Warming up #3994
The Meaning of Life show is starting to feel like something that is really happening. I tried to write the lyrics for a theme tune today, but didn't get far. Also much of my time is taken up with working out how to fund it. I think we're going to be able to make the whole series for £20,000 (which is a lot of money, but not in TV terms), though of course that does not include any payment for the writer or performer (me). I may have some suggestions over the next couple of months, but for the moment the main way you could assist is to be in the audience for one of more of the shows. It only costs ten pounds and you will see loads of stuff that won't make it into the final show (mistakes mainly). I think it's going to be a fun and terrifying experiment.
And I was struck by how good value that ten pound ticket price is (and in fact the ticket price to any of my live shows) when I went to the cinema tonight. Admittedly we had chosen to go to the slightly swankier bit of the Vue Westfield, where there is a bar and posher seats. But I was amazed when I was asked for over £50 for our tickets and two alcoholic drinks. It turned out we were paying £22 each to go to the cinema. I think if I ran a cinema during a recession my inclination might be to bring the ticket prices down in the hope of getting more people in and then make my money on the over-priced popcorn. They may be trying to make their "Scene" cinema more exclusive, but that's exclusive to the point of being empty. Indeed only about six other dolts had paid this much to see a film that they could see for £14.90 in one of the other screens in the same cinema. Was the chance to have an alcoholilc drink and a comfy seat and probably not be surrounded by loquacious teens worth this price hike? I don't think so. Especially when the film was Thor and might have been improved by some children off their nuts on sugar shouting stuff out. It was only brightened up by the unexpected appearance of my ex-Edinburgh flatmate Justin Edwards dressed as a policeman and attempting to arrest Natalie Portman. I think I would have left early if I hadn't spent so much money.
Even if it had been a good film it would have been hard to enjoy it because it felt like I had had my pocket picked. The moral of the story is don't go to the cinema to see loads of stuff that isn't even happening, come out and see some comedy.
Am I just old or is this slightly insane? Vue and the other cinema chains surely had a chance to help the country through the recession, whilst also making more money for themselves, by making their tickets cheaper and filling every screen, rather than turning a night out at the flicks into something that only affluent idiots could enjoy. I certainly won't be visiting their posho bit again. I can sneak my own beer into the cheapest screen or go somewhere else.
I am glad I have so few nights off, it's saving me a fortune.
And I am still reeling from the news that apparently Andy Coulson and Rebekah Brooks have had sexual intercourse. Not just once, but on many occasions over six years. Once you've imagined it you can't unimagine it. But thank God they never had a child together. Think of how morally bankrupt the rotten fruit of that union would be. It would be like a humanity vaccuum and probably the first evolutionary step to the Morlocks that HG Wells predicted, especially if it got his pallid skin and her fright of red hair. Let's be grateful that God did not allow this abomination to walk the earth.
Is it OK for journalists to write exposes on people having extra-marital affairs if they are having them themselves. They usually claim that they are exposing hypocrisy, but if they're doing it too then that doesn't really hold water. I am not sure that whether who people have sex with is anyone's business but theirs (and possibly the people they are cheating on). Clearly so many people are at it that it is hardly news. Even in this case, whilst the argument is it shows how close the people at the centre of the supposed conspiracy were, is that worth the pain of us having to envisage these unpleasant people doing unpleasant things to each other. At least it distracted them for a few precious seconds from doing unpleasant things to other people. But I suspect their lust was fuelled mainly by the unpleasant things they were planning, so probably just spurred them on. I for one would be much happier not to have had to come up with this imaginary version of real events in my head. Shall we all just agree that people can choose who they want to rut like animals with and we'll all just pretend that it isn't happening?
Happy Halloween.
