tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-46916238797384712162024-03-07T22:20:00.068-08:00Jaci's US BoxUK broadcaster, novelist and award-winning TV Critic, now living in New York, takes a sideways look at TV and movies in the USUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger32125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4691623879738471216.post-59292026927498018072016-02-20T15:50:00.002-08:002016-02-23T04:01:08.217-08:00Ax Taylor - Vanderpump Really Has to Rule On This<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt;">There is one area in which every reality “star” (and I use the word very loosely) eventually falls down: when they start to believe their own PR. Never has a more glaring case of this been more obvious than in the case of “Mr Jax Taylor” (I’m using his inflated Twitter name), who is one of the central characters of Vanderpump Rules, a spin-off starring the magnificent Lisa Vanderpump, from The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt;">I have long been a Lisa fan. She has no idea that I know a lot of people from her time back in the UK, where she made her name (with husband Ken), not only as an extraordinary and exceptionally hard-working restaurateur, but a great businesswoman and, most significantly, a really good, fair boss. I met her when I was living in LA and, two weeks, ago, again in Cecconi’s in West Hollywood, where we spoke about my writing a piece (I write primarily for the Daily Mail) about Vanderpump Rules.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt;">I love that show. I know the constraints and the tricks of reality TV (I’ve appeared enough in it myself), but I love the drama that VPR produces week on week, season after season. I’m always bemused that all the young people fancy each other so much when most of them are, at best, a B-rating (apart from the exquisite Scheana, who is so mega stunning, and doesn’t realise how even more stunning she is without make-up). I love Kristen, who knows that she has to be an ongoing nightmare for the show to work – and boy, can she work it.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt;">I’m fascinated how anyone can go by the name of La-La and expect to be taken seriously. I’m disturbed by James’s ongoing, reality TV suicide meltdown and his need to talk about sex in order to try to validate himself in the cultural wasteland in which, as a Brit, he finds himself. I’m constantly amused by TT Bros – the two Tom boys, who are so dull, uninspired and uninspiring, I am surprised any woman has ever wanted to have sex with either of them. Ever.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt;">Lisa is an exceptional puppeteer, who orchestrates reality TV to promote her business empires, and she is brilliant at it. In both shows in which she appears, she never exposes too much about herself or her family – she gets the gig, but she also values her private life.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt;">But, back to Vanderpump Rules, and Monsieur Le Jax (oh, come on – let’s make him even grander than he already thinks himself to be). Today, his Twitter account posted a picture of Lisa’s husband Ken, following the wrap of the current series, with Monsieur LJ holding one of the family dogs and a drink. I posted a comment asking whether he had stolen dog and/or drink. </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt;">Given that he has just returned from Hawaii, where he was, courtesy of the show, on a freebie, and ended up being arrested for stealing a pair of sunglasses, I thought the comment was fair game. Instantly, I was blocked, and told that this was the outcome for any negative comments posted about him.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt;">Well, for a start, it wasn’t negative; also, it’s easy to follow anyone on Twitter through another account, as any self-respecting PR person should know. But they should also know that it is through what they call “negative” comment that people get to learn. Le Monsieur is not a god; he is a criminal. He has narrowly avoided jail. He has already exposed himself to be a liar and, according to people on the show, a thief, on other occasions. But hey, people - have some fun with it! Use your different accounts and get all your followers to say something, too! It works! His PR people have been on a blocking blitz this afternoon. It's hysterical! It's the guaranteed way to get him out of your life!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt;">Lisa has said that she does not think Jax is a bad person – and I agree. I think he’s misguided, he drinks too much, and thinks through his trousers. He’s starting to look like an old soak (as we say in the UK – ask James, who, alas, is heading the same way, if he’s not careful), and it’s rather sad.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt;">But what Le Monsieur needs more than anything at the moment is better PR: not PR people who block light-hearted banter from those on his side (I genuinely have no problem with threatening or vile people being blocked); PR people who look at his life and ask where he’s going next when this carousel comes to a stop (which it will); PR people who look at what else he might have to offer in an ever overcrowded marketplace.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt;">Lisa Vanderpump has his back, as she does so many people with whom she works. But I’m afraid that unless something changes pretty quickly, we’re looking at Ax Taylor – and I suspect there’s very little else for him out there if he allows his people to continually throw him under the PR bus.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt;">Vanderpump Rules. Yes, she does. But it’s also time that Le Monsieur started to apply some rules of his own. And number one? Change your PR. In my opinion, it’s ruining Lisa’s brand, it’s ruining the show, and, worse, it’s ruining you, Jax. Do something before it’s too late. Because I really do think you’re heading for the chop. And not one you’ll be able to consume in your increasingly disturbing sweaty, overweight face.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt;">Grow up. Seriously. And get some good people around you. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt;">It’s a thin line between people wanting your dick and calling you one.</span></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4691623879738471216.post-1393164697693235722016-02-17T21:25:00.002-08:002016-03-01T08:27:50.913-08:00My Heart Belongs to Telly<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt;">It’s the Marmite of the movie world: you either love it or you hate it. </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt;">Never have I heard a movie going audience so divided; and never have I laughed so much in the face of Marmite lovers. So, here goes. Are you ready? </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt;">I hate Marmite. </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt;">I hate The Revenant.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt;">The Irrelevant (yes, I hate it that much) has a lot of grunting in it. I am not averse to grunting per se, especially if said grunter is Leonardo di Caprio, but I just want something more. Yes, I know the movie’s allegorical, the bear’s great, it’s shot in natural light, blah-di-blah-di-blah, but just because a few actors got cold during the making of it doth not great art make.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt;">For me, it hasn’t been the best of years in the movies. Every week, I see truly great art on TV – Suits, Law and Order, The Good Wife, Billions – and feel so blessed that we really do live in the golden age of television. But when it comes to the big screen, I am invariably disappointed.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt;">This year, it astonished me that Aaron Sorkin’s adapted screenplay Steve Jobs did not make it on to the Oscar shortlist, whereas Grunthog Day looks all set to clean up in almost every category. The first half of Room was extraordinary, but then turned into something that made it seem as if the director had left that room and made room for an entirely different species altogether. In an instant, we seemed to go from Bergman to Danielle Steel.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt;">I adored Brooklyn, not least because the struggle between one’s roots and one’s ambition is, for me, coming from Wales, something with which I battle my whole life. I really liked Spotlight, and, although it was no All the President’s Men, it made a gripping detective story out of a well-worn theme. The Big Short was watchable but incomprehensible (despite the patronising “star” inserts), and The Lady in the Van was just okay. If you like ladies. And vans.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt;">Many years ago, I crawled through someone’s legs to reach Steven Spielberg, who had just won an award for Schindler’s List. I wanted to talk to him about another movie, though. After being introduced, I said: “I know you’ve just won for another movie, but can I just say that I think ET is the greatest movie ever made.” He replied: “Thank you so much. Do you know, I was thinking about that on Friday, and I think you could well be right.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt;">It remains my favourite movie of all time. It encompasses all the big, great themes – love, loss, friendship, separation, power, despair – and has the greatest cinematic moment (again, for me) ever. Those bicycles. The moment of transcendence: leaving the old world behind. Magic. Everything’s possible.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt;">And then. Coming back to Earth. Literally and metaphorically. ET: Come. Elliot: Stay. And there you have it: the great human dilemma and the greatest story that can ever be told. I want you to come with me. I want you to stay with me. And it can’t, for whatever reason, ever happen. I am crying just writing about it. Ouch. Ouch. I’ll be right here. WAAAHHHHHHHHHHH!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt;">I just don’t feel moved like I used to in the cinema, whereas TV regularly tears me apart. When Will Gardner (Josh Charles) died in The Good Wife, I howled. I never got over it (neither did the show, which CBS has just axed). I get very stressed every time something bad happens to Gibbs (Mark Harmon) in NCIS, and I bite off all my nails when Harvey Specter (Gabriel Macht) in Suits sails too close to the wind (often - I have to move on to my toe-nails every time they threaten to put him back together with the totally unsuitable Scottie).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt;">Television has been my life. It still amazes me that this 52- inch slice of black in the corner of my room consistently delivers such unspeakable joy every single hour of every week. When people say, trying to impress, “I don’t watch television”, I have just one response: Yes, it shows (cue sad face).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt;">So, while I am sure that The Irrelevant will be picking up gongs, come February 28<sup>th</sup>, my heart belongs to telly.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4691623879738471216.post-53709447752001233122015-05-09T10:48:00.002-07:002015-05-09T10:48:24.521-07:00May Day May Day - US TV's Seasonal Cull<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Would Amanda/Emily
(Emily VanCamp) ever get to smile for longer than five seconds without resorting
to jaw reconstructive surgery? </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Would Nolan (Gabriel Mann) ever meet a man who
knew how to take his underpants off? </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Would Margaux (Karine Vanasse) ever meet more
than one journalist in her media empire? </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Would Victoria (Madeleine Stowe)
totally morph into The Addams Family’s Morticia?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;">These, and many other questions,
occupied me throughout the four seasons of Revenge, which has finally succumbed
to the cruel world of broadcasting euthanasia. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;">The writing was on the cards for
the ABC show halfway through season three, when the actors started to appear as
confused as viewers were as to what the hell was going on. One could only
imagine the horror they felt when their eyes first alighted upon each new
script, wondering how many more expressions of staring into the middle distance
they could muster, while their brains tried to compute the machinations of the
plot.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;">The last episode airs tomorrow
night in the US (the UK has five weeks to go), and I have to confess that, for
all its silliness, I’ll miss it. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;">ABC has also cancelled Forever,
starring my fellow Welshman Ioan Gruffudd. I’ll miss that, too, but it’s not
hard to see where it went wrong as viewing figures tumbled. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;">The basis premise was that Dr
Henry Morgan solves crimes using medical knowledge he has gleaned over 200
years. Each time he dies, for some never quite explained reason he turns up in
water, only to start life all over again – hence his living forever.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;">The series fell apart when they
dropped the explanation from the start of each episode. If you didn’t know the
basic premise, you would have been baffled as to why Abe (Judd Hirsch) was
calling Henry “Dad” (Henry was his father in another life), or, even, what the
flashbacks were to a young Henry. Revenge always set out its stall at the start
of each episode, whereas Forever ignored a really important piece of dramatic
advice – Don’t hide the ball.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;">May is a difficult time for US
shows as they wait to hear whether the axe is going to fall. I’m sorry to see
NBC’s Bad Judge go, because I found Kate Walsh in the lead very funny. It was a
neat script, but I suspect caved in to complaints from the legal profession
that it portrayed judges in a bad light. Hey, it’s a comedy, guys! <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;">The Mysteries of Laura, another
NBC show and an adaptation of the Spanish drama Los misterios de Laura, has
survived. After a brief shaky start, when it didn’t seem to know quite what it
was, it quickly settled into a very funny, quirky, feel-good, must-see show, in
no small part down to the always compelling Debra Messing as Detective Laura
Diamond. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;">NBC has also saved The Blacklist.
I have no idea what is going on anymore, but I could watch James Spader turning
up in a hat with no explanation whatsoever for the rest of my life. He is one
of my favourite actors of all time. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Raymond “Red” Reddington is a
fine creation, and viewers root for him no matter whose brains, or how many
brains, he blows out (again, for seemingly no reason whatsoever). All you need
to know is that there are a lot of bad people in the world who are afraid of Mr
Spader in a hat and he wipes them out in order to help the FBI. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Oh, yes. And he
has some connection to the only officer he will work with, Elizabeth Keen
(Megan Boone), whose job it is to stare quizzically at Mr Spader in a hat and
save him from the bad people as well. Maybe all we’ll ultimately discover is
that she is his milliner and has just been trying to pin him down for a fitting
for new head attire.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;">The Americans will be returning
to FX for a fourth season – another must-see show starring Matthew Rhys (fellow
Welshman, also – we are coming, people, and are already among you!) and Keri
Russell as two Soviet Intelligence agents seemingly living a normal suburban
life in the USA as Philip and Elizabeth Jennings.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;">It’s an extraordinary show
(created and produced by former CIA officer Joe Weisberg), with even more
twists and turns than Revenge, but all of them totally believable. The wigs
bother me a little because, in a dim light, you could be forgiven for thinking
you had alighted upon a canine rescue centre. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;">It’s hard to concentrate on the
sex scenes when Philip is required to sleep with other women when under cover,
as I just fear for the poor pooch falling from his head into the woman’s foo
foo. How either of them would emerge looking half decent without engaging the
help of a topiarist is anybody’s guess.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;">The jury’s still out on CBS’s The
Good Wife, starring Julianna Margulies as lawyer Alicia Florrick, but with
slipping viewing figures, I am a little nervous. It’s still a great show, but
it hasn’t been the same since the death of Will Gardner (Josh Charles). The
Will they/Won’t they get together? that was so central to the plot, was removed
in an instant and left a hole they still haven’t quite been able to fill. A bit
like . . . No, no jokes, please. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt;">But it still has the
extraordinary Christine Baranski (Diane Lockhart) and, at its heart, a moral
core that, every week (as well as overall), delivers a valuable message without
being patronising or preachy.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;">If, with Revenge, it’s axed,
Sunday nights as I know them will be over. I might have to start going to
church. Or the pub. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Funnily enough, the jury’s not out on that score. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4691623879738471216.post-87641539572707504782015-03-05T15:38:00.001-08:002015-03-05T15:38:07.732-08:00The Frighteningly Real Housewives of Beverly Hills<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;">A lot of reality TV is staged. I know it, you know it and, most importantly of all, the people taking part know it.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;">Much of real life reality can be very tedious or, if not tedious, a lot simpler than that featured on TV. Most of us manage to meet with friends without resorting to physical violence, and most of us leave restaurants and bars without breaking anything. We cook, clean, put out the garbage, brush our teeth, take showers – for the most part, we settle into a comfortable routine with our loved ones.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;">Imagine how boring that would be to watch. So, what reality TV does is extract big (for “big”, read famous, loud, obnoxious – anything out of the ordinary) personalities from the monotony of the everyday and place them in highly charged situations where their differences and conflicts play out for the amusement of the viewer. It’s the bear-pit mentality to which the TV viewing audience has become addicted.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;">At what point, though, does it cease to be entertainment and become deeply disturbing viewing? For me, that point was this week on The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills, when Kim Richards appeared to transform into a baying werewolf howling at the moon, when Lisa Rinna apologised very nicely, realising she had inadvertently upset Kim by going into her “business”. “You did,” responded Kim (“Awooooohhhhh! Awooooohhhhh!”).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;">Kim’s problems with alcohol have been well documented in each series, and now claiming that she has been sober for three years, she is very sensitive to any reference to her behaviour, past or present.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;">After some very nasty verbal abuse thrown at Lisa R (as opposed to Lisa V, Lisa Vanderpump) in previous episodes – a car journey, a plane ride to Amsterdam – Kim was having none of the apology, despite Lisa explaining that her own sensitivity was down to her having lost her 21 year old sister to alcohol and drugs when she was just six. Attacking Lisa R once more, Kim’s eyes widened demonically, so much so that I feared they were going to swallow the rest of her head whole. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;">She then proceeded to lose it completely, attacking both Eileen Davidson and Lisa R (both newcomers to the show this season), and insinuating unpleasantries about Lisa R’s husband, the actor Harry Hamlin. Lisa R, usually the model of decorum, also then lost it, threw wine at Kim, smashed the glass and stormed out. I really didn’t blame her. I respected her for later making up with Kim, but I, for one, would not have been so generous.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;">Even if she is not drinking, Kim displays all the signs of an out of control addict. I have no doubt that she has struggled with her problems and continues to do so on a daily basis, but there is a real nastiness at the core of her being that I suspect she used alcohol to try to disguise. Without the Dr Jekyll front that the bottle gave her, the Mr Hyde actually has nowhere to hide, and the display in the shop window is not a nice one.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;">There is real anger here – anger that she can’t drink, probably – and immense jealousy. Kyle Richards, her breathtakingly beautiful sister, is at the brunt of most of it, and the cruelty that Kim displays towards her is unforgivable. It is to Kyle’s credit that she continues to forgive her sister and to try to understand her, but it can’t last, or Kyle will have a breakdown.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;">So, why would Kim be jealous of her sister? Well, Kyle has a gorgeous husband in Mauricio, four gorgeous kids, a beautiful home, and she recently opened a successful fashion store. She, too, has had her moments of losing it and, like all the other women, has her insecurities and vulnerabilities; but unlike Kim – and Brandi Glanville (I’ll come to her in a minute)<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>- she and the others do not parade their role as victims of life for the cameras.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;">It is no surprise that Brandi and Kim have become bosom buddies; neither has anything that the other women have in terms of looks, relationships, or professional success (Brandi did, until a blind surgeon – in my opinion - did her face over). They are the playground bullies, trying to exercise power only by bringing down the people around them, and it’s sad to see.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;">I enjoyed Brandi when she joined the show, but her extreme behaviour has turned her into a colourless bore and not, as she likes to imagine when she has had too much to drink (way too often), the life and soul of the party.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;">Both remind me of Stassi Schroeder, one of the key figures of another Bravo show, Vanderpump Rules, set in and around Lisa V’s restaurants. Another bitter, jealous, spiteful piece of work, she too has alienated everyone around her and caused so much trouble amongst Lisa’s staff (the stars of the show), while refusing to admit her own culpability.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;">And therein lies the problem with Kim, Brandi and Stassi<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>- all the bad things that have happened to them in life are, as they see it, somebody else’s fault, and that’s what they can’t forgive. I’ll bet that Lisa V, for all her appearing to have it all, has had many sleepless nights during financially challenging times and being stabbed in the back by people she thought were friends. But does she attribute blame? Does she heck.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;">They don’t call jealousy the green-eyed monster for nothing, but while Kim, Brandi and Stassi feed their insatiable desire for nasty trouble making, they should take some time out and try to realise one basic principle in life: it is you alone who are responsible for your own happiness. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;">And if you can’t accept that, then be advised to stay clear of low-flying glass.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4691623879738471216.post-7048394903840108212014-10-09T11:47:00.002-07:002015-04-23T09:30:33.240-07:00Going, Going, Gone Girl - Here's Hoping <div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt;">Before this week, the last film I saw in a large public cinema (or movie theater as I am now wont to call it – and yes, spelt that way, too; I am SO American these days) was The Hangover (the first one) in Century City in LA.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt;">I bought the biggest burger and drink from the enormous Food Court and relaxed in a seat that was the size of my apartment’s living room.