It is strange to have my Sundays back. For the last couple of years if I haven't been away I have appeared on the Andrew Collings show in the middle of the afternoon. The timing of this meant that it was difficult to do much else with my Sunday daytime. Although it was never very much like working, it did mean that alongside my writing and stand up commitments I could go for a long time without an official day off (there were certainly many days where I didn't work- but I was meant to be doing so and so that is never quite like an official rest day)
But now our show has moved to Saturday and suddenly a world of Sunday opportunity opens up for me.
Last week I had my first Sunday pub lunch for a long time, ironically sitting down and reading the papers (which is what I would previously have been paid to do - if you can call it being paid). This week I had big plans for going to the gym. But perhaps not surprisingly the rigour of the last couple of days had taken its toll and I was too tired so I decided to try and catch up a little on my DVD viewing. This might not be the most productive of things to do, but it was some time for myself and in the end I was glad I had given myself the break.
I ended up watching the first three episodes of "Life On Mars" which I got in the sales recently. I had missed the first couple of episodes when it was broadcast and like to watch stuff in order, so getting the series for under twenty quid felt like a bargain.
And it's very enjoyable stuff. It's a simple fantastical premise that a modern day detective is run over by a car and wakes up to find himself in 1973, where he has to work alongside old school detectives to solve cases. Or is he just imagining the whole thing whilst in a coma in his hospital bed?
I like the simplicity of the time switch. It just happens and in fact the lack of explanation as to why this has occurred becomes part of the drama. It's worth a look if you missed it when it was on.
Watching it reminded me of an idea I had a few years ago, when I was asked to come up with some concepts to pitch to America (I think it would have been in 1999). I think I pitched it partly as a joke, but am not convinced that it's a totally stupid idea.
It was called "Brain Cell" and was about a man (some kind of selfish businessman or estate agent or something) who had been using mobile phones (or cell phones as the Yanks incorrectly call them) since they first came out. Playing on the paranoia that mobile phones are bad for us and cause brain cancer or whatever, the idea was that this constant prolonged use of the phones caused the man's brain to somehow (and it doesn't matter how) turn into a kind of receiver of all mobile phone converstaions in the vicinity. That is his head is filled with a thousand conversations all at one time, which understandably drives him nuts and makes him question the inanity and pointlessness of existence. If he concentrates he can listen in to particular conversations, but it takes effort and most of his life is lived with this unbearable babble going on: arguments, boring conversations, phones sex, 911 calls. To begin with perhaps he finds a way to use this power for selfish ends - to make money on business deals or to pick up women with his inside information, but this just increases the number of calls in his head.
Each week he is drawn to one conversation where someone is clearly in some kind of trouble and he discovers that if he helps solve the problem that the background buzz of a thousand calls fades away, at least for a short term. Thus he is rewarded for being good.
It's like a cross between "Quantum Leap" and "Highway to Heaven" and I am sure I was slightly taking the piss when I came up with this.
But I don't know if it's a totally rubbish idea. If you did it in a funny and subversive way that could be quite a good series.
Well it's my idea so don't just steal it. If nothing else this entry proves that I came up with it on the 21st January 2007, though in fact it's been around a lot longer than that. But it can go in the big file of ideas that I have had which will never happen, like my
positive reworking of Metamorphosis or
The Man With Two Brains in the Iron Mask. In a way I quite like putting these notions out there and then letting your imaginations work out what the finished products would be like. It's a lot cheaper than actually making them. And it means I don't have to spend a year of my life writing them.
But if you're Stephen Spielberg and you're googling yourself and you've read these treatments and like them, then do email me and we can discuss putting them together. If you're not Stephen Spielberg, why not try drawing a comic of what you think episode 1 of Brain Cell would be like, reading it to yourself and then throwing it in the bin.
