Monday, July 02, 2007

Look I've been meaning to tell you all about this, honestly, but I couldn't find the right time.

I love Cornwall, but sometimes the cold impersonality of the county, coupled with its brisk businesslike pace, makes me yearn for a simpler place, where strangers have time to talk to one another, and everyone knows your name.

Thus, Chiswick Sainsbury's:

I pass the GIRL ON THE TILL some money. She stares at me rather intently.

GIRL ON TILL: You've cut your hair!
ME: Hmm?
GIRL ON TILL: It was long before, but now you have made a dramatic change!
ME: Well, I haven't had it short and spiky for years, and I fancied a change, and it's the summer. (pause) Is it okay?

GIRL ON TILL THINKS a bit.

GIRL ON TILL: It looks very nice.

Oh bollocks, I've just realised I forget to get some printer paper.

Sorry everyone, I seem to have got Twitter and Blogger mixed up (remember Twitter? Big thing about three weeks ago).


'HERO TRIP': WHAT HAPPENED NEXT:

What happened was my film council contact person went off sick for a while, and Camilla came back to me with more notes. She's quite right, and in the meantime I read an article about monstrous film cliches you can't even get away with ironically these days, one of which I have totally done, bums. So I'm doing another rewrite.

I have already had emails questioning the authenticity of the till conversation. It is true, and happened at 8.59 this morning. I'll be honest, it slightly freaked me out.



For Anonymous: link to 'clams' article

To be honest, just because some of these have been over-used, doesn't mean there aren't new and interesting ways of using them again. You just have to work a bit harder, that's all.

14 comments:

Anonymous said...

linky to article please?

kaiki said...

The post about the Girl On Till gave me the creeps a little, even though I’m sure she meant well.
I liked the article – these things never occur to me when i’m writing, and i always think ‘har har har I am fantastically original and talented’* before realising I have used some hackneyed god-awful cliché.
Adam Buxton did something very similar as Ken Korda with ‘dialogue for horror films’.
I had used many of those too.
*well, almost.

Valerie said...

Given how crazed some of the anonybloggers were about your hair a few months ago, I think this is further evidence that far too many people recognize you now and it is time to go incognito. You'll be dyeing your hair blonde next, no doubt. I'd hold off on the nose job, though.

Only a few people I know are still active on Twitter. I'm watching to see if anything new and exciting happens, though. I suspect the 'new and exciting' thing is just going to be whatever the next Big Net 2.0 Thang is, though.

Good luck with the Hero Trip script.. you are much more disciplined about rewrites than I am, which I guess is (part of) why my novel is languishing in a dusty pile and your scripts are actually seeing the light of day :-)

James Henry said...

That's it, she probably recognised me from the 'making of' bit on the second Green Wing DVD.

(actually it's more that I shop there rather more than is politically pleasant, but still).

Being paid to to rewrites does help, I have to be honest. Hero Trip had sat in a drawer for longer than I care to recall before the film council commissioned two further drafts (god bless every one etc).

patroclus said...

I'm just working on a piece about the Next Big Web 2.0 Thing, which to my mind will be an unholy alliance of Facebook and Justin.tv, whereby people strap webcams to their heads and start continuously broadcasting their entire lives to each other in mind-shattering real time.

I mean, why bother typing into Twitter every five minutes when you can broadcast your every move by sticking a camera on your head and a laptop in your handbag?

Christ, it's going to be awful.

patroclus said...

Sorry, that was to Valerie. GIRL ON TILL is right; the new hair is very nice. Especially with the new glasses.

James Henry said...

I could totally be the next Doctor Who.

Anonymous said...

thanks for the link :)

Anonymous said...

I walked into B&Q yesterday afternoon for some shelves and the teenage till girl pointed at me and screamed. Apparently she remembered me from the previous week, when I went in to buy my first lot of shelves. We'd had a brief conversation - about shelves - and it turned out she was just 'pleased' to see me back. The other staff barely batted a collective eyelid, so maybe she does this all the time. Still, it was a bit unnerving, although if I'm honest also oddly gratifying. Is that what it's like being a sleb?

Actually, I tell a lie - it was Homebase.

Valerie said...

Patroclus — Yeah, I was a little worried about that Justin.tv thing. And there's a bit too much SF from the last 20 years that posits just that. There is a little voice inside me which screams I DO NOT NEED TO KNOW ABOUT YOUR TOILET HABITS on a regular basis. Especially as I'm on a work Jabber server all day and people seem to need to tell me every time they visit the restroom.

James — Dr Who? Hmm... A new career beckons (or maybe you just don't want to finish those revisions, for pay or not ;-) ). My husband is currently voting for Julian Rhind-Tutt (for the new Dr. Who, I mean, not to finish your revisions. Sorry). But I think this is because R-T looks a bit like Tom Baker at times.

cello said...

Valerie, I have blethered on elsewhere about the inevitability of JR-T becoming the next DW because David Tennant's first words post-regeneration were something like "I was hoping to be more ginger." And he has the required large nose to be a Doctor. But I wouldn't want to have to follow DT.

James Henry said...

Anyway, JRT can never be Doctor, because he can't run. It's a well-known showbiz secret one of his legs in on backwards.

Jen said...

One of his limbs is on backwards? That's just quirky...isn't it?

That Skip/'lollopping run' he has just wouldn't work in Who... chase scenes would have to be accompanied by the Magic Roundabout theme all the time, and that would put Murray Gold out of a job.

Which we just can't have.

Anonymous said...

Hmmm thinks

James as Doctor Who - can he act?

JRT as Doctor Who - can act, but apparently can't run (although this could just be a ruse by James who obviously wants to be the next DW even if it means acting opposite CT). But it doesn't matter as JRT's legs can be digitally enhanced for all running scenes. Very minor problem solved.

I've always wanted to see JRT as the next DW after his last regeneration and ginger comment, as cello has already mentioned above.