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt;">I then laughed non-stop for the whole movie, as did everyone else. I could not remember a time I had laughed quite so much (well, not unless I counted reading my own columns, anyway). For days afterwards, I was still laughing.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt;">Although, as a member of BAFTA (British Academy of Film and Television Arts), I receive all movies free for voting purposes, I decided this week to go to the real thing once more. The hype surrounding Girl Gone had been huge, as were the opening weekend sales, and, having loved director David Fincher’s The Social Network, was prepared to be massively impressed.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt;">Just as I did in The Hangover, I cried throughout: not tears of joy, however, but tears of boredom. And then tears of fear – had I been kidnapped and was I being held against my will and, as in Evelyn Waugh’s A Handful of Dust, being subjected to something I would never be able to escape? In Waugh, the victim is the character Tony being held by a Mr Todd, who forces him to read Dickens to him – FOR EVER! In Gone Girl, it is . . . well, what is it? I’ll come to that shortly, but let’s say that my third batch of tears were ones of joy as I finally escaped the darkness, both literally and metaphorically and emerged into the light outside the Lowes movie theatre. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt;">Never has real life looked or felt so good. I went to Whole Foods and spent half an hour working out what I could have bought there for the $15 I had just wasted at the movies (only three things, as it happened, but still preferable).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt;">For those who have yet to see Gone Girl (and who, heaven forbid, will still want to after reading this?), and who haven’t read the book, I won’t reveal the essentials, but will talk in generalities.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt;">Leaving aside my feeling that Ben Affleck in one of the leads, Nick, is about as underwhelming (to me) as a frozen kipper, it’s a mess of a movie. Rosamund Pike, the other lead, Amy (no fish comparisons intended, by the way), is very good, but it’s impossible to empathise with either character, and if you don’t know who you’re rooting for in a movie, for me it’s over before it’s begun.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt;">The catalyst of the movie, the moment that changes everything and leads it in a different direction, is even more underwhelming than Mr Affleck. It should be a real “WOW! I didn’t see that coming” movie moment, but I’ve had more excitement brushing my teeth, to be honest.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt;">Then there is the issue of Ms Pike’s weight gain within minutes; the cat that never gets fed (yet never loses weight); the reactions of all the key characters to the central plot i.e. the girl that is gone (although, hardly a girl, quite frankly).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt;">The police at the heart of the operation are hopeless; the Sesame Street Cops would have delved more deeply into the evidence. There is way too much repetition, during which we receive the same information, either visually or verbally several times over. The ending is incomprehensible on one essential fact that is supposed to be the other WOW! moment that winds the whole thing up after a staggering 149 minutes. There is not a jot of it that is remotely believable – neither was E.T. literally, but I believed it emotionally – either in terms of plot, characters, or human behaviour. It’s tosh for the masses.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt;">It is as if they changed directors (and, at times, writers) every 15 minutes, never quite getting to grips with what kind of movie they wanted it to be (apart from one that made a lot of money by pulling the wool over the general public’s eyes). The hype surrounding it really is a case of Emperor’s new clothes, and its popularity can only be down to the problem of there being so little out there at the moment – and, in Hollywood, there hasn’t been for some time (though I absolutely LOVED The Hundred-Foot Journey, which I saw in a small private cinema). </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt;">Critics who try to analyse Gone Girl in terms of its post modernism and insight into coupledom are, quite frankly, too fearful of shouting out “The King is in the all together!”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt;">Ms Pike will doubtless receive an Oscar nomination, and the film will make it onto the Best Adapted Screenplay list; but Best Movie? Dear lord, I hope not.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt;">It is, alas, 149 minutes I will never get back. Gone Girl? </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt;">Going, going, gone girl - forever, I hope.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4691623879738471216.post-46474970050331017612014-10-02T11:02:00.002-07:002015-04-23T09:32:27.477-07:00Keeping the Wolf from the Door<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;">I swear that for every one I watch, they have made another six by the time the credits roll. How else would it be possible, every time I turn on my TV, to see yet another SVU marathon and so many episodes that I haven’t seen before?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;">Last night, I watched the second episode of series 16, which began last week. My DVR hadn’t recorded episode one because Verizon screwed up. I couldn’t watch it On Demand because Verizon screwed up again.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;">Verizon are ruining my life. I talk to them more often than I talk to my mother. Well, I say “talk”. The only people who appear to be contactable there are the social networking team on Twitter, and they really are very good indeed. The problem is that the people they pass the messages on to are the very people who don’t pick up the phone when you try to reach them by conventional methods. And so you go back to Twitter to name and shame the company into taking action.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;">I was perfectly happy with Time Warner Cable, but switched when I was assured Verizon were by far the best. Super-duper high speed internet, the ability to record 12 programmes at a time, 200 hours of storage space of HD on the DVR, and 1000 in SD.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;">To cut a long story short, it’s the slowest internet (and I am on 150/150 for all you techies out there) I have ever had, and my DVR has been swallowing SVU at a faster rate than I can watch it.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;">It turned out that I had been given the super-duper internet speed (that isn’t), but the bog standard, two programmes at a time, DVR recorders. This, I discovered only when the first episode of SVU clashed with another two recordings, and so never appeared. I turned to On Demand, where, in SD and HD, it was scrambled. Finally, a human has addressed this, but it means losing my collection of stored Judge Alex programmes forever, as the show is no longer on the air. See what I mean, Verizon? RUINING my life!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;">But back to SVU. I get very confused, because Danny Pino, who has one of the most beautiful mouths in television, is also on old episodes of Cold Case, which is my other addiction. I know he is called Nick in one or the other, but have no idea which, because every time he comes on screen, I just stare at those gorgeous lips (and he doesn’t look like a Nick, anyway. He looks like a . . . well, a Danny, which is just as well). And eyes. He really is incredibly gorgeous. I quite fancy the overweight one, too (I think he’s Cold Case, but don’t take my word on that), who is sexy in a Tony Soprano kind of way.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;">My real love, though, is Mariska Hargitay, who plays Detective Olivia Benson in SVU. Now, when I say “love”, I don’t mean it in a “Let’s go on holiday to the island of Lesbos, Mariska” kind of way; I just find her performance utterly compelling and one to which I have become addicted. Hargitay is not only a charismatic, sensitive actor, who knows that less is always more, she possesses a quality that you can’t really pin down, but which I will categorise as the Comfort Blanket Factor.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;">Every day, when I skip through the “Guide” when I have exhausted the DVR, I will always tune in if SVU is on. It doesn’t matter what time of day it is, and much as I say “Right, it’s my last one”, they put that Law and Order logo and voiceover “In the criminal justice system” up so darn quick, I am hooked again before I get even a finger to the remote to change channels. It’s my comfort blanket and I really, really don’t like it when it’s not on.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;">Dick Wolf, whose name appears at the end of all the Law and Order episodes, is the master of addictive television. I had the privilege of meeting him at a forum in London when the UK version was being made, and he appeared on stage with his leg in plaster. Apparently, he had been for a pedicure and his foot had become infected. It wouldn’t have made a whole episode, but there was something mildly amusing in the knowledge that he has all that genius and money and can’t find a pedicurist who doesn’t have delusions of amputeeism.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;">Anyway, I watched episode two of this season’s SVU, which was, by accident, incredibly topical, as it involved a sports personality being accused of something he may or may not have done (although that is always a hot topic in the US, as far as I can see). Sex, race, loyalty, truth, justice – all the big themes were there, as they invariably are in the Dick Wolf box of magical tricks. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;">I just have to find a way to wean myself off SVU, if only for a day, as I am now an SV of the show itself.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;">In the meantime, Mariska and Danny, I really do love you both. But I still need some broadcasting methadone to get me off the SVU hard stuff. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;">My real life is over unless I find a means to keep Dick Wolf out of my living room.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4691623879738471216.post-50244238090740113052014-09-03T07:36:00.001-07:002014-09-03T10:48:53.885-07:00Mistresses - Season Finale or Burial?<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;">Who wears a bra under their pyjamas? And, what’s more, a bra so heavily constructed, it can pass for a couple of errant aircraft hangars.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;">In the Mistresses season finale, this was the fate of April (Rochelle Aytes) who, having been whisked away to a log cabin for her own safety by ex-FBI agent, Daniel (Ricky Whittle), unbuttoned her pyjama top to reveal all. Having put her daughter to bed, she decided that sleeping with Daniel, who was taking up residence on the couch, was what she wanted after all.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;">Well, what else was there to do? They had already played Monopoly in front of a roaring fire (when everyone else, not that far away, was suffering intense heat) and watched a film. So there was only sex left. But when that top slipped open, it was hard not to scream, and how Daniel managed to get anywhere near her without resorting to use of a pneumatic drill to break down the bra’s defences, is anybody’s guess.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;">The bra was soon forgotten because the camera, like viewers, was quickly drawn to the magnificent upper torso of Daniel, a man who appears to have not one shirt to his name – something for which we are all very grateful.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;">The season finale held high drama for the four friends. Karen (Yunjin Kim) was doing her usual staring into the middle distance while awaiting the results of her HIV test. There was one tiny sign of emotion when a tear rolled down her face, although one suspects that owed more to the power of glycerine from the make-up department. Honestly, I just want to shake the woman in the hope of rattling an expression out of her.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;">Savi (Alyssa Milano), who is morphing into Kathy Bates, with a wardrobe to match, decided that she wanted ex-husband Harry (Brett Tucker), after all. Well, she’s been through everyone else. Her plan was thwarted when he said that he was completely over her; it will be even more thwarted when she discovers that Harry is down on the beach, romping with her half-sister, Joss (Jes Macallan).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;">Ah, yes. Joss. The gorgeous, lively, fun-loving Joss, who was supposed to be at her own engagement party that her fiancé, Scott (Justin Scott), decided to turn into a wedding, complete with several hideous frocks for Joss to choose from. She selected a long white satin number, by the way, with a strange kind of neck decoration that made her look as if she was being garrotted.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;">It might have been a metaphor for how she was feeling, because when Harry turned up, having been drowning his sorrows in a bar, she wasted no time in doing a runner from the ceremony and throwing herself at Harry on the sands, where, we must presume, she had sex while still wearing her wedding dress. Little do they know that Savi, who has gone looking for Lucy (Corinne Massiah), is just feet away.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;">With a drop in the ratings, I suspect this finale might be the death knell, and we’ll know by the end of the month. I hope it’s re-commissioned, because although it’s nonsense, it’s hugely enjoyable nonsense that is everything great schlock TV ought to be.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;">Jes Macallan has at least brought some depth to a character list of people who are, for the most part, as deep as a contact a lens; Joss’s transformation from promiscuous party girl to someone upon whom real love has crept unnoticed, has been totally convincing. I confess to shedding a tear when she stood, all sad and Juliet-like on the balcony at the wedding, and stared down at Harry, who had just arrived. It’s a shame his hand was in plaster following his accident, as I suspect that might have hindered their beach activity later on, and which might be the reason why he couldn’t rip that damned dress off.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;">But then none of the show’s sex scenes have ever been convincing. There is always a hint of passion to come and, of course, Daniel’s bare, beautifully muscled torso (did I mention that?), but nothing to match the rumpy pumpy of Sex and the City’s four female friends. That’s because this is network ABC, not cable and satellite HBO. Heaven forbid that anyone should do anything to frighten the horses – although April’s bra came pretty close, I can tell you.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;">So, with Paul (Dondre T. Whitfield) dead (again), Lucy vowing never to speak to April after learning Paul wasn’t dead the first time around, and Karen hearing from the doctor that there is “something else”, there is plenty to look forward to in season three.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;">And if the show’s not picked up? Well, we will just have to invent our own endings. For me, it’ll be that Joss and Harry live happily ever after, Savi stops shopping for jackets at her local Fashion for Yetis store, Karen undergoes ECT in an effort to get her to smile, and April changes her underwear.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;">And, of course, that Daniel keeps getting his kit off for the girls.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4691623879738471216.post-23116187803176630232014-09-01T12:41:00.000-07:002014-09-02T09:04:11.231-07:00A Labor of Loving Burgers - and Mistresses<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;">So, it’s Labor Day in New York and, as in LA, I have been invited to nothing. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;">I had a burger at home last night – my single contribution to what is apparently the last summer barbecue weekend – although, technically, it was a beef “pattie”, which is not the same thing at all. Oh, dear me, no.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt;">Can you believe I have not found one supermarket that sells burgers? Real burgers. None of your Angus reared stuff with 5% fat, but something juicy and overflowing with non-goodness. Something that I can, on the very occasions when I eat meat, smother in my own chillies, ketchup, onions, mushrooms, four cheeses and consume alone, with gristle hitting the walls.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;">You can get them everywhere else, of course – from trucks, fast food chains, restaurants, et al – but I want to do my own. I don’t really like eating in front of people, as I suffer from misophonia (literally, a hatred of sound) and, for me, eating with others creates so much stress, being subjected to their munching and scrunching, my own stomach tends to batten down its hatches.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;">So, all I wanted for Labor Day was a burger. A burger like Bird’s Eye in the UK make. Or a sausage. Like Walls’ sausages. Not a saveloy, which isn’t a hot dog at all in my book: it’s a flaccid…Well, I’m sure I don’t need to elaborate.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;">Anyway, enough about lack of meat and invitations; the thing that really fascinates me in the US is how different Bank Holidays are from those in the UK. Here, they build up to them for weeks – and I MEAN, weeks – because they have so few holidays. Americans really do work incredibly hard and most people I meet have just two weeks’ holiday a year (if they’re lucky); so, when an extra day arrives in their schedule, it’s like the Second Coming.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;">It’s astonishing, in the UK, that there are now two Bank Holidays in May and one in August, not to mention all the holidays in between. So blasé are the Brits about their time off, they do just two things on a Bank Holiday weekend: sit in the pub getting drunk, or sit in their car trying to get to somewhere they haven’t a hope in hell’s chance of reaching before the next Bank Holiday comes around (as I finished that sentence, by the way, a “Living Social Deal” arrived in my inbox, inviting me for a “Tandem Sky Dive”. I don’t even want a tandem Five Star dinner with most people, so why would I don a helmet and risk my life, all for a picture that makes me look as if I’m being rogered from behind by an air bag?).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;">At least there is decent Bank Holiday telly in the US, days that the UK usually decides to wheel out all the dross that couldn’t make it into the schedule the rest of the year. Tonight sees the season finale of Mistresses, a show so ridiculously OTT, silly and unbelievable, I love it. They’ve done what Sex and the City did with four friends – they have everyone talking about which one you think you might be. I am not Savi (boring, and I wouldn’t be so stupid as to get pregnant on a desk); nor April (I wouldn’t be so stupid as to mistake an FBI agent for a hot artist); and nor, definitely, Karen, the nymphomaniac, expressionless shrink, who might actually be dead, for all the enthusiasm she shows during hot sex.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;">I am so utterly Joss (in the same way that everyone wanted to be Carrie in Sex and the City), it’s uncanny. Never mind that she is tall, blonde and beautiful (hey, a dwarf can dream), our spirits are intertwined in the universe, I just know they are (but you really need to choose Harry over that dork of a fiancé, tonight, Joss).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;">It’s now 3.28pm and I’m going to sit down with my home-made spaghetti Bolognese and watch last night’s Masters of Sex. I’ve been up working since seven (that’s what I really call a Labor Day), so I think I deserve it.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt;">Happy holidays, everyone. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt;">And it’s not too late to invite me to your barbecue.</span></div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4691623879738471216.post-36919652814550274702014-08-28T14:00:00.001-07:002014-08-31T18:40:00.726-07:00Will Gardner is Not Dead . . . In My Dreams<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 12pt;">The Good Wife returns to CBS on 21<sup>st</sup> September and, while I could not be more excited about the brilliant David Hyde Pierce joining as a regular, I am still grieving for Will.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 12pt;">I don’t believe that any actor, when they leave a series, does not, at some point, wonder if they have made the right move: not least on Monday just gone, when Josh Charles, who played the now dead Will Gardner in The Good Wife, saw his co-star Julianna Margulies pick up an Emmy for her role in the show as Best Leading Actress in a Drama.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 12pt;">Will’s death was a real GASP! moment, cleverly kept under wraps by cast and crew until the second we saw it on screen. But, for me, it is not too late to bring him back, and I appeal to the writers to put their heads together to do so.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 12pt;">In the 1985-86 finale of Dallas (doubtless the writers of The Good Wife were not even born then), Bobby Ewing died. Oh, we screamed! Not Bobby! The beautiful, divine, gorgeous Patrick Duffy, who was the only reason any of us females were watching in the first place.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 12pt;">Patrick, or the producers, or Bobby – whoever really knows the truth of these situations – decided that a horrible mistake had been made (plummeting ratings being an influential factor) and Bobby had to come back.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 12pt;">But: how to do this? They alighted upon a year’s episodes being nothing other than a dream of Pam, Bobby’s gorgeous wife who never took her make-up off before bed time in the show’s entire history.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: 12pt;">One morning, having endured Bobby’s death, funeral et al, et al, she woke to hear the water running in the shower and a glistening Bobby emerging from it. I imagine that an even bigger relief was that the dreaded Oil Barons’ Ball (always a drunken disaster) had never taken place. That feeling was doubtless soon tempered by the realisation that it was still to come.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 12pt;">The show carried on as if nothing had ever happened, the only problem being that while Bobby remained alive and kicking on Dallas, the sister show, Knots Landing, continued to grieve him, with estranged brother Gary forever bemoaning the fact that Momma had never gotten over Bobby’s death (while Momma, by the way, happily continued barbecuing over at the Southfork ranch, sharing ribs with Lazarus Bobby).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 12pt;">I reckon that The Good Wife could bring Will back in much the same way and carry on as if his demise had never happened.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 12pt;">SCENARIO 1: Alicia decides to watch Psycho, falls asleep and, in her dream, pulls back the shower curtain to discover not multiple stab victim Marion Crane, but Will, surrounded by his briefs (geddit?). She wakes on the sofa to discover that the DVR has not recorded the ending.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: 12pt;">SCENARIO 2: Will is naked in the shower. Sorry, but I haven’t got any further with this thought. It’s just something I want to see.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 12pt;">SCENARIO 3: Peter Florrick is in the shower with Carrie Fisher (keep up, I’m, mixing my genres here) and, upon hearing unusual water sport activity, Alicia decides to check it out. She walks to the bathroom, pulls back the shower curtain and comes face to face with a naked Chris Noth, who says “You’re the one” (I told you I was mixing my genres). Luckily, she wakes and realises she is in the middle of a deposition with Will.