Piccadilly line is that I can get to the airport without changing trains, which is a luxury given that so few Underground stations have elevators to the platforms.

We boarded our BMI flight to Madrid at the very last minute, only to find out, on-board, that take-off was delayed by 45 minutes due to congestion at Heathrow. We sat on the tarmac waiting for various clearances. As the captain explained, Heathrow congestion triggers a snowball of problems, as the pilots have to renegotiate the flight windows to fly over French airspace. Until that moment I had never considered the obvious complexities of scheduling and managing European flights. I guess things are a lot easier in Austraila with just the one aviation authority. And thinking about the differences between flying in Europe and Australia, I still find it so freaky to think that in Australia you can fly for 6 hours and not even leave the country...

Flying over Spain, I was reminded of our trip to Seville in 1992, and specifically a road trip to Granada. I remember the country-side as being so beautiful, with fruit orchards as far as the eye can see. From the air, things looked very similar. But things changed quite considerably as we flew into Madrid. There, the land was unbelievably dry. We later found out that it hasn't rained since last October. Dotting the farming landscape were hundreds of little villages and hamlets. The roads linked these hamlets to larger towns, and so on, until the whole network looked like a spider's web, or bad varicose veins, from the air.

Having left a chilly and wet London, it was quite a relief to arrive in Madrid on a hot, sunny, and very dry, Friday afternoon. The city has a population of about four million people, but squeezed into an area of 400 square kilometres. Tiny really, considering that Brisbane's area is around 1350 square kilometres. There is an underground metro, second largest in Europe after London, but it seems that Madrid is a city ruled by cars. With Friday traffic, it took forty-five minutes to reach the city centre. My return journey took between fifteen and twenty minutes!

Doug booked the most lovely hotel in the Chueca district just off Gran Via, literally broadway, which is Madrid's main thoroughfare. Chueca is the heart of old Madrid, the gay district, and where Pedro Almodovar sets many of his films. It is a place of narrow cobbled streets knifing their way through five and six story apartment blocks, centred around little residentials piazzas. Chueca is magical, exactly what one hopes Madrid to look like, and so different to the tract housing I spotted from the air on the city's outskirts.

Our time in Madrid was limited, mine more so than Doug's, so we decided to buy tickets for a double-decker tourist bus to get an overview of the city. The company has three bus routes, and on each route we managed to find seats up top, affording us spectacular views of Madrid's beautiful baroque architecture. We saw most of the major tourist attractions, including the Royal Palace, the Palacio de Communicaciones on Plaza de Cibeles, Plaza de Espana, Puerta del Sol, Real Madrid's home stadium, and various galleries and piazzas. Unfortunately, I didn't get to see the inclined skyscrapers of Puerta de Europa, which look spectacular. My favourite Madrid memory was when Doug and I stumbled onto Plaza Mayor, where coffee shops line the edge of a huge plaza. So European.

Madrid is a really beautiful city. We were meant to go there in 1992, until our trip was cut short, and in the intervening years many people have told me that I didn't miss much. That it's a big dirty city, suffering from overpollution, and with a substantial crime problem, all of which being the exact opposite of the Madrid that I saw. When waiting for my return flight at the airport, I started talking with a Venezuelan who now lives in Madrid. He said that Chueca was once a hotbed of crime, but the arrival of the gay community triggered the urban renewal creating the trendy area that exists today. Still Chueca did not disappoint in an Almodovar way. Doug and I raced around to pack as much as possible into our short time there, and we succeeded, but I might save those stories for off-line reminiscing. ;-)

I was a little sad on the flight back to London. Sad to leave my friend Doug, sad to return to the cold and wet weather, and sad to have to go back to my job. My neighbour on the flight was a fun and lively (without being annoying) young Scottish woman, from Ayr, who is a trainee solicitor at one of the other huge law firms in London. She was telling me that she knows of no-one who works for these large law firms, and likes it. I mulled over that for a day or two. While I've been very greatful to have a job, I've not been overly happy with the work. It's all nothing but middle-class whining, of course. So Madrid was a turning point for me. I realised that any job that pays the bills (and pays okay at that), allows me to live in London, and take weekend trips to Europe, can't be that bad. In fact, it's a blessing. So with that in mind I've realised the importance, yet again, of taking advantage of everything that's on my doorstep. As Sara says, "say yes to everything". I've booked a weekend to Brussels in November, and Venice in early December, with Paris to follow later that month.