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt;">I could go on. And on. And on. Because, the truth is, I want Will back, and he has barely been away yet. When James MacPherson, who played DCI Mike Jardine in Taggart (the UK Scottish crime drama) died, I was distraught for months (actually, I still am). I stood sobbing with the rest of the cast at a summer party, consolable only when the lead actor reached him on his mobile, to assure me of </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 12pt;">I don’t like change in TV, and Tweeted wildly, advising against Harver Specter’s relationship with Scottie, who, at the beginning of the latest series, was his love interest, after vowing to change his ways. Quite why anyone ever thought this was a good idea is anybody’s guess, though I sense a delicate female’s fingerprints all over it. Whoever it was, thank heavens they dropped the idea very quickly. Totally out of character. Totally out of sync with the backbone of the show.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 12pt;">So, I don’t care how you do it, dear writers of The Good Wife. I love you more than life itself, but you really need to perform a Lazarus and bring back our dear Will. Call me psychic, but much as I adore David Hyde Pierce (who is a genius), I don’t feel I’m going to be getting into a lather about him in quite the same way as I did about Will.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 12pt;">Which brings me back to that shower theme . . . Come on, Will. Get yer kit off. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 12pt;">Even if all turns out to be a dream.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4691623879738471216.post-24752706996615315012014-08-28T12:01:00.002-07:002014-08-28T12:01:32.402-07:00Loving Jaci's Box<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;">Standing in for the Mail on Sunday’s TV critic (a job I once held for nearly 10 years – and you can catch my review in this Sunday’s edition, btw!), I was reminded again of why I love the medium and why, despite difficulties elsewhere in life, when it comes to work I have never doubted the path I took. I am truly blessed in loving what I do and, by whatever chance (and, despite the hard work, at the end of the day it really IS chance), being given the ability to do it.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;">Monday night’s Emmys had to have been the strongest line-up of shows ever to feature in an awards ceremony. How do you even begin to choose between House of Cards, Mad Men and Breaking Bad, or Kevin Spacey, John Hamm and Bryan Cranston? Category after category had me gasping in awe at the quality of the shows and nominees on the screen and, while I didn’t agree with all the results, everyone deserved to be there (and you can’t always say that about British awards shows - nor the Oscars, come to that).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;">I never watched much TV as a child, apart from when I was sick. Then, my favourite screen event was watching the second hand on a giant 60 second clock dispense with individual white lines as it counted down to the next show (I was easily pleased). I quite liked Tales of the River Bank (fluffy animals), hated Dr Who (too scary) and never saw Peyton Place because my parents went into moral panic overdrive and frantically sent me to bed every time it came on. I preferred living in my imagination and rarely left my bedroom.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;">As a teenager, my parents used to tell me off for being in my room working, always with a pen and paper in hand. “Why aren’t you downstairs watching television with the rest of the family?” was an ongoing admonishment. These days, the refrain I say to myself is: “Why aren’t you sitting at that desk working, instead of watching another Law and Order: SVU marathon, with shows you have seen a hundred times before?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;">I once had a tax inspection and, in the interview, was asked to run through my average day. To summarise: I get up, watch TV; then I have my lunch and watch Diagnosis Murder, even though I am not reviewing it. Then, I watch more TV. Then I write about it. Then I watch TV . . . “ You get the gist of it? The tax man flicked through my accounts and looked at me suspiciously: “Do you have a boat?” A boat? A flamin’ boat? When would I have the time to run a boat, and why would I want to, when I can watch them on A Place in the Sun and not have to shift my backside from the sofa?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;">The first time I recall being overwhelmed by the power of the moving image was, in fact, from books my parents gave me: old copies of Maurice Speed’s Film Review. My favourite picture was of a woman tied to the railway tracks in the path of an oncoming train. I recall feeling thrilled, terrified, all my senses alert to the excitement and danger of the situation – and I also recall the relief when I read beneath the picture that, for those of us of a nervous disposition, we need not worry because the train stopped in time.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;">I always found it easy to live in my head and, as an adult, that hasn’t always been a good thing. I see high drama where other people see the mundane. I always have. I remember when Durham Road Junior School was broken into when I was eight and, lined up with my class in the hallway outside the crime scene (you see what I mean?), remember the thrill of seeing a jar labelled “POISON” in the cupboard. Had the thief planted it there? Was someone already dead? Were we all about to die?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;">I think I watch TV to take me away from the drama and chaos that is the long-running, never-ending series in my head. There are very few things I could not live without, but PG Tips and TV definitely top the list. My worst nightmare would be to have my TV taken away from me. Never mind that Law and Order are making programmes at a faster rate than I can watch them, nor that I have seen every episode of Frasier at least 20 times (and still watch at least two a day). This is my life. And, when reality sucks, as it has done of late, it’s my world.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;">While there is Suits on the telly, there is hope.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4691623879738471216.post-57508168319869904622014-04-03T14:41:00.003-07:002014-04-03T14:41:56.844-07:00A Globe in the Hand is Worth Two in the Basket<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
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That was my concern when, looking for a secret hiding place to gatecrash the Golden Globes private party at LA’s Soho House, I started wishing I weighed the 50 kilos I was when I left the city just over a year ago.<o:p></o:p></div>
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The laundry basket in the Ladies’ rest room at Soho House is not very big. In fact, if I wanted to make it my hiding place, I had 120 minutes in which to lose at least two stone. With the club closing at 9pm for a private party with the show’s hosts, Tina Fey and Amy Poehler, I had very little time to case the joint and perfect my crashing strategy.<o:p></o:p></div>
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I used to be very good at crashing parties. I once crawled through somebody’s legs to talk to Stephen Spielberg, who had just won a Bafta for Schindler’s List. I told him I thought ET was the greatest film ever made. ‘D’you know,’ he said, ever so kindly, given that he had just won his first major award for the holocaust epic. ‘I was thinking about that film last week - and I think you may well be right.’<o:p></o:p></div>
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I once crashed the Evening Standard Film Awards in London and spotted a rather lonely looking Al Pacino. We approached in a romantic movie kind of way, but all I could get out were the words: ‘I am your greatest fan.’ </div>
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I am not sure whether that, or the three things I managed to say to Bill Clinton when I fought tooth and nail to reach him, were the most embarrassing. Then, I managed to stutter: ‘This is the greatest day of my life’, ‘You are the greatest man who has ever lived’ and ‘Can I have your autograph.’<o:p></o:p><br />
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In London’s Groucho Club, I came face to face with a rather handsome man and, in my capacity as a TV critic, promised him a meteoric rise to stardom. ‘Have you ever done any acting . . . I can spot people . . . I could write about you and make you a star.’ On and on and on. ‘D’you know what it is . . . You’ve got that real kind of Ewan McGregor charisma. What’s your name?’ ‘Er, Ewan McGregor.’<o:p></o:p></div>
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So, I know how to get into places and meet the stars. Sometimes, they look a bit frightened. La Toyah Jackson, to whom I had kindly given up my favourite seat on an Air New Zealand flight from the UK to LA, introduced me to “Mini Me” Verne Troyer onboard. The 2 foot 8 actor shrank so far back in terror at my gushing approach, he all but slipped into the seat lining.<o:p></o:p></div>
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The day before the Golden Globes, I introduced myself to movie supremo Harvey Weinstein. When Harvey enters a room, people stand to one side – he’s like Moses parting the Red Sea. His stunned expression made it clear I had broken some Hollywood code, like an errant Israelite trying to steal Moses’s thunder.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Having dismissed the laundry basket as my temporary home, I turned to the cinema, which was still open, following the showing of a movie. Perhaps I could stand behind the curtains? But would my feet poke out? What if they locked the cinema and I had to spend the night trapped in red velvet?<o:p></o:p></div>
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Was any of it worth the risk, anyway? I have been member of Soho House since the first week and am now an Every House member. How awful if I had it taken away because I was discovered in a laundry basket and was being carried out on a stretcher, having dislocated my back among the damp towels?<o:p></o:p></div>
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I decided not to risk it. I had already had my picture taken with Bradley Cooper, Sally Field, Benedict Cumberbatch, Toby Jones and Josh Groban at the Bafta Tea Party (which I managed to crash, courtesy of British TV producer Nigel Lythgoe – another of our exports who has made it big across the pond). </div>
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I had just flown from Miami, where I had interviewed the divine Judge Alex, whose name fronts the best reality courtroom series on TV.<o:p></o:p></div>
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There is only so much hanging on a girl can do, and well into my Fifties now, I realise that dignity must come first. </div>
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One day, I’ll be a prize-winner and I won’t have to go scavenging for hiding places just to get close to the coat-tails of others. They’ll be begging me to market laundry baskets. </div>
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Trust me. I’m a gate-crasher. </div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4691623879738471216.post-3105324759021069182014-04-03T14:37:00.001-07:002014-04-03T14:37:31.208-07:00Eva Longoria, Me and the C Word<span style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt;">Cock.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt;">It wasn’t a word I ever thought I would be saying to Eva Longoria – not within the first minute, anyway, should I ever have the privilege of meeting her. In fact, as we sat down to talk, I merely referred to a complicated, pre-interview situation in which I said, as a passing comment: “Too many cooks” (as in “spoil the broth”).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt;">Not understanding my accent, she looked aghast and repeated what she thought I had said. “No, COOKS!” I corrected her. It was an ice-breaker – of sorts. Then, remembering that I had promised to pass on “a big kiss” from a well-known US TV personality, who is a friend of mine and an admirer of hers, I inadvertently said: “And X sends you a big cock.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt;">It just came out (unlike his, which, for the record, I have never seen, so can’t even comment on centimetre/inch/foot accuracy, alas) and what they call a slip of the tongue (I wish) that Eva took in great spirit.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt;">Now, I must confess to having fantasised about this individual’s anatomy more than once (X, not Eva), as I started to explain by way of apology (Geez, if I’m in a hole, why don’t I stop digging?), but then I think a great deal about a lot of men’s anatomy. It was just that once the C word and this particular individual’s name were in the same sentence, my brain joined them together in a synergy that seemed totally natural, and the words “big kiss” were doomed never to air.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt;">I also put the incident down to extreme stress. Having been promised an “exclusive” with Ms Longoria when I met her UK PR in Portugal, I had delayed my flight back to LA from London, and at my newspaper’s great expense travelled to Spain, where I hung around for a week, awaiting the constantly changing arrangements.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt;">The much-anticipated event would take place on Friday. Then Wednesday. Then Thursday. There were interviews and photo-shoots to be done, people to see, rehearsals to take place for the Eva Longoria Foundation event, which was the reason I was there – to give publicity to her. For her charity. For the poor and under-privileged young women and children she helps the world over. Not only was she guaranteed a double page, 2000 word spread, the paper was going to make a substantial donation to the charity (which the Foundation managed to get substantially increased in return for our “exclusive”).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt;">The negotiations that followed would bore a mortuary, so I will be brief. Contracts between the star’s representatives and the paper went back and for, and a time was negotiated up from 30 minutes for both the pictures and me -15 each - to 15 for him and 30 for me. I tell you, electing the House of Representatives could not take longer. When the party arrived (having kept us waiting for well over an hour while Ms Longoria did a shoot for the hotel), her people effectively set the timer and told me I had 15 minutes.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt;">“I only ever do interviews of 15 minutes,” she sweetly explained, as I spluttered disbelief. Really? Fifteen minutes, for 2000 words?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt;">I all but shoved her out on the balcony for the photo shoot while I tried to negotiate more time, but it was all to no avail. Nine hundred seconds was my lot. Take it or leave it.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt;">There are two things to do in these circumstances: you politely make your excuses and leave, knowing that the piece will never make the paper, or you take what you’re given and hope that the star lets their guard down and reveals that they are dying of a terrible disease and/or pregnant. Or you can waste five minutes of the 15 you have been allotted on the subject of BCs – which is what I had already done.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt;">I had been trying to amass as much information as I could that I was clearly not going to get from her verbally. She is undoubtedly beautiful. So, so beautiful, I began to think that I might renounce BCs of every nation for all time and become a lesbian. However, a few deep breaths and a few good memories (although, not that many, come to think of it) quickly brought me to my senses.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt;">Great skin, long eyelashes (albeit false – I just knew I was wasting my money on those eight tubes of Million Dollar Lashes she advertises for L’Oreal), long dark hair, eyes of coal, teeth in which I could see my reflection, a tiny waist, exquisitely dressed, beautiful manicure . . . Oh, God, just give me a one-way ticket to the Empire State Building, so I can throw myself off. Interestingly, though, she is not what I would call sexy. Charming, funny, gorgeous, but it feels like something turned on for the camera, which, given the limitations of 15 minutes, it has to be.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt;">So, here I am, sitting opposite the Desperate Housewives Hollywood actress and superstar, who is in Marbella to talk about her philanthropic work through the Eva Longoria Foundation. From the moment she opens her perfectly lip-glossed mouth, she speaks with a fervour and energy that is not only inspired but inspiring. I want to rush out of the penthouse in the five star Gran Melia Don Pepe hotel, where the interview is taking place, and live on dried beans in an African shack and teach English for the rest of my life. Well, not quite, but she makes helping others sound as exciting and gratifying as receiving an Oscar and barbecuing with the Spielbergs on Independence Day.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt;">Longoria was one of my heroines when I first moved to LA in 2009. Given that she is just two inches taller than me, I looked to her for my inspiration to acquire the perfect Hollywood shape. I inform her of this and my belief in what I came to call The Eva Longoria Diet. “Really?” she says, eyes orbing into space and smiling like a kid on Christmas morning. “What was it?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt;">It all comes flooding back. </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;">A plate of crisps arrived at my table in the five star Beverly Wilshire and I looked at them longingly before asking: Would Eva Longoria eat them? Well, no. You don’t get to be and maintain a size zero, not to mention acquire a perfect mouth that looks as if it has just had a lipstick manicure, by ramming a plate of deep fried potatoes down your throat. So, it was farewell to the crisps. When they brought my English breakfast tea, it arrived with a long dish of Italian sweetmeats and biscuits. Would Eva Longoria eat them? Only if you chloroformed her first and force-fed them.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;">I applied the same rule to all bars and restaurants and looked longingly down their list of pastas. Spaghetti Calamari and Broccoli, Fusilliani alla Trentina, Tarte Con Argosta – all unusual dishes that I had never seen on Italian menus in the UK. And, as I went down the list, I asked over and over: Would Eva Longoria eat it? No, no, no. Just a black espresso for me, please.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;">Asking the question was a guaranteed way to lose weight, and I believed that I had inadvertently stumbled upon the perfect diet: because the answer to the question “Would Eva Longoria eat it?” was always going to be No.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;">I suspected that Eva, like every other thin woman in LA, enjoyed playing with the occasional leaf – without dressing (are you crazy?) – and I perfected the art of steering a leaf around my plate without ever consuming it, while giving the impression that I was stuffing my face. Over the radish, under the yellow pepper, slalom over the red onion – I could make a leaf’s journey around my plate last longer than a Grand Prix. And, by the end of its course, it really did look half consumed. And if the answer to Would Eva Longoria eat it? was No, the answer to Would Eva Longoria drink it? was: You must be insane. Glass of champagne? 150 calories. Dry white wine? 120. You didn’t shrink to the kind of shape that gets blown away in an LA earthquake by consuming empty calories.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;">None of this I could tell her, though, because we were already well into the 15 minutes, so I just said “Move a leaf around a plate”, which seemed to be the gist of it.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;">“Oh, no,” she said. “I eat. I eat a lot. I really love my food.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;">Dear Lord, I swear we were now well over halfway through my allotted 15 minutes, and we were still no further on than men’s anatomy and lettuce.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;">I managed to excavate the fact that Longoria has used her high profile as an actor to draw attention to the plight of the underprivileged through the Foundation. The Global Gift Gala in Marbella was one of seven events that aim to profile the plight of young women and children around the world, and the tireless efforts not only on the part of Longoria, but of her two friends and business partners, Maria and Alina, have helped so many the world over. The Foundation has two arms – entrepreneurial and educational – and it is, as Tony Blair once said, education, education, education, that is the driving force behind Longoria’s philosophy. She believes that it is this, rather than looks, that is the key to today’s young women. Looking like she does, I am tempted to say: “It’s all very well for you to say that.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt;">She gets most excited when I break the news that Simon Cowell is about to become a father, although she adds that she would keep any daughter of hers away from The X Factor. “I got my education first and had my bachelor’s degree before I became an actor, so I would say that for anybody – woman, young woman, young man. I’m sure Simon will have a unique situation because he’s Simon, but . . . I LOVE Simon, I think he’s an amazing man. I love him.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt;">We were now pretty much at 14 and a half minutes, and there was no news of any pregnancy or break-up, and certainly no offer of a free L’Oreal mascara so that I could turn overnight into Eva Longoria.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt;">In terms of non-interviews, this was about as “non” as it was possible to get, and I learned nothing that I could not have already gleaned the internet and other interviews; unsurprisingly, the piece was never published. My paper also dropped the contribution to the charity as a result of the alleged breach of promise (I wonder how many children/women lost out as a result?). There was a bit of comfort in hearing that she liked me and told her people: “I’ve never met a woman shorter than me.” Maybe. But then I’ve never met a woman who finishes in under 15 minutes.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt;">At least I got to hear Eva Longoria say “cock”, though; and, I suspect, among interviewers, that probably already puts me at the top of the league.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4691623879738471216.post-52734186815476157052014-04-03T14:35:00.002-07:002014-04-03T14:35:10.901-07:00Courting Judge Alex<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt;">Not since I met David Essex 25 years ago have I been this excited.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;">It was an interview that never made it into the paper because the tape was unusable. When I played it back, there was just non-stop me: “Oh I saw you in Godspell when I was 13 and you signed the cork from the wine bottle you opened on stage and then I saw you in That’ll Be the Day and I loved you and I used to kiss your poster and you were a great Jesus and I love you and will you marry me” . . . On and on and on. Over a two-hour interview, David’s voice surfaces barely more than six times: “Thanks”, every 20 minutes, in response to my adulation.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;"></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;">I am in Miami for NATPE (National Association of Television Programme Executives), billed as a conference in which "creativity meets connectivity and commerce". I'm thinking that as the smartest, funniest (and, let's not deny it, most handsome) person on television, Judge Alex Ferrer (@judgealexferrer), host of the nationally syndicated daytime court show, Judge Alex, fulfils the creativity part of the equation. If I could meet up with him, that nails connectivity. Then I can sell the piece. There's the commerce. Bingo! </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;">So, I am having lunch in Caffe Abracci in Miami’s Coral Gables, prior to meeting my idol, and laughing to myself over my favourite TV show. Now taped in Los Angeles, it first aired on September 12<sup>th</sup> 2005 and in September 2013 begins series nine.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;">When I moved to Los Angeles in April 2009, it was my daily fix: a bowl of pasta, a glass of Rioja, and Judge Alex on the telly. Mega-bright, quick witted, hilarious and very, very handsome (did I mention that?) with great clean teeth (I like a man who flosses), he was compulsive viewing and became a regular feature in my blogs, as did fantasies about admonishment and handcuffs. So, it was always exciting to hear him </span>get to the sexual nitty-gritty in which the other judges showed relatively little interest.<br />
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<span lang="EN-US" style="color: #262626; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;">If I were to choose anyone to sit down and watch a porn movie with, it would be Judge Alex. Fully robed. Briefly. Then I would want him to handcuff me, put me behind bars and make me beg on all fours . . . Well, you get the picture. And if you don't, apparently it's illegal for me to send it on the internet.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;">He took my enthusiasm in good spirit and, if you look at his Twitter account, the legions of women fawning over him must have made it quite easy for him to accept the gushings of just one more, especially one at a comfortable five hours’ flight away.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;">Clearly, he hadn’t bargained on my expert use of Air Miles, and that’s why I’m in Miami. But don't worry; </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt;">it’s a very thick line between a stalker and a de-robing fetishist.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;">My spaghetti (clearly, Judge Alex and spaghetti are forever entwined in my consciousness) is already a junction of knots in my stomach that is making me feel physically sick: a condition that is a mixture of trepidation, excitement and ridiculous nerves. As I wait in the courtyard of Books and Books close by (I rejected his suggestion that we do the interview in Starbucks; I didn’t want the smell of burnt coffee beans to be forever associated in my mind with a sex god, for heaven’s sake), my hands start to shake. When he approaches and smiles, my entire body goes into a Salvador Dali melting clock; I appear to have lost touch with the centre of gravity.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;"></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;">He is even more gorgeous in the flesh than on TV, and he looks very scrubbed (I don’t like grubby men). Great eyes, great smile, beautiful hands (as good in real life as they are on camera), deep voice - very Alpha Male, but with a hint of boyishness in a laugh that has a touch of the childlike giggle about it. You just know he has a great, probably naughty, sense of humour. I also sense a strong moral core, as clearly witnessed by his career first in the police force (at 19, he was the youngest cop in Miami), a career as a trial lawyer and then ten years on the Bench, nine of which were spent in the criminal court (he was also the youngest circuit court judge in Miami and went on to be the judge who oversaw the trial on which the recent Pain and Gain movie was based). His parents, he says, instilled in him a strong moral code and work ethic.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;">“My parents gave up comfortable living in Cuba – my father was an executive at an American Corporation there – and when you got to the United States, you started over from scratch. My father’s first job was unloading railroad cars full of plantains, which I thought was kind of ironic as it’s not even a staple here. My father brought me up to work hard. He had two jobs and because my mother had learned English in Cuba, she was able to get a job as a legal secretary. At lunchtime, she would run to a shoe store and sell shoes for an hour to hopefully make another buck.”</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;"></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;">His parents “did what they had to do” as they moved from the very bottom when they arrived in the US to the middle class suburbs, where they were finally able to develop a comfortable lifestyle. “I got to see them claw their way up and it basically taught me that in America, if you’re willing to work hard and apply yourself, you can do anything, especially if you get an education.” It really is the American Dream.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;"></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;">Judge Alex started his first job at 15, when he would go to high school till two, and from three to 11 work at a gas station, where he also worked on weekends from eight to eight. When he graduated from high school, he decided he wanted to be a pilot – “which was crazy, because I got sick every time I flew.”</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;"></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;">He became a licensed pilot at 18, but meeting a lot of cops at the gas station had fuelled (as it were) his interest in the force. He also had enormous respect for his grandfather, a cop in Cuba who had refused, even under threat of death, to work for Castro’s regime; but when Alex asked to join the police academy, he was discouraged by the police chief. With braces on his teeth (they certainly worked – “Great teeth”, I tell him), he looked more 16 than 19. The academy finally relented and he went on to win the award for most outstanding recruit.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;"></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;">Also influential during his formative years was the loss of his two brothers. His older brother, Tony, suffered from diabetes from childhood and died at 23, when Alex was 15. His brother Eddie, who was just a year older than Alex, died of Hodgkin’s Lymphoma. Did their passing increase his desire to do good in the world?</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;"></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;">“I can’t say, because I’m not very self-analytical; I’m really horrible at that. But I know it changed my relationship to my family. I used to always be the clingy one. If someone came to the house, I’d be the one who’d run to the door and hug them, even if I didn’t know who they were. My brother Eddie was reserved. He would just sit back and if he wanted me to do something, he’d be like ‘You go, do this, go ask him this, go ask him that’. When Tony died, Eddie and I sort of switched personalities. I became more distant from my family and he became closer and more clingy. I didn’t notice it, but my mother and another relative said they saw those changes.”</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;"></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;">He talks movingly of how difficult it must have been for his parents to lose two sons, and I wonder whether it has made him fear his own mortality more, especially now he has passed the big Five-O (he is 52 – 53 in October, a Libran. Scales of Justice! Spooky!).</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;"></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;">“Am I not going to hit 60, is that what you’re telling me? I mean, you could break it to me gently.” There’s that gorgeous laugh again. It’s so gloriously childlike, you can almost see the little boy with his satchel and sandwiches in the schoolyard. “Thirty didn’t bother me, neither did 40 or 50, but I’m pretty sure 90 is going to bug me if I make it. But up until now, no. I think one of the things it did was it made me accept death in life. I don’t want it, but I don’t fear it.”</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;"></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;">It is highly unusual to tackle The Grim Reaper during any interview. Most stars want to publicise their wares and get quickly away to the next promotion (my last Hollywood star meanly allotted me 15 minutes – 14 too many, as it turned out). It is a tribute to Judge Alex’s professionalism, charm and politeness that he does not. He is relaxed, friendly, but very focused, and, despite him enjoying a glass of wine, I know that the chances of getting him to crack with a DUI (Drunk Under Interview) indiscretion are nil. He apologises when his phone beeps (and he has to check messages for personal reasons, so is entirely forgiven); he says “please” and “thank you” to each waiter who approaches to ask what we want; and he stands every time I leave, or arrive back at the table (although, given my tiny bladder, I suspect it is something he may be regretting). My father did the same every time a female left or arrived back in the room, and I find it charming and the height of good manners. Judge Alex could be old school British, were he not so good looking.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;"></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;">Judge Alex left the police force for the law courts and saw the worst criminals pass before him. Nevertheless, the first time he was offered TV, he turned it down.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;">“It wasn’t that I wasn’t ready to do it, but television is a vicious industry. You can give up your career as a judge and do a TV show that lasts one year, then they cancel you; then, you’re not a judge and you don’t have a show. I loved being a judge and I wasn’t ready to just give that up and do something else on a whim, so I passed. But for two years, I kept saying You know, you should have done it, because I like to try different things.”</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;"></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;">When the opportunity came around again, it was a “fork in the road” moment. </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;"></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;">“I’d spent nine years out of my ten on the Bench in the criminal court, and that gets to you – it’s like layers of paint. Every day is Who raped their neighbour, Who killed their sister, and it really gets to you, so I was ready for a change and put my name in for the Appeals court, which is very sought after. The competition is very stiff and there were 60 applicants for, unusually, three places that year, and the Governor had a penchant for appointing minorities because the courts are under represented. I came out of the commission with nine unanimous votes.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;">While awaiting an interview with the Governor, TV came knocking again, and therein lay the dilemma.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;"></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;">“On the one hand, you have the Appeals court, which is the pinnacle of any judge’s career, and on the other hand you have television, where they eat their young for breakfast. They told me eight out of ten new shows get cancelled, which is true – and that’s people in the industry, who know what they’re doing; I didn’t, so it was a very tough decision. My kids were getting close to college age, and the money was certainly going to be much better. The taping schedule would also leave me a tremendous amount of free time to spend with them. So I talked to them about it and I said if it lasts it lasts, and if it doesn’t, it’s still an opportunity for me to spend time with them before they go off to college and start their own lives.”</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;"></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;">He decided to take the plunge after talking with his good friend Marilyn Milian, host of another daytime court show, The People’s Court.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;"></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;">“I knew she enjoyed it and so when an approach was made two years after the first by 20<sup>th</sup> Television (the syndication branch of Fox), I took the plunge and we hit the ground running. We were the highest rated launch since Dr Phil had launched three years earlier, and we beat every daytime launch since then to become the highest rated new daytime show in syndication.”</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;"></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;">It was a decision that undoubtedly enabled him to forge a great relationship with his children to whom he is extremely close (“My biggest fear is something happening to them”), although he stresses the need for a moral upbringing.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;"></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;">“The way you instil a moral code in your children is by example. I see parents who steal cable, tying up the line to their neighbour’s – and then expect their kids not to be thieves. Or they get high in front of their kids and tell them not to do drugs. It’s ridiculous; your kids are not going to follow what you say but what you do – although, hopefully, they’ll follow both. But you need to do it by example. I was strict. I’ve spanked my kids just a couple of times in their lives and it all happened when they were 2/3 years old – a little pat on the bottom, because I’m one of those who believes that you instil the consequence at the beginning and they learn that there’s a consequence for bad actions. And if parents don’t discipline their kids when they’re young, I’ll have to do it for them as a judge when they’re older, but it’s going to be a lot worse. My kids are wonderful and they learned early on that if you punch your sister, you’re going to get punished. My son did it one time and never again.”</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;"></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;">At this point, I’m sort of listening to the morality stuff, but that spanking reference and pat on the bottom has distracted me somewhat. I’m now looking at those hands in a different light. Anyway…</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;"></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;">Television fame has brought Judge Alex praise not only for his wit and repartee. He was once voted the second most trusted face on daytime TV (behind Dr Oz) and made People Magazine’s Sexiest Men edition as Sexiest Judge. He is suitably modest about the praise, though admits to being “flattered”. After 26 years of marriage to his artist wife, Jane, he thought she would be most pleased by the trustworthy label, but “She didn’t think anything of it. But ‘sexy’, she was bouncing off the wall, calling everyone she knew.”</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;"></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;">It’s hard to find a crack in the armour of a man who seems, from every angle, loyal, loving, bright, funny, and brilliant at his job, appearing on countless TV shows when major cases are broadcast live. Piers Morgan, Fox, HLN – he’s done them all and, during the recent George Zimmerman murder trial, was never off the air. I love his work, but my main criterion in any man is whether he would save me from a bear in the forest, and yes, I think he would do that, too.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;"></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;">He admits to having flaws and claims his wife would say that his worst fault is that he always thinks he’s right (I say go with it, Jane – you never know when a bear is going to alight upon you).</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;"></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;">He seems pretty perfect to this critic of 30 years’ standing, and Judge Alex is still the best show on TV. When he leaves the interview (he has another appointment), he offers to come back to answer any more questions, and I quickly agree.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;"></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;">“So, what else do you want to ask?” he says, when he returns an hour later.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;"></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;">“Will you marry me?”</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;"></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;">Damn. And I had been doing so well.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;"></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;">Blame it on the DUI.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;"></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;"> ***</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;"></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;">FOLLOW @welshjaci and @judgealexferrer on Twitter</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;"></span></div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4691623879738471216.post-73610988559230356902014-04-03T14:31:00.002-07:002014-04-03T14:31:50.800-07:00Cowell on the CouchINTERVIEW<br />
DECEMBER 2013, LOS ANGELES<br />
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';"><br class="Apple-interchange-newline" />Simon Cowell is in love. </span></b><b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial;"><o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';">Truly, madly, deeply in love. Who would have thought it. And that love is most definitely reciprocated. Twice over. He cuddles the female love of his life in his lap, squeezing her face and saying ‘How much do I love you!’ over and over. Her brother is attacking his head in what seems to be an attempt to lick his ear off. ‘Aren’t they adorable?’ he says, hugging the two tiny brown balls of fluff.</span></b><b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial;"><o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';">Meet Squiddly and Diddly, the five-month old Yorkies who, according to the music mogul, have transformed his life. Always an animal lover and one who grew up with dogs, usually inherited, these are the first he has ever actually bought, and he is clearly besotted. Relaxed in jeans and T-shirt in “the Frank Sinatra Room” of his exclusive Beverly Hills home (pictures of his idol adorn the walls), his housekeeper brings him a bottle of beer and a massive burger specially ordered in from the Ivy, one of his favourite LA restaurants.</span></b><b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial;"><o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';">He picks at it carefully, lifting the bacon, readjusting the filling and examining it. ‘Darling!’ he says to the burger bearer (he calls everyone darling, male or female, old or young). ‘Could I have some of those lovely pickles, please.’ The judge in him is ever present; you can almost hear the verdict. ‘D’you know, it’s not the best burger in the world, but it has potential; it’s just missing that extra something.’ He dives into the pared down remains, to which X Factor pickles have now been added, with great gusto. His first enormous bite screams ‘So it’s a Yes from me.’</span></b><b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial;"><o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';">This is clearly a very happy man, both personally and professionally. Syco, the company specialising predominantly in television entertainment formats that Simon founded in May 2002, is not only a transatlantic success story but a global phenomenon, producing shows for countries as diverse as Azerbaijan, Vietnam and Israel. The company’s first feature film, One Direction: This is Us grossed over £50,000,000 worldwide on its opening weekend, while the band has clocked up 64 official albums and single number ones worldwide. They are also the only British band to have their first two albums debut at Number 1 in the US. Not bad for the boy band that finished third in X Factor series seven and their mentor, who began his working life in a mail room.</span></b><b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial;"><o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';">And in addition to enjoying the spoils from the company’s success, Simon’s girlfriend, Lauren Silverman, is due to give birth to his first child in February. He is, he says, very, very happy, and the baby has totally changed his outlook on life.</span></b><b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial;"><o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';">He seems genuinely content and a far remove from the Simon of last year, when he appeared to go into a very public meltdown on Twitter (today, he laughs loudly at the recollection). Friends expressed concern that he spent so much time home alone, watching TV and staying up right through the night phoning people on each sides of the Atlantic, seemingly desperate for company. Was he suffering from loneliness?</span></b><b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial;"><o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';">‘No, I don’t get lonely. When I’m on my own, I sometimes think of it as a luxury. I’ve got no distractions and I can concentrate and clear my mind, because at other times I’m literally surrounded by people. Everyone’s talking to you, and you can’t concentrate, so I have good, close friends around me. Not millions of them, but enough I consider to be very good friends and I don’t need any more than that. And also, when you run a company, a lot of people there become your friends. Not because they work for you, you just like each other. And I like that: that you can work with friends.’</span></b><b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial;"><o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';">He is also close to his siblings – one brother, three half brothers and a half sister. ‘I was close to them when I was growing up, but we’re closer now we’re older. My half siblings feel like they’re my proper brothers and sisters and I talk to them a lot.’</span></b><b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial;"><o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';">So what happened during the Great Twitter Depression of 2012? ‘I was very low and I don’t know why. It’s not that it was a bad year and it was a good one in terms of my work. There was nothing really wrong in my personal life, either, but for some reason I wasn’t getting a buzz out of anything, which was unusual. I started to get a bit lethargic; I just wasn’t myself and I couldn’t get myself out of it. And then the baby happened.’</span></b><b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial;"><o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';">The circumstances surrounding his relationship with Lauren – she was the wife of his good friend, Andrew Silverman (the couple have since divorced) – nevertheless make him uncomfortable.</span></b><b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial;"><o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';">‘I let down a friend and I feel bad about that, but the good thing about it is that I am having a baby and I never thought I would. And it totally changed everything. It was like coming out of a fog; that’s the only way I can describe it. Stop feeling sorry for yourself, you’ve got nothing to feel bad about, and it just makes you feel like you’ve got a responsibility. I definitely feel better. I thought I was going to freak out, but I didn’t. It was only the circumstances that were problematic.’</span></b><b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial;"><o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';">Looking around his LA home, it’s hard to imagine how the inevitable mess of a child is going to fit in. It is an exquisite place: not ostentatious, but high end Italian style (all Simon’s choice – he has a great eye). There is a long pool in the garden alongside fire and water features; a proper cinema indoors and, in the Frank Sinatra room, a TV screen that is almost as big as the cinema screen. There are fresh cream roses in the hallways, and white tiles and cream furnishings just crying out for a child’s chocolate-covered fingers.</span></b><b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial;"><o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';">‘This is probably the most child unfriendly house in the world right now, but I’m used to mess these days because of the dogs. But they’re the best thing I ever did – but so naughty.’</span></b><b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial;"><o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';">It has been confirmed that Simon and Lauren are expecting a son, and Simon wishes his own father, who died in 1999, could have known about it.</span></b><b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial;"><o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';">‘I was thinking about him and how he would have loved it, I mean really would, I know he would have done, and I still miss him – when you just want someone to talk to about stuff, just basic advice, when you can’t make up your mind about something. He always gave me amazing advice. He didn’t always go on my side and sometimes said you’re doing the wrong thing, but he never made me feel worried or panicked, even when I’d screwed up, and he was always incredibly fair. He was terrible at discipline - that was Mum’s job. But if I really went too far, then I knew I’d crossed the line.’</span></b><b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial;"><o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';">He is keen to pass on what he learned from his own father to his son.</span></b><b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial;"><o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';">‘I never inherited anything in my life, and everything I had, I had to earn. But I think that’s what made me enjoy life more. You see a lot of these rich kids, 17 or 18, who are given everything – huge car, whatever – and they look bored out of their minds. And I don’t want my son to be like that. I want him to feel that he’s got to prove his own way and I’d like to do what my dad did for me. He taught me the basics – about respecting other people, how you’ve got to be a good listener. He once said to me that you’ve got to realise that everyone around you has a sign on their forehead that says Make me feel important. And I’ve always remembered that. Of all the things he ever told me, that’s the one that stuck in my head. So if you walk into a venue and see someone whose job it is to hold the door, you’ve got to understand that that’s part of what your production is, and they’re as important as the producer or the director, because it’s a job. You’ve got to recognise and be aware of what everybody does around you. I think more than anything, that was the best piece of advice I was ever given.’</span></b><b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial;"><o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';">His mother, too, is excited about the baby, despite the circumstances of the situation. ‘She was actually very cool about it, but it was fairly traumatic when it happened and I had to call her before the press story broke, but she was very calm and understanding.’</span></b><b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial;"><o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';">Invariably surrounded by different women, and certainly classed as a woman’s man, he attributes his relationships with them to his mother’s influence. ‘And also, I can’t bear that kind of macho rivalry. It bores me, all of that. Although I’m very competitive, I just never got caught up in that kind of stuff, even when I was young. I like women, and I listen to them. It’s probably why so many of my ex-girlfriends are my closest friends now. I just feel really, really comfortable with them. Not every one, but a lot. I’ve never really had a bad break-up.’ Isn’t it also because they get houses at the break-up? He laughs loudly: ‘Not everyone gets a house, darling, or I wouldn’t be living in this one now.’</span></b><b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial;"><o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';">He inherited much of his work ethic from his parents. ‘When we were kids, my mum said to me one year, We’re going on holiday, which we will pay for, but you’ve got to earn your spending money. So I washed cars, mowed lawns, did whatever I could - but I absolutely loved it. And that moment when you’ve got your first £5 note, the sky’s the limit, it’s changed, it’s the best feeling in the world. So I always understood the notion that if you want to make money, you’ve got to work for it, and sometimes you’ve got to work really hard, but I always enjoyed it.’</span></b><b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial;"><o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';">He also gets incredibly bored if he is not working. ‘I was watching a commercial the other day about somebody looking forward to retirement at 65 and how much they can’t wait. I thought . . . people who sit on piers when they’re 70, having a cup of tea? I would just jump off the pier. I get bored so quickly and this keeps me interested. I met with a really smart director earlier, and we were talking over a couple of ideas, and he got excited about what we were talking about and that makes me excited. And the fact that you can literally just sit here, have an idea in your head, and potentially, a year and a half later, you’re watching it on TV or listening to it on the radio - I never get bored of that; I get a real high from it. And I like the people I work with as well. I like people, so when they respond positively to what you’ve done, it’s incredible. I went to a One Direction gig in Vegas and there were 12,000 people going wild and you think: You’re a part of that. It’s a fantastic feeling. Now that, compared to having hot chocolate on Brighton Pier...’</span></b><b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial;"><o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';">Boredom was something that dogged Simon’s childhood and he had an aversion to formal education. Recently, he was attacked by Education Secretary Michael Gove for seeming to claim in a radio interview that qualifications are not important. ‘The point I was trying to make was, there are thousands of kids who leave school with no qualifications who must think it’s the end of the road. I hated school. On Sunday night at 7 o’clock, this religious programme used to come on - I think it was the one with Jesse Yates – and I would have a pit in my stomach because that would signify my mum saying Right, get your homework done, it’s school tomorrow. Noooooooo. And then I’d go to bed, wake up Monday morning, thinking it was the weekend, and then remember it was a school day, with a two hour maths lesson or something. I was bored out of my mind. So I was just saying that if you’re smart enough to get qualifications, then great, but if you’re not, then you can do what I did: roll your sleeves up, find a job you love, work hard, get someone to teach you, and you can have a good career. I don’t hire anyone based on their qualifications. I never ask; I couldn’t care less.’</span></b><b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial;"><o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';">Turning down the opportunity to go to college was, Simon believes, absolutely the right decision for him. <s>‘</s>Because I was academically stupid, it was a complete waste of time for me to take exams. I just wanted to get in the mail-room, put the post where it was supposed to be, get a foot on the ladder and work my way up. That was right for me. If you want to be a doctor or accountant, then obviously you’ve got to go an alternative route, but we all have different brains and I didn’t have that kind of brain.’</span></b><b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial;"><o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';">It is an educational philosophy he is determined to employ with his own son, too. ‘If my son said to me I’m not going to be any good at school, I’d rather come and work for you, I would do what I’ve done with a lot of my relatives and say Fine, but you’ve got to start at the bottom. I’ll give you an introduction, but I’m not going to give you a head start. And then it’s down to you.’</span></b><b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial;"><o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';">It would not matter to Simon whether his son received his education in the UK or the US, although in his working life, he would veer towards starting in the UK. ‘I’d probably say, get yourself a skill-set, then take it over to America. When I first came here at 21/22, I’d just started out in the music industry with this tiny company that was doing badly and we’d set up all these meetings hoping for these people to advance us money and to represent us in America, and I did about 10 meetings. Everyone was polite, charming and interested. Never heard another word back. In fact, where I’m living now, I drove around thinking This is the most beautiful place I’ve seen in my life, but I understood even then that you can get really sucked into it here and if you come here without some form of leverage, it’s tough. It’s almost like this beautiful flower that’s beckoning you, but you’ve got to be very, very careful about that. So I said Forget about America. Just do what I’m doing in the UK and if something happens here, then it happens, but I never thought it would, not in a million years. When the show was sold here and I came over, I was obviously much older, so I could appreciate what was happening more than I could at that time, so now I’m kind of glad I had that bad experience.’ That experience also helps him keep his feet on the ground, because ‘You’ve also got to understand that it’s not going to last forever. And when it ends, you’ve just got to look back and say you had a great time.’</span></b><b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial;"><o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';">Fifteen years ago, Simon stood on the stage at the annual Edinburgh Television Festival and said: ‘I’m not daft, I know it’s not going to last forever’ and yet here he is, at 54, one of the most successful people on the world entertainment stage and having the accolade of having been named by Time magazine in both 2004 and 2010, as one of the 100 most influential people in the world.</span></b><b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial;"><o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';">‘At that point, things were just starting. I was still having a great time, but then I thought if it lasts two years, three years, fantastic. It’s lasted longer than that, and now, every day is like a blessing. But if it all stopped tomorrow, well, you do something new, and that’s part of life. What you can’t do is just pray that it’s going to last forever, or think it is, and then get depressed if it doesn’t work out. There’s always something new ahead of you.’</span></b><b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial;"><o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';">Despite his American success, Simon enjoys the LA lifestyle in short bursts and still hankers for the UK. ‘After a while, I think I’ve got to come back to the UK and I’ve got to become British again. I actually appreciate Britain more now. We have a different sense of humour and we take the mickey out of each other all the time. I miss that. And I also miss that tabloid love/hate relationship we have with each other. Yes, we get slaughtered in the press, but there’s something about it, when you do something wrong and you’ve to react to it the following day because it’s in every newspaper; I love that. It kind of makes it more exciting. Here, it’s much, much slower, the press, it’s much more serious, much more online.’</span></b><b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial;"><o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';">Surely it must drive him mad, though, with the paparazzi following his every move, and when even holding a vegetable in Wholefoods makes the news? <s>‘</s>I’ve got to know all these guys. If I’m going somewhere and I see them and I don’t know the way, I just say can you take me to where I’m going. I don’t care. It makes me laugh when I see them, because I always think if I’m holding a couple of melons, what’s the caption going to be? There was one I found that was the most crazy piece of fruit I’ve ever seen and I made Lauren hold it. It makes me laugh. But you know, I’ve learnt this: you can’t take it seriously. I mean, I take it seriously as a job, but all that other stuff, no. All these people who bleat about the press? Come on. If you’re an actor or singer or on TV, it’s crazy. And by the way, when they stop writing about you, it’s all over. That’s the way I feel.’</span></b><b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial;"><o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';">His relationship with the press has generally been good and he accepts criticism with good grace, but some of it must hurt, particularly recent attacks on his personal life, not just from the press but the public? ‘Well number 1, don’t read it. And secondly, never go on the message boards. I mean, seriously? I went on them once and it was like Wow! I don’t know who these people are, but the stuff they were saying, it was unbelievable. And what bothers me is the fact that they’re anonymous. If somebody I know criticises me, I can deal with that. When someone’s hiding behind some weird name they give themselves and they don’t know about you - that, to me, is weird, because I think if you want to say something, at least tell me who you are. But I think I’ve had a good relationship with the media because I’ve learnt that when we screw up and they completely hammer us, or we make a bad show and we’ve got a bad review, you learn from it. I’ve taken terrible reviews into meetings, all saying it was a terrible show, but I say They’re right. “How can you say that, when they say all these awful things about us?” I’m asked. I say I don’t want to make the same mistake again. But I’ve also understood that without the media’s support, my company could not have achieved what we’ve done. You’ve got to take the knocks along the way. But I’ve gone through weeks where it’s been, literally: “Don’t bring the newspapers up today.” Especially recently. I don’t want to read it.’</span></b><b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial;"><o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';">Details of his personal life revealed in Tom Bower’s unofficial biography last year must surely have hurt, even though Simon gave his friends permission to talk with the author – something he surely regrets, especially as the book revealed a relationship with X Factor fellow judge, Dannii Minogue.</span></b><b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial;"><o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';">‘No, not at all. I became friends with Tom afterwards. There were parts that were a bit Oh No, but if someone decides to write a book, unauthorised, about you, and he has a real reputation, there’s nothing you can about it, and I thought to myself I’d rather he actually was IN my life rather than looking from the outside, because I haven’t got anything to hide. When I read it, I thought, well, at least I suppose I’ve done enough for someone to be interested in writing the book. And lots I’d forgotten about, to be honest – stories from years and years and years ago, some of them quite funny.’</span></b><b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial;"><o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';">Would he ever write an official autobiography to set the record absolutely straight? ‘Yes, but I think I’d do a business type book<s>. </s>That kind of book I think would be more interesting for me to write. So when I’ve got the time, I think I’ll do that.’</span></b><b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial;"><o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';">Any fallout from Bower’s book was quickly forgotten, as Simon is a staunch believer in constructive criticism, as witnessed by his ruthless stints on numerous judging panels, most notably on The X Factor, for which he has, in turn, been criticised. ‘You’ve got to understand that everything I’ve learned, it’s been tough love. If you make a dreadful record and it stiffs and your boss gives you a really hard time, it’s the right thing. You can’t have someone coming in saying Oh, he did a really great job, pat me on the head, Do it again, because it’s not going to work. All the things I learned were really from criticism, but meant in a positive way.’</span></b><b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial;"><o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';">Like him or loathe him, his presence is certainly missed on the UK X Factor panel, where he thinks, as a record producer rather than a performer, his role is important – ‘Performers don’t like other performers.’ Rumours abound as to whether he will return as a judge. ‘At some point, definitely. When, I’m not sure yet. That show, I don’t know what it is, more than anything I’ve ever done . . . ‘ There is real emotion in his voice when he talks about it. ‘The UK show’s my baby, and it was such an important crossroads in my life, for so many reasons, and there was so much riding on it at the time, and it was such a risky thing to do, but when it worked out, without question it was the most important thing career wise ever to have happened to me; so, in a weird way, I feel that I owe it something. I know it sounds corny, but it’s true. And it’s such a crazy show to be on, it causes so much controversy, and we have so many fun stories relating to the time we’ve spent on it, I kind of miss it - just the nuttiness that used to go on with Louis and Cheryl and everything else and the contestants. There’s something unique about that show.’</span></b><b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial;"><o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';">There have also been rumours about Louis leaving, after he said that ten years would be a good time to finish. Simon is doubtful. ‘I don’t think Louis will leave the show. I actually think it would miss him if he went. I know that people complain about him, but there’s nobody like Louis. I love working with him because he really makes me laugh. He’s able to make me laugh one moment and literally drive me round the bend the next, and he’s so naughty. I can make Louis laugh at any time during the auditions: just look up and stare at him, and he literally can’t stop laughing, so he tries not to look at me, then he looks over because he knows I’m staring at him and it makes me laugh as well.’ He talks about Louis with such affection, it seems inconceivable that the two will not be reunited at some point.</span></b><b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial;"><o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';">Another person Simon claims would be on his “ideal panel” is be Cheryl Cole, whom he unceremoniously sacked from the US X Factor after the briefest of stints, and the pair fell out big time.</span></b><b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial;"><o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';">‘I love working with Cheryl. I miss her. I really do. Funnily enough, I was watching something the other night on YouTube, as I wanted to remind myself of something from the UK show, and Cheryl was on it. I was watching her and listening to her. She was, actually, a really, really good judge. She knows a lot about music and had a really good instinct, so I miss her.’</span></b><b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial;"><o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';">Why does he think she didn’t work out on the US show? ‘I’ve spoken to her about it and she’s still not happy with me, and I probably did react too quickly. I just don’t think she was in the same place then as she is now. I mean now, she’s back to the Cheryl I used to know - really confident, looks amazing. I think she just went through what I’ve gone through. You just get to a place sometimes in your life where you lose your mojo a bit. I think this was a very daunting thing for her to do – or maybe I was wrong. I’ve no idea. But certainly now, when I talk to her to text her, she’s the old Cheryl again.’</span></b><b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial;"><o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';">Is it likely, then, that she will be returning to coming back to the UK X Factor? ‘I’ll have to ask her first, but I’d have her back in a heartbeat. I think that’s when the show was at its best. I really, really do. I’m not sure you can ever recapture the magic it once had, but then a part of me goes: Actually, you probably can. I don’t know - something just clicked with Cheryl and me.’</span></b><b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial;"><o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';">The X Factor judges are about to be reincarnated in X Factor: the Musical, which will hit the London Palladium stage next year. Simon giggles uproariously when he thinks about it and can’t seem to believe that it’s actually happening.</span></b><b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial;"><o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';">‘It came about through Harry Hill and his writing partner, who pitched to us. I’ve had these musical pitches dozens of times and every time I think it’s going to be a complete waste of time, but they came in and he was really funny and they played me one of the songs. I’d banned the word “journey” from our shows, because I hate that word, and also banned the word “dream”. And they’d written this song called I’m on a journey to a dream or something. So it was a complete send-up. It made me laugh so much, I thought Actually, maybe this’ll work because it’s not some sort of love fest, this musical. I mean, I get it in the neck, the show gets it in the neck, but in a fun, not a cynical way. And then I heard the odd thing over the next year and I went to the workshop. I was dreading it because I hate workshops, and I told my PA to get me a seat by the exit because I thought I’d be leaving and I didn’t want anyone to see me. And in the first five minutes, I was laughing so much, and there was such a buzz in the room, I thought we should do this because it’s really made me laugh. Even though I hate musicals, it feels like a celebration of what the show has done.’</span></b><b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial;"><o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';">Is he happy with the way he has been portrayed? ‘He’s a complete egomaniac monster. But it actually made me laugh, it’s just so over the top. But then there are parts where you go, that’s so close to the truth: this guy really understands the process. So anyone’s who’s seen the X Factor, they’re going to recognise obviously me, lots of other contestants, obviously lots of other judges, and it’s a kind of behind the scenes look at things as well.’</span></b><b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial;"><o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';">What about Dermot? </span></b><b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial;"><o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';">He pauses reflectively. Surely they can’t be going to send up the lovely host Dermot O’Leary? ‘That’s a very good point, actually - not as much as they will the judges or contestants. But the script is so crazy. You’ve got a talking dog, a hunchback who lives up in the rafters of the competition, who wants to kill me, and the ending of the show is the weirdest ending to anything I’ve ever seen in my life, so there was a lot to take in on that first day. And what I’ve done is, intentionally, absolutely taken a step back from it. I don’t want to see the script, anything, because I thought I don’t want to start micro-managing this. I need to feel that they could pretty much say or do whatever they wanted. And if I got involved and started saying Take this word out, take that word out, it just wouldn’t work.’</span></b><b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial;"><o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';">There will be people tearing their hair out at the thought of the X Factor juggernaut now reaching the West End stage, but to Simon, finding new talent and then promoting that talent is at the heart of all his work.</span></b><b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial;"><o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';">‘It goes back to that point about education and giving people a shot. There are a lot of people in the music business who sneer at what we do, and ironically, those are the people who have made tens, if not hundreds of millions of pounds, and then they’re saying we shouldn’t allow somebody to have a break through a show like the X Factor. Don’t they think they’ve already tried the obvious route? They’ve clearly gone to record labels, sent in tapes and got nowhere, so this is another opportunity for them. I don’t think Olly Murs would have got a deal unless he’d gone on X Factor. One Direction was obviously created on the show. So this is just a different way of giving people an opportunity. Take Cher Lloyd -16/17 when she auditioned for us, and she went through to the next round. And I remember Cheryl calling me and saying that even though Cher couldn’t sing the song, she wanted her on the show because she believed in her, and then Cher went on to sell millions of records. You feel great about that.’</span></b><b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial;"><o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';">Its critics would still claim that the show does not represent the country’s best talent, as is blatantly obvious during the early audition rounds. You could, for example, go to a Welsh Eisteddfod and find at least 100 great voices in one day. But while talent might be Simon’s ultimate objective, he still has to provide an entertainment show. How does he marry these two seemingly opposing ideals?</span></b><b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial;"><o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';">‘That’s a good question, but I think One Direction and Olly Murs somehow combine the two. Olly is a really successful artist – he was great fun on the show and an absolute pleasure to work with - just the easiest person I’ve ever worked with in my life. When he comes down to the show, he brings so much good energy with him, I always think God, I just want you here every day, because he’s great fun, he’s got great energy, and he’s a great ambassador for the show. I guess he’s what we were looking for: a guy who had some boring office job, who dreamt about being a pop star, and then through the show lived his dream but still has remained a really great guy and really is a fantastic person - and the same with the One Direction boys. They brought so much positive energy to the show and they were so much fun to work with. Every week, they were brilliant. They were a handful, but great fun. And again, with them, they got what they dreamt of doing as well, and much, much more. I must never, ever forget those moments or take them for granted. When I saw them in Las Vegas, I had to pinch myself. Las Vegas, in America – and all these thousands of girls going nuts about some group that came from your show. That’s honestly the reason, the main reason, why I love making the shows. Because when you find that diamond amongst everything else, it’s a fantastic feeling. Of course, it makes us money, I’m not doing this for nothing. I'm running a business.’</span></b><b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial;"><o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';">The burgeoning funds are also in no small part down to the increasing part social networking has played in the entertainment business, a phenomenon to which Simon had to be dragged kicking and screaming.</span></b><b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial;"><o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';">‘I remember when this all started and someone spoke to me about Twitter, and the idea that I would have a Twitter page was like Well, I couldn’t do it, I wouldn’t know what to say. Now, I absolutely love it, but the trouble is, I get drunk sometimes and I send these Tweets and you wake up the following morning and you think please God I didn’t send anything out last night. Then it’s oh God, I did. But I’m used to that now. But the most fantastic thing about it is how it connects you immediately with the whole world. Literally. I remember being in LA watching the Britain’s Got Talent launch and obviously we knew Susan Boyle was in that first show and I’d seen the audition and I thought this is one of the best pieces of TV we’ve ever made. So I’m sitting in LA, watching this thing just explode worldwide, and it was just the most incredible feeling. So, the positive side of the whole social media thing for us is that it’s just the best thing that’s happened to us - ever. YouTube changed our business. How would the world know about a car-phone salesman singing Nessun Dorma? Because of YouTube. The guy has a Number 1 album in Germany three months afterwards – because of YouTube. One Direction – it was fans that promoted the band for us worldwide. So I love the fact that you can be on your Twitter page, you can be talking to someone in Canada or Venezuela or Italy and it’s as if they’re your next-door neighbour. I think it’s incredible. I’m so happy that I’m working within this space now, because it didn’t exist for us 20 years ago. We didn’t have mobile phones, we were sending packages on bikes; now, you just press a button. But I also think it’s exciting that we were there at the birth of it, when we just saw this thing explode. So we totally embrace it. Sometimes, even when I’m thinking of a name for my dogs, or if I’m stuck for a song, or a band name, I go on Twitter. The response you get back within about 30 seconds is unbelievable.</span></b><b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial;"><o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';">Nevertheless, the money generated seems less important than it once was, now that Simon can afford pretty much everything he wants – the houses, the private yacht and plane. ‘In the beginning, the money was more important because money gives you freedom. I had bosses who used to literally ridicule me, when I first started, doing what I was doing. It was a very sneering mentality in those days, in record labels. It was all about the artist being serious and credible; I was much more commercial. So I found that the only way I could get away from that kind of snobbery was to have enough money to do what I wanted to do. And now, probably . . . I get more out of renegotiating a deal.’</span></b><b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial;"><o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';">Still, surely he must pinch himself when he wakes up in that LA house every morning, a house that it seems Squiddly and Diddly have adapted to very quickly. ‘The funny thing is, when they came over, they came with their real father, the dog, and the family, and they spent about half an hour here with us and I brought them into this room. When the family left, they didn’t even look up. Not for a second: “I’ve got Simon now for my dad”. I love animals. And an animal knows if you love them as well, so they knew within seconds how much I adored them, and they couldn’t have been happier. Their first trip will be on a private jet back to the UK. They’re going to be very spoiled. I just love the idea of them sitting on a private jet, drinking champagne . . . ‘ He turns to the male ball of fluff who appears to have perfected what Simon calls “the flying lick”. ‘What do you think about that, Diddly? And I love them so much, don’t I? How much do I love you? How much do I love you?’ The new father’s kisses are again reciprocated with licks in equal measure, as he squeezes his love into them with every finger.</span></b><b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial;"><o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';">For Simon, though, it is not the material goods that give him the biggest kick. ‘When I’m allowed through the studio gates where we film, and security raises the barrier, I literally pinch myself every time that happens. Because when I was trying to sell Pop Idol, we were thrown out of just about every network here, and I mean literally thrown out. I know what it’s like to be on the other side, where you can’t get through the security gates, you can’t have a meeting with someone. So the fact that they’re opening up the barrier for me now is a big deal. And I never forget that.’</span></b><b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial;"><o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';">With the company branching into film with the One Direction movie, does Simon ultimately have his sights set on Hollywood?</span></b><b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial;"><o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';">‘I always promised myself that we were going make movies, but said I wouldn’t want to make a fool out of myself, so the first one we made was the One Direction film. I mean God, it’s addictive. When you go to a premiere of your movie, like the one I went to in Leicester Square, it’s unbelievable. There’s nothing like it, but on the night I was thinking I want to do this again. So slowly, we’ve started to build a tiny little film division and we now have 2 or 3 movies that we are now producing, including an animation movie that I came up with the original story for. We pitched it, and, amazingly, a studio bought it, and we’re making it into a proper animation. I can’t say what it is because it’s such a great idea and such an obvious idea, and I don’t want anyone else to have it. So that’s a buzz.’</span></b><b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial;"><o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';">Although the One Direction movie had a lot of music in it, it is not what Simon would call a “music movie”, although he says the majority of the movies they make in the future will be music related. ‘And we’ll probably do more of these movies about bands – a year in the life of, stuff like that, if we find the right people to make them with. I think we did a good job with it, and the 3D stuff on it was sensational. And it was a real learning curve - brutal. You’ve got to view the film 23/25 times, you’ve got to do it every week, you’ve got to keep your nose coming in, but I loved it.’</span></b><b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial;"><o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';">As Syco’s operation gets bigger, with offices both in London and Los Angeles, how does Simon, a self-confessed control freak, deal with keeping in touch with everything that is going on within the company?</span></b><b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial;"><o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';">‘It’s kind of like organised chaos in some respects, because one minute the whole team is out working on X Factor UK or America’s Got Talent, or we’ve got a problem on another show - there’s a lot of kind of fire-fighting that goes on. But within that mess, there’s an incredible good structure in terms of new shows and how they’re being developed. There are a lot of young people now coming to work for us, who’ve re-energised the company, but at any one time, we could be on 30 projects. But I can tell you almost every detail on everything we’re working on: every album track, every single, every video, every show that’s in development, what’s happening in New Zealand or Australia or Holland or Israel. I keep myself informed. And what I’m learning now is just how important the whole world is. We used to think of just England and America as being the pivotal points, but now, we’ve got amazing shows being made in smaller countries and we’re starting to learn from them.’</span></b><b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial;"><o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';">He is clearly still a control freak, albeit one who increasingly hands over the reins to people he admires and trusts. ‘I think the way the company’s run at the moment – I’ve got so many good people working there and they’ve started to hire good people under them as well - it’s a much better place than it was 10 years ago.’</span></b><b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial;"><o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';">It is also, it seems, a better place because of Simon Cowell, whose inner competitiveness set him on a learning curve where he listened to others, and now, in keeping with his father’s philosophy of making others feel special, he is enabling a whole new generation.</span></b><b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial;"><o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';">‘Anyone who says they’re not competitive when they work in this business is a liar. If I was playing Monopoly with you now and you were winning, I’d probably tip the board up. I can’t bear the thought of coming second. Or if we’re playing Trivial Pursuit on the boat, it really bugs me if I lose. I’m the same with my work. The only thing I’ve learned to do more now, I think, is rather than get miserable by somebody else doing well, I’ve learned to respect why somebody does well and understand why they do better than us, and what we can do to make ourselves better. Because otherwise, you spend so much time looking for other people to fail - I know loads of people do that; they’re literally scanning the internet trying to find bad stories. What you actually end up doing is making yourself more unsuccessful in the same way, because all you’re doing is waiting for someone else to fail, rather than make yourself succeed. I think you start to have a very negative attitude with your staff, and I like to think that when I’m with everyone, I can motivate them. I don’t sit and say he’s done badly or she’s done badly, isn’t it great. It’s much more: Actually, they’ve done better than us and what are we going do about it.’</span></b><b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial;"><o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';">The Simon moving on to his second beer, cuddling up to dogs, a very different one not only from ten years ago, but last year, and it is obvious that Lauren Silverman has introduced a heavy dose of reality back into his - and not just with the pregnancy. What, for example, is he doing hanging out and being photographed in Café Rouge in Central London?</span></b><b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial;"><o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';">He laughs loudly. ‘We were going to the Harrrods cafe, which is outside, but there were no tables. I like the food in Café Rouge, anyway. It’s comfort food. Lauren, funnily enough, said to me: the one thing I’m going to do, Simon, is make sure you go out more, because I did get into a phase where I was having too many meetings in my house, too many dinner parties here, and she said That’s not how I want to live my life. She’s been really good for me in that respect.’</span></b><b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial;"><o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';">The question of whether he ever thought his life would change in this respect is interrupted by Squiddly lurking suspiciously on the other side of the room. ‘Is she having a pee? Squiddly! Come here!’ Simon snaps his fingers. ‘I think she just has . . . No, actually, it’s worse.’ He leaps up from the sofa, marathons across, and looks with horror at the installation Squiddly has deposited on the cream carpet. ‘Oh, great! Squiddly! Why can’t you go outside? Squiddly! Come here! What is your problem? What is your problem? How rude is that! Great! Perfect. Perfect. Squiddly, you are disgusting. Aren’t you? Disgusting.’ Squiddly slips and slides back across the white marble, clearly thrilled that she has gained her master’s voice. When she joins Diddly back on the sofa, the pair start playing and fighting like two over-excited X Factor contestants after being told they have made it through to Boot Camp, while Simon gathers his thoughts – although not before he has summoned the housekeeper to remove the damning installation.</span></b><b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial;"><o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';">‘I always hoped my life would change in this way. We get on really well and she’s completely unfazed by my job and everything that goes with it, and she loves music and is interested in the shows. She’s made me just do more normal things again – and it’s very positive. We went down to Santa Monica pier, went on the wheel, all that kind of stuff, and I like that.’</span></b><b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial;"><o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';">So would he say this the happiest he has been in his life? ‘I think so, yes. It’s not been the easiest year, and nothing’s easy at the moment because it’s so competitive, but I really have much less stress than I used to have. I’ve just been given a clean bill of health, which surprised them given that I smoke and drink, I’ve lost a lot of weight and I work out regularly. Even though it was a stressful year, I learned how to cope with it, so now, when we’re having work issues and stuff like that, I look at it as a challenge rather than a problem.’</span></b><b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial;"><o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';">He invites me into the garden to show me the pool where Lauren has taught Squiddly how to swim. As the dog dips a tentative paw into the water, Diddly is nowhere to be seen. ‘Diddly! Diddly! calls a frantic Simon. ‘Oh, there he is.’</span></b><b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial;"><o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';">One can only imagine how those paternal instincts are going to kick in, come February. Mad dogs and Englishman – and a baby. Surely, there’s a movie in that.<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4691623879738471216.post-81109286480017404122014-04-03T14:23:00.003-07:002014-11-04T06:35:08.028-08:00Will Gardner is Dead - The World Mourns<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;">So far, it’s been a very traumatic year in my TV viewing life. First came the news that my daily lunchtime fix, the courtroom show Judge Alex, was ending; then Harvey Specter found himself a girlfriend in Suits (she will, quite simply, have to go); and, last week, The Good Wife killed off Will Gardner. That’s three of the men in my life suddenly out of reach.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;">Tears were shed over Judge Alex; spitting blood was more the case with Harvey; while with Will, I have entered a depression so deep, we are talking coma.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;">How the cast and crew kept Will’s death (I can hardly bear to write those words) a secret for a year is, in itself, a small miracle. Josh Charles, who plays him (utterly brilliantly) . . . I should say played now, I suppose . . . will undoubtedly go on to do other great things; but that doesn’t lessen the devastation on the part of fans of this terrific show.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;">You will notice a common theme here – all the above-mentioned shows relate to the law in some way. I have always been, and am, fascinated by the law. At one stage in my life, I was going to train as a barrister, but on reflection I think I would rather play a lawyer than be one: fewer exams – and you may get to see Gabriel Macht (Harvey Specter) with his kit off.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;">I put it all down to doing The Merchant of Venice at a very early age. Durham Road Junior School in Newport started its kids young with Shakespeare – I was eight, to be precise. I recall the horror when the money lender Shylock set the bond of a pound of flesh, should Antonio fail to repay his loan (I was, and remain in adulthood, happier about the idea of borrowing money you will never be able to afford to pay back). </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;">But then I was even more horrified when Antonio got out of the deal on the grounds that Shylock could have his pound of flesh, provided that he did not shed a drop of Antonio’s blood when taking it. Even aged eight, I knew that this was some smart defense lawyer (apologies to British readers for my having adopted US spelling; I am an attorney now, you know), but I felt that it was a very unfair loophole. Call yourself a Christian, Antonio? At least Jesus took death on the chin like a real man.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt;">I’ve always thought that being a defense lawyer must be a lot tougher than being a prosecutor. If they’re in court in the first place, they must be guilty, that’s my instant reaction (Guilty until proven more guilty, in other words). In defense, you have to come up with so many more ridiculous excuses. Take the televised trial of Oscar Pistorius case going on in South Africa at the moment. He claims that he accidentally shot his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp, mistaking her for a burglar on the other side of the bathroom door. Neighbours claim to have heard her terrified screams; Pistorius’s defense lawyer is arguing that the athlete screams like a girl. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt;">Frighteningly, I think the judge (there is no jury in the case – how weird is that?) might go for it, not least because the defense lawyer, Gene Hackman lookalike Barry Roux, has cut a rather impressive figure. “Teeeellll me,” he says, in his thick South African accent, “how keeeen eeeet beeee. . . ?” And off he goes with his absurd, unbelievable concoction of stories about cricket bats and gunshots and men who scream like girls when they’ve just committed murder. “Eeeeet keeeennnnnnnot beeeee!” he insists, at every turn; and, for a moment, you sort of believe him.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;">Then, reality hits home, and, quite frankly, I’m not buying into the girlie screaming defense. If you can win an Olympic medal with a couple of blades strapped to the leg stumps you’ve had from birth, I imagine you done all the girlie screaming you’ll ever need in one lifetime. Let’s get Oscar on the stand, poke him with a very hot stick, and let’s test that screaming is what I say.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;">Alas, the case has been halted because one of the two assessors who accompany the judge has been taken ill. If she can’t return, the whole case will have to start again from scratch; I suspect Barry is already clearing a space on his mantelpiece for that Oscar he undoubtedly deserves – in both senses of the word.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;">Anyway, back to the lovely Will Gardner. Will is – or, rather, was – a very good defense lawyer. In fact, it was defending his client that got him shot, when the man grabbed a police officer’s gun and went berserk in the courtroom. I still haven’t quite worked out why one of Will’s shoes came off in the fracas, but then I haven’t seen Sunday’s flashback episode yet, which might explain why a man so fastidious in his work can’t tie his shoelaces properly.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;">I’m going to have to wait a few weeks before seeing it, too, as I’m off traveling again (or travelling, as they say in the UK). I'll be going back to LA via New York, where I would love to meet Joey Jackson, the defense lawyer expert who regularly appears on Vinnie Politan’s On the Case show on HLN (Vinnie’s another hot lawyer, by the way – again, in both senses of the word; and he’s a prosecutor, to boot). With Judge Alex, Harvey Specter and Will Gardner out of my life, it’s my new fix.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt;">I tell you: Joey could get Judas off on the grounds that he thought the 30 pieces of silver were chocolate coins. I’ve told him that if I’m ever in trouble, I want him heading up my team. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt;">And if he fails in his duty, let’s just hope it’ll be Judge Alex, Harvey Specter or Will Gardner putting me in the handcuffs.</span></div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4691623879738471216.post-43942344105949501012014-02-02T10:39:00.001-08:002014-02-05T01:35:59.785-08:00My Oscar Winning Performance on Judge Alex<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">My life’s work is
complete. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Yes, finally, I
have made my debut on American television. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Harvey Specter’s
love interest in Suits? Will’s love interest in The Good Wife? Judge Alex
Ferrer’s love interest in Judge Alex?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">You will notice
in my list of hopeful projects that I have a certain penchant for law and
lawyers. I always have. In fact, so enthusiastic has been my desire to fight
for justice, my insurance company stopped supplying legal insurance because
they found that the people who took it out were the most litigious. Well, one
person in particular, to be precise. Faulty goods, stolen bicycles, bad repairs
– there is very little in life that I cannot meet with a response of “See you
in court.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">In Los Angeles, I
took a landlady to court for withholding a ridiculous chunk of my apartment
deposit. I won. My obsessive addiction to the court show Judge Alex had not
been in vain.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">At present, I am
embroiled in heated discussions with a matchmaking agency who simply did not
deliver what they said on the tin. I specifically said I wanted a tall man – I
have never been out with anyone under six feet, despite being only five feet
myself. I told them I wanted a man who could protect me from a bear. They
hooked me up with a hobbit.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">So, if and when I
was going to appear on American television, it was inevitable it was going to
be in court in some capacity, and hopefully not in front of Judge Judy when
Judge Alex took out a restraining order against me.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">And, at last,
there I was, on Friday, on screen, in the front row of the audience at a taping
of Judge Alex in Los Angeles. A Facebook friend posted a still of me, sitting
behind a litigant. A very large litigant, actually, who kept blocking my view
of my hero. My expression is all but screaming “Get out of my way, bitch!”
although I managed to resist being thrown out for contempt of court, even
though contempt for the orange eyesore is etched all over my face.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Alas, this is the
last series of the show, so I feel I am now part of television history. Readers
of this blog will know how upset I was when my iPad was stolen and I thought I
had lost the interview I conducted with the Judge in Miami (actually,
“conducted” gives me an air of respectability I recall not having had on the
day; the interview I “drooled” might be closer to the truth), so the
cancellation of the show was always going to be a hara-kiri moment. Every time
I see the Fox logo now (it is they who have pulled the show), I spit blood.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Now, I’d like to
tell you that my courtroom performance was an award winning masterpiece, but
apart from the whiplash I suffered as a result of locking my neck at a 90
degree angle to keep the Judge in my line of vision throughout, I was strangely
unmemorable. It was, however, a performance of sublime control. No rushing up
to the Bench and trying to rip the Judge’s robe off; no trying to bribe Mason
the bailiff to get me closer; no begging the litigant to swop places with me;
no begging the Judge to handcuff me.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Maybe someone
will spot my talent. Maybe Suits will call and hook me up with Harvey; maybe
The Good Wife will get in touch, realising that Alicia should never have been
Will’s love interest and that what he needed all along was a short, dark, Welsh
TV critic.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Or maybe someone
will offer me a role in a movie as a hobbit. If all that fails, trust me on one
thing: this will not be my last court appearance. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">I’m betting my
bail money on it. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4691623879738471216.post-28895860649445849292014-01-21T08:39:00.002-08:002014-01-21T08:39:15.450-08:00Judge Alex Finale - My Box Will Never Be the Same<div style="margin: 0.1pt 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;">The world as I know it has come to an end. </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;"></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;">Traumatised doesn’t even begin to cover it. Shocked, devastated, appalled, wrecked . . . I could go on . . . And will . . . Horrified, stunned, depressed.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;"></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;">After nine years on the air, the TV show Judge Alex has not been renewed.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;"></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;">Readers of this blog will be familiar with my enthusiasm for the courtroom show presided over by the world’s funniest and most handsome man (okay, Gabriel Macht is up there with him, but Suits, in which he plays hotshot lawyer Harvey Specter, is still on the air, so bear with me in my grief). </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;"></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;">I religiously watch Judge Alex live when it airs on weekdays and, last year, had the privilege not only of being in the show’s audience, but of meeting Judge Alex himself. Several times. I didn’t get to where I am in life by being a shrinking violet. </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;"></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;">I’ve eaten judges for breakfast (No munching jokes yet, please, this is serious stuff). In one fell swoop, my lunchtime handcuffs/de-robing fantasy life has been wiped out.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;"></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;">It is astonishing, given all the Kardashian, Real Housewives, Bachelor/ette crap around, that Fox is ditching the smartest, funniest and most brilliantly edited show on TV. It provides an endless source of entertainment in an arena where Fraggle Rock meets Sesame Street in its vast array of litigants; it provokes laugh aloud humour not only through Judge Alex’s quick witted repartee and stern commands, but his relationship with his bailiff, Mason; it is far and away the most compulsive courtroom show and, let’s not deny it, the best deliverer of eye candy for the female population (on the Bench, not in the witness box, that is).</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;"></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;">So why, why, why, oh why, Fox? I am sure that the reasons for the decision are, as they always are in TV, about money, but it still hurts. Judge Alex has millions of viewers and a massive social networking following, although I can’t help feeling that if Fox had put as much publicity gusto behind the show as the fans have, we might not be in this position now.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;"></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;">Just when I’d perfected my stalking map and got myself a personal trainer to keep up with the Judge’s movements (not to mention my having gathered millions of Air Miles, should the Judge suddenly have had a massive change of plans and emigrated to Australia – you can never be too careful), this has to happen. Could the network not have put my needs above their own commercial interests for once? Selfish bastards.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;"></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;">So, what next for Judge Alex, I wonder? </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;"></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;">I would love to see him present a talk show, or a satirical current affairs programme. Or he could turn to acting, perhaps. Couldn’t they find a role for him in Suits? Then I could save on stalking time and pursue him and Gabriel Macht as a double act. </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;"></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="margin: 0.1pt 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;">Who knows, they might end up fighting over me; I might become a Trophy Stalker. I feel there’s a movie there somewhere. With his fine dress sense, I could see him in politics, too. I am already a little tearful in case he takes that path and gets assassinated. What would I wear to the funeral? No, no, I couldn’t bear it. I’d have to be burnt alive on the coffin like they do in India. Sometimes, I think I have an over-active imagination.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;"></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0.1pt 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;"></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0.1pt 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;">With his intelligence, humour, talent, drop-dead gorgeous looks and great personality, I am certain he won’t be short of offers and, if he’s really stuck, I am currently looking for a new cleaner. Pinny provided, your honour. Just a </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;">pinny.</span></div>
<div style="margin: 0.1pt 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin: 0.1pt 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;">And, by the way, I really can eat judges for breakfast. </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;"></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0.1pt 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin: 0.1pt 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;">Okay, you can start on the munching jokes now.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4691623879738471216.post-77493711722234319272013-08-09T10:18:00.003-07:002016-03-01T07:20:35.615-08:00Catching up with the Angel Gabriel - in a Suit<span style="font-family: times; font-size: 12pt;">And so, I am finally up to speed
with Suits.</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 12.0pt;">My broken heart at having had to
delay my trip back to LA was finally mended yesterday when I sat down to watch
the four episodes of Suits I had missed when in the UK.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 12.0pt;">There is nothing quite like the
excuse of jet-lag to enable you to don a dressing gown and lounge on the sofa
with a glass of wine in one hand and the remote in another.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 12.0pt;">The fabulous Patrick J. Adams, who
plays Mike Ross, appears to have grown a foot, and now spends more time kissing
than talking, which is a good thing for viewers, although less good for the
firm, I suspect.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Gabriel Macht is even more beautiful
than I remember him. The hair and the suits of his character, Harvey Specter,
are perfect, every follicle and stitch a tribute to the make-up and costume
departments who make this faultless specimen of manhood possible. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Then there’s Harvey’s hunger for
power – never more impressive and sexy than when his back is against the wall
(which brings me to another fantasy, but enough dribbling for one day. But
gosh, he is beautiful).</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 12.0pt;">It is, quite simply, fabulous TV, and now I will be living
for Tuesdays for the foreseeable future. So don’t call, don’t drop in, just
leave me to my angel.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 12.0pt;">I’ve also been catching up on
Mistresses, which is as laughable as Suits is brilliant. And yet it is
strangely addictive. Quite why Joss (Jes Macallan) has chosen to be a lesbian
with the clingy Alex (Shannyn Sossamon), when she had a bloke who could get her
bra off in one flick of a light switch movement, is anybody’s guess, but she’s
still my favourite.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Savi (Alyssa Milano) has good taste
in necklaces, but why do her eyelashes permanently look as if they are trying
to do a runner from her face? Give them a visa and they’ll be off, I’m telling
you.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 12.0pt;">April (Rochelle Aytes) is prettiest
of the bunch, but it’s a bit of a bummer that her dead husband turned out not to
be dead, after all. Still, she should have been grateful for the extra customer
in the shop. Has she sold ANYTHING since the series began?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 12.0pt;">And then there’s Karen (Yunjin Kim),
who stares into the middle distance while speaking in a voice that is so tiny,
it could send a tiger into hibernation. Will they ever manage to excavate a
personality? Will she ever get her fringe cut? Will she ever manage to get
another patient, now that the only one she ever had is dead?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 12.0pt;">There is not a man in Mistresses to
compete with Gabriel Macht, alas, and Dominic (Jason George) is the best of a
very mediocre bunch. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 12.0pt;">But he and Savi work in a very odd
law firm that is not a patch on Harvey’s Pearson/Whatever-that-English-bloke’s-name-is-in-the-second-half-of-the-title.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 12.0pt;">They never have any clients, never
do any work, and have all their mates and spouses popping in at all hours for
casual chats.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Apart from Savi and Dom’s quickie,
there’s no office sex there, either, whereas in Pearson Thingummy, you can’t
even go into the photocopying room without ending up with someone else’s sticky
DNA on your hands.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 12.0pt;">British actor Max Beesley has now
joined the cast as “fixer” Stephen Huntley for a few weeks and he is ALWAYS in
the photocopying room. Let’s just say he never emerges with anything in his
hands. Not papers, anyway.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 12.0pt;">And here’s the really confusing
thing – Gary Cole, who plays Harvey’s nemesis, Cameron Dennis, in Suits, is
also ballistics expert Kurt McVeigh and on-off lover of Diane in that other
great legal drama, The Good Wife. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Anyway, Suits is back, and that’s all I
care about. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 12.0pt;">My Angel Gabriel is flying high once
more.</span></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4691623879738471216.post-76485593685418688692013-07-20T03:13:00.003-07:002013-07-20T03:13:32.984-07:00The Angel Gabriel
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<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12pt;">For months,
I have been waiting. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12pt;">Months of
longing, tears and frustration. Months of checking the TV schedules in
magazines and throwing them across the room when it failed yet again to
materialise. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12pt;">Then, a few
weeks ago, the TV announced that it would be returning on June 16<sup>th</sup>.
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12pt;"> <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12pt;">I stayed
in. Waited again. More longing in my heart and loins. Then, I discovered that
the return date was July 16<sup>th</sup>. I was a whole month early. More
tears.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12pt;"> <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12pt;">But this
week, it returned. Suits. The brilliant, fantastically produced, stunningly
written, Suits. Even repeating the word thrills me. Suits. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12pt;"> <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12pt;">Gabriel
Macht in a suit. A handsome, sexy man playing handsome, sexy lawyer Harvey
Specter. In a suit. Gabriel, my angel.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12pt;"> <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12pt;">And all
would have been well with the world, had I not been in the UK. I would never
have booked that flight, had I known the television trauma I was about to
endure: awake at 5am in my UK bed, unable to sleep, knowing what I was missing
thousands of miles away on the other side of the world.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12pt;"> <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12pt;">My flight
schedule meant that when I returned to the US on Wednesday, I would have had
two episodes to watch. Delayed gratification is good, I reasoned. But I have
had to change my flight again, as I have the chance to interview Eva Longoria
in Spain at the beginning of August. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12pt;">It was a
tough call – the world’s most beautiful woman versus the world’s most beautiful
man. Eva won out. By the time I return to the US, there will be five episodes
of Suits to catch up on. I just hope that the delayed gratification doesn’t
kill me before I get my hands on the remote.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12pt;"> <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12pt;">I don’t
know anyone who doesn’t love Suits, which is also perfectly cast, with not a
glimmer of a weak link in the chain. Macht is, quite simply superb. When I
recently bumped into E L James, author of 50 Shades of Grey, I begged her to
get Macht cast in the lead role of Christian Grey. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12pt;">He really
would be perfect. Please, please, please. He’d be great. On and on and on I
went. Alas for her, flying at 35,000 feet, she had no escape route. I just pray
it lodged somewhere.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12pt;"> <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12pt;">Specter’s
sidekick, Mike Ross, played by Patrick J. Adams, is the maverick turned good
guy to Specter’s mean and bad. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12pt;">And Rick
Hoffman’s Louis Litt is a character with barely one redeeming feature, and
whose attempts to be a better person are always doomed to failure as a result
of his weaknesses – namely, paranoia and insecurity. But it is those weaknesses
with which the audience identifies, and that is why we still like him.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12pt;">The USA
Network is my favourite station -
my other big worry at the moment is the date of the season premiere of White
Collar; I am very worried about what is happening to Peter in jail. Maybe that,
too, has already returned, and, when I finally get back to the US, I will be
able to spend an entire week in my dressing gown, catching up.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12pt;">In the meantime,
Twitter people, stop giving the game away in Tweets before the rest of us have
had chance to view. I may not be a fan of delayed gratification, but at the
moment it’s the only thing keeping me going. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12pt;">Well, that
and the fact that I’m going to meet Eva Longoria.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12pt;"> <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12pt;"> <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12pt;"> <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<!--EndFragment-->Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4691623879738471216.post-21017201613792764132013-06-29T11:05:00.002-07:002013-06-29T11:05:39.041-07:00Overdosing on Judge Alex, Zimmerman and CNN
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<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 14.0pt;">Is it possible to overdose on Judge Alex? Is it possible to
overdose on court TV in general? Do I really need to know the minutiae of
Florida law, when I live in California? Am I really a closet criminal/juror/lawyer?
Am I just finding more reasons for avoiding the work I should actually be doing?</span><span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 14.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span><span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 14.0pt;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 14.0pt;">These, and many questions like them, have been occupying me
this week as I have sat down to watch the minute by minute coverage of the
George Zimmerman trial. For those not in the know, he is on trial for the
murder (Second Degree) of 17 year old, unarmed Trayvon Martin, whom he claims
he shot in self-defence – or defense, as I now have to write it (along with
color, favor etc. . . . but that’s another story). </span><span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"></span>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 14.0pt;">So far, so relatively straightforward. But here’s the crux:
Zimmerman is white Hispanic, Trayvon was black. And the black community is up
in arms over what they perceive to be a racist killing.</span><span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 14.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span> </span><span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 14.0pt;">Actually, up in arms is putting it very mildly. They have
taken to Twitter declaring that Zimmerman will be raped and/or killed if he
goes to jail, and certainly killed if he “walks” and tries to resume normal
life.</span><span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 14.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span><span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 14.0pt;">I am gripped. I am gripped by everything. </span><span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 14.0pt;">Why George has put on so much weight (he hasn’t just eaten
all the pies, he’s eaten the factory that made them), for example? Why is the
Prosecution<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>fielding witnesses
that help the Defense (more of that anon)? Why had the Prosecution’s “star”
witness, Rachel Jeantel (who was the last person to speak to Trayvon on the
night he was killed), not been coached beforehand (“You listenin’?” she
aggressively asked Defense Attorney Don West)? When the judge announces that
the jurors’ lunch has “arrived”, what is it? <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span><span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 14.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span><span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 14.0pt;">In my office, during the day, I have the live feed from Fox
35 in Orlando, where the trial is taking place. In my living room, I have the
trial live on CNN, but with intermittent analysis. At night, I watch HLN and
Fox, and Anderson Cooper and Piers Morgan on CNN.</span><span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 14.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span> </span><span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 14.0pt;">Judge Alex Ferrer, whose courtroom show Judge Alex
entertains me every weekday at 2pm, has been on everything. He seems to be the
only person who is up to speed on Florida law (such as the reasons behind the
prosecution having to field witnesses that potentially damage them) and the
legalities of a case that has “experts” responding emotively, rather than
delivering unbiased opinion. Women with big hair and tombstone teeth shout at
frightened men with glasses as they all try to second-guess what the jury is
thinking (six people – allowed under Florida law. </span><span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 14.0pt;">You see? I am learning, so it’s technically work).</span><span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 14.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span> </span><span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 14.0pt;">The women’s dress sense varies according to age. The younger
ones go casual, like Sporty Barbie; the older ones look like Norma Desmond
after a night on the tiles. Judge Alex looks like an ad for Savile Row:
impeccably dressed, perfectly ironed (or “pressed” as I now call it over here),
shirts and exquisitely chosen matching ties. He is by far the best looking
expert and stands out as a Greek god in the Fraggle Rock of men before us, so,
naturally, I agree with everything he says.</span><span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 14.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span> </span><span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 14.0pt;">It’s not hard to do that, though, when he applies reason and
the law to the evidence. But although I have always been in favour of cameras
in the courtroom, what worries me with these big, publicity generating cases,
is that viewer access spawns a level of hysteria from people with preconceived
ideas (long before they have heard the evidence) that I suspect, with
Zimmerman, will end in violence – not least because, so far, the prosecution
(to me) is not proving its case, and he looks likely to go free, or, at most,
have the charge reduced to manslaughter.</span><span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 14.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span> </span><span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 14.0pt;">The hatred and aggression appearing on a second by second
basis on the Twitter feed that accompanies Fox 35, is truly disturbing. If they
had to weed out this kind of prejudice during jury selection, small wonder that
it took them so long (interestingly, the jury is made up of six women). These
are not people who want to pass judgment when presented with the facts of the
case; they are vigilantes who, in reality, are mimicking the very vigilante
behaviour of which they accuse George Zimmerman. This probably says more about
the nature of social networking than it does about the pros and cons of cameras
in court, but in this case, the ethics of the two seem inextricably linked.</span><span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 14.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span> </span><span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 14.0pt;">The public is nevertheless fascinated by the workings of the
law and, as Judge Alex points out elsewhere, if the public is allowed into the
courtroom (which they are in the UK, as well as the US), all the cameras are
doing is making the proceedings available to a wider audience. </span><span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 14.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span> </span><span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 14.0pt;">Steven Bochco and Terry Louise Fisher’s 1986 series LA Law
ran for eight seasons on NBC in the US and was picked up, to huge critical
acclaim, in the UK (I have every episode on videotape – remember videos? They
were those bricks you started to chuck out at the turn of the Millennium).
Dozens of law-based shows, on both sides of the Atlantic, have followed. I
reckon I have seen every episode of Law and Order: Special Victims Unit at
least half a dozen times.</span><span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 14.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span> </span><span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 14.0pt;">The truth is, that all human life can be seen in a courtroom
- love, jealousy, sex, death, prejudice, empathy, hatred – and when several of
these factors come together in a big case, it is as if we are united as an
audience in the very essence of life’s daily dramas, but magnified a thousand
fold.</span><span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 14.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span><span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 14.0pt;">I’ve missed my daily Zimmerman dose today, as the trial is
off air for the weekend. But the week’s appearances of Judge Alex are still
stored in my Time Warner Cable box, so my legal fix is never more than a click
away on the remote. Yes, I’m afraid I really am that sad.</span><span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 14.0pt;">Or just someone who really cares about nice laundry.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span><span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 14.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span><span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4691623879738471216.post-19643597697408150562013-06-16T09:58:00.003-07:002013-06-29T11:09:07.993-07:00Matthew Rhys, Nudity and Rims<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Dressing
gowns could have been invented just for watching TV. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">This week, having seen
just two episodes of The Americans in the UK, I bought and downloaded the other
11 in LA and, over two days, watched the lot. In my dressing gown. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">A couple of weeks ago, I bumped
into one of its stars, Matthew Rhys, on a Virgin flight from London to LA.
Matthew’s family lives just a couple of miles from me in Cardiff, yet it was
only in LA three years ago that I finally got to meet him. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">He
is an extraordinary actor. His
performance as gay lawyer Kevin in Brothers and Sisters was genius; no
less so
is his undercover Russian spy, Phillip Jennings, in The Americans. And
he's always getting his kit off. Always in the name of is art, of
course.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">While The Americans is not yet a
box set, increasingly viewers have turned to these packages to view shows they
have missed. More than anything, it saves time. No ads, no having to remember
to set your Sky Plus or TIVO – you just slob out on the sofa for 12 hours with
an Indian takeaway and a bottle of Rioja and forget to shower as you become
immersed in the story.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">I watch way too much TV. There
are episodes of Law and Order: Special Victims Unit and Cold Case I have seen
several times over. My daytime fix, the courtroom show, Judge Alex, at 2pm, is
programmed into my Record list, and I am currently watching repeats of shows I
first saw just weeks ago. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Judge Alex is like a favourite cartoon: no matter how
many times you see it, it’s still funny. I was hugely entertained this week by
a case involving heavy discussions about rims, which means something entirely different
in the US (think cars, rather than body parts). Call me easily amused, but
hearing Judge Alex say “rims” just made me giggle. A lot. Like I said. Easily
amused.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">On Tuesday, two of my favourite
shows, Suits and Covert Affairs return to the USA Network. Now, here’s my dilemma:
do I watch them live on the night because I would not be able to bear waiting
(nor everyone telling me on Twitter what has happened before I have seen them),
or do I wait a few weeks for a dressing down day when I can watch non-stop
(and, in the meantime, totally avoid Twitter)?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">At least if I opt for the latter,
I will avoid the American ads, which are many. I always lose weight when in the
States because these ads make me feel so ill with their surfeit of food – all
of it orange. Orange prawns, orange chicken, orange bread – no amount of colour
adjustment on my set transforms these disgusting beds of fat into anything
other than a floating sea of orange cholesterol.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">I imagine that men are as put off
sex as I am food, with ads that put the fear of God into you with the products’
side effects.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">You can get your sex drive back,
but be warned: this product may cause sweating, palpitations, liver damage,
kidney damage, headaches, nausea, brain tumours, blood clots. Then there’s the
dastardly warning; please see your doctor if you have an erection lasting
longer than eight hours. I imagine after hearing about the possible side
effects, you’d be lucky to get one at all.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">The box set saves you from the
side effects of consuming too many commercials, and if you download them, they
also save you from having your shelves cluttered up with these monstrous
cardboard bricks.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Practically the whole of my life
runs through the computer now. I have systems that enable me to watch UK TV in
the US and vice versa. My laptop is plugged into my TV so I can run everything
through my 50 inch screen. I suspect that in a few generations, nobody will
have legs, as humans will have lost their need ever to use them.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">But as it’s Sunday and there’s
not much on the TV, I’m going to do something revolutionary and take a hike up
Runyon Canyon. I may take my iPad with me, just in case I get withdrawal
symptoms and need to watch repeats of The Americans when I’m there.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Then it’ll be back home for
supper and taking my dressing gown out of the wash ready to start another TV
viewing week.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Tomorrow, on Judge Alex, the defendant Richard says he took his Bengal cat to
Kismet for breeding and to sell Bengal kittens, but was devastated when Kismet
told him his kittens had died. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Oh, please say pussy, Judge Alex. Just for me.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4691623879738471216.post-7546302467682595572013-04-18T21:38:00.003-07:002013-04-18T21:38:47.518-07:00Tattoos, Simon Cowell and Having my Day in Court with Judge Alex<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica; mso-bidi-font-size: 13.0pt;">The
first time I was in a courtroom was as a witness for the police in the UK, when
they had decided my complaint against a taxi driver warranted a case for
"rude and aggressive behaviour". </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica; mso-bidi-font-size: 13.0pt;">The
Appeals Court (he didn't turn up for the first trial - ok, a tad melodramatic,
I admit) put the problem down to there not being "enough charisma"
between us. How much charisma do you need to go from Wardour Street to Brewer
Street (less than a mile) behind a pane of glass, I asked the dumbfounded
police afterwards.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica; mso-bidi-font-size: 13.0pt;">The
second time was in LA in 2011, when I successfully sued my landlady for
non-return of a huge chunk of my deposit. Everything I put into practice I
learned from watching just one TV show: Judge Alex (follow @judgealexferrer on Twitter). And so, today, I found
myself in court for the third time: not in the handcuffs (alas) I fantasised
about when I first saw the TV show, and not, thankfully, with my being sued for
being his stalker. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica; mso-bidi-font-size: 13.0pt;">I
was there as a member of the audience, and not since I saw Simon Cowell's
enormous Winnebago (no, that is not a euphemism) on the set of American Idol a
few years back, have I been so excited.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica; mso-bidi-font-size: 13.0pt;">In
fact, so excited have I been about knowing both men, I nearly got their names
tattooed - one on each shoulder - when I was in Venice Beach a few weeks back. </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica; mso-bidi-font-size: 13.0pt;">Alcohol
had been consumed. Sobriety had been resumed when I settled for an engraved
ingot with WWSD (What Would Simon Do) on it (sorry, Judge, even semi-stalkers
have their pecking order).</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica; mso-bidi-font-size: 13.0pt;">So,
here I am on the set and I am asked where I would like to sit - on or off
camera. Anyone who knows me would know they could have just plonked me on the
Judge's bench at the outset and downgraded me from there. </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica; mso-bidi-font-size: 13.0pt;">In
fact, anyone who knows me will be surprised to learn that I was not fully
robed, gavel in hand, shouting "Action!" with the poor Judge locked
in a cupboard elsewhere on the studio lot.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica; mso-bidi-font-size: 13.0pt;">So,
I am seated second from the left in the front row, and the first person to talk
to me is an actor. So is the second. And the third. And the . . . You get my
drift. They join lists that provide audiences for studio shows such as Judge
Alex and get paid by the day. I suggest a sum and am told that yes, I am fairly
accurate for days like this. When I arrive, the team is already on show five,
and there are three more to go. They record 130 shows in a little over three
months and the five blocks of three day taping are clearly the most intense. </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica; mso-bidi-font-size: 13.0pt;">"They get paid more than
we do," says RAN 1 (the Resentful Actor Number 1 on my left, who has been
to every show today), nodding towards the hallowed ground beyond the wooden
barrier where he is penned. "When I was a litigator . . . " he
begins. I decide not to point out that he has never been, will never be, a
litigator. I also hesitate to point out that he will never be an actor, either, but
hold my tongue. (When I returned to see my second show, he was shunted off to
"Standing room". Quite right).</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica; mso-bidi-font-size: 13.0pt;">Behind
me sits RAN 2. She's a nurse. Not a real one, of course. She has been a
"background actor" in several hospital dramas, but is ready to move centre
stage. </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica; mso-bidi-font-size: 13.0pt;">"Do
a monologue - NOW!" shouts RAN 1, a little frighteningly. She stumbles. I
think of reciting Henry V's speech from the Battle of Agincourt, but in the
millisecond I take for breath, RAN 1 is already off. "I'm a Shakespearean
actor really . . . " </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica; mso-bidi-font-size: 13.0pt;">There
is a very handsome younger man behind him who has played a detective (albeit a
"background detective"). He has the kind of look that gives me the
feeling that he might just make it, and he comes to these shows to network. He
claims they have been very useful. </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica; mso-bidi-font-size: 13.0pt;">Oh,
Hollywood, I love you. The hope.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica; mso-bidi-font-size: 13.0pt;">The
tension is building and the courtroom bailiff Mason is on the set. Very cute.
Great smile. Great presence. And his gun is in my eye line. I don't known what
it is about men in uniforms and outfits, but take Judge Alex Ferrer . . . Ex-pilot,
cop, judge - oh, your honour, please avoid the medical profession; a white coat
might prove the final, fatal straw. Even as I write that sentence, I am
fantasising about your stethoscope.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica; mso-bidi-font-size: 13.0pt;">The
studio,
on Bronson in Hollywood, is all very relaxed ("Remember my
name!" whispers RAN 1) until the announcement of "The Honorable (US
spelling!) Judge Alex Ferrer", which, unlike when you watch on TV, has a
slight air of "Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome your host. . ."
about it.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica; mso-bidi-font-size: 13.0pt;">Then
he's there. And everything changes. It's like the Second Coming, albeit one a
lot more clean-shaven than the first. The cliches of tall, dark and handsome
are even more apparent under the studio lights, and from my seat I get a great
view. </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica; mso-bidi-font-size: 13.0pt;">At
least, I did, until the second case, when a very wide defendant blocked my view
of Judge Alex completely. Talk about a total eclipse of the Son (geddit? Oh, go
back few sentences). I so wanted her to lose. She did.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica; mso-bidi-font-size: 13.0pt;">The
third case even had a star guest in singer Freda Payne (most famous for the
1970 hit Band of Gold), which was very exciting. I thought the Judge got a
little too overwhelmed at her presence, but by then I was backstage with the
producers and out of striking distance of my love rival.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica; mso-bidi-font-size: 13.0pt;">The
producers were loving it. I've seen a lot of shows and know a lot of crews and
I have never seen one as united and enjoying their work as this one. They
laughed, they shared comments, they even clapped when the audience clapped. And
they cared. They absolutely cared. </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica; mso-bidi-font-size: 13.0pt;">"I
really hope she wins," said one, turning to his co-workers. And I could
tell he wanted her to. It's drama, after all, and we care about the ending (she
did, by the way, and the cheering backstage was heartfelt). </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica; mso-bidi-font-size: 13.0pt;">The
cases come from all over the US, and Judge Alex (unlike other TV courtroom
judges) conducts considerable research into each state's individual laws. With
stringers in around 25 states trawling court records, the team also has to weed
out people just looking for a free trip to Hollywood. At the studio, the rest
room door jammed my finger twice. I told Supervising Producer James that I might
sue. He jokingly suggested I could be a case on the final run of taping; even
be "the last show". </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica; mso-bidi-font-size: 13.0pt;">Oh,
James, you really don't know me, do you? I am already shopping for my outfit.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica; mso-bidi-font-size: 13.0pt;">It
is not just the research or the good looks (did I mention those?) that make
this show easily the best of the US courtroom reality shows - and one of the
best shows on TV. The Judge's intelligence, charisma and brilliant lateral
thinking are second to none. It comes across on TV, but even more so in the
studio where, of the 40 or so minutes taped, by the time you add promos, ads,
et al, roughly just 14 will make it to screen. And, having seen the live show,
I cannot heap enough praise on the seamless, incredible job they do in the
editing suite.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica; mso-bidi-font-size: 13.0pt;">Judge
Alex doesn't so much listen to the evidence, it's as if he's breathing it in,
and you can see from the initial slight smile, the information being gathered,
formulated, and finally delivered in one-liners that are as funny as those from
any comedian. I swear I have never laughed aloud so much at anyone on TV. Ever.
</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica; mso-bidi-font-size: 13.0pt;">And
this from a woman who has been watching and reviewing the genre for about 90
hours a week for three decades.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica; mso-bidi-font-size: 13.0pt;">Judge
Alex's years as a cop, lawyer and judge seem to be embedded in his DNA and,
having had some of the worst criminals before him (the forthcoming movie Pain
and Gain is based on one of his most famous cases - the Judge was asked to
appear in it but would not renege on a school engagement to which he was
already committed), he has seen the lot.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica; mso-bidi-font-size: 13.0pt;">Now,
he's clearly having fun, but his ability to combine the minutiae of law with
such immense humour is truly breathtaking - as is his incredible energy in
being able to perform so eloquently and brilliantly for so many hours under
those lights.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica; mso-bidi-font-size: 13.0pt;">And
then there are those hands: long, elegant fingers that seem to massage the
arguments as the Judge declares “Here’s where we’re at”, before delivering his
verdict. Alex Scissorhands. </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica; mso-bidi-font-size: 13.0pt;">You'll
be hearing more about the show and the Judge when I post the interview I
conducted recently with him in Miami, but just in case you're hoping for that
Jane Eyre happy ending, I'll put you out of your misery now. </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica; mso-bidi-font-size: 13.0pt;">Reader,
I didn't marry him.</span></div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4691623879738471216.post-73094500684419443932012-09-13T13:42:00.002-07:002012-09-13T13:42:17.108-07:00Matt Bomer a Christian Shock!<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Times; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Is Matt Bomer too openly a
Federal Agent and professional conman to play Christian Grey in the movie
version of the book Fifty Shades of Grey? </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Times; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Times; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Of course he is. Anyone who watches White Collar knows
the reality, and the idea that he could put his day job on hold to pretend to
be someone he is clearly not is, of course, ludicrous.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Times; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Times; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">I have to be honest, upon hearing that he was being
considered for Christian, I was shocked. How can you have a man wearing an
ankle tag, stripping off and slapping a woman around? Anastasia would be bound
to notice and comment upon it – “Hey, I can’t wait to get those handcuffs on
and have you beat me black and blue, but what’s with the leg jewellery?” Talk
about putting a dampener on the proceedings.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Times; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Times; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Heck, it’s like a man who can’t walk on water being
asked to play Jesus. </span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Times; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">If I were writing a film about the Son of God, I would
insist that the casting director check out the individual’s credentials for the
role. After the walking on water bit was established, I would insist that he
fulfil other criteria essential to convince us that he is Jesus. </span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Times; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Was he born in
a stable? Was his mother a virgin? Can he turn water into wine and wine into
blood? Can he transform a couple of sardines and a baguette into a feast for 5000?
Can he persuade a dozen fishermen to leave their families and go on a road
trip? Most important of all, can he rise from the dead? </span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Times; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Unless the actor’s life
completely resonated with the character I had written, he would not get the
part.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Times; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Robert Powell would never have landed the part of
Jesus had he not displayed all these qualities at the audition, and the fact
that he is still with us is evidence that he really did rise from the dead.
Rumours of a Second Coming have, however, been greatly exaggerated. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Times; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Times; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Similarly, Daniel Radcliffe had obviously served a
long apprenticeship as a wizard before he landed the role of Harry Potter. How
else could he have mastered all those tricks? And if bicycles were not really
able to fly, what would be the point of watching ET? </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Times; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Times; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">The importance of art mimicking life to the letter
provides a particularly pertinent point when it comes to casting gay men as
straight and vice versa. Could David Hyde Pierce have delivered so convincing
and hilarious a performance, lusting after Daphne in Frasier, if he were gay?
Of course not. It was clearly something that only a full-blooded heterosexual
hunk could have mustered.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Times; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Times; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Would How I Met Your Mother be remotely funny if it
contained gay people purporting to be straight, all in the name of
entertainment? How ridiculous would that be? <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Times; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Times; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">If people start pretending to be people they are not,
where does that leave us as a society? It’s like telling someone they have
licence to be a chameleon, casting a spell over the lives of others to help them
suspend their disbelief. What sort of a world would it be, if everyone went
around kicking reality in the teeth? </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Times; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Times; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Before long, you would have special schools set up to
teach people the art of this deception. People might start paying to go and see
it, even. They might start giving out awards for some people doing it better
than others.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Times; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Times; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">So, Mr Bomer, I find it inconceivable that, having
returned to New York to continue your work with the Feds, you could convince me
that you spend your days in a basement, constructing wooden crucifixes on which
to fix women with ropes and chains. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Times; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Times; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">That is a job for a man with psycho tendencies.
Someone who might conjure up the image of a hungry rodent in a woman’s vagina,
feasting on her sexual organs to induce a slow death, for example. But you
would have to ask Bret Easton Ellis about that.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Times; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Times; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">If this deception thing ever takes off – stranger
things have happened - I have no doubt you could pull off the part of Christian
Grey brilliantly, and I would pay good money to see it. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Times; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">In the meantime, back
in the real world, look after Peter. He’s a good friend.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Times; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Times; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Times; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Times; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4691623879738471216.post-2943050122481109582012-09-13T13:40:00.002-07:002012-09-13T13:40:40.300-07:00Dallas, Dallas, Wherefore Art Thou, Dallas?<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">You know you’re old when the oil barons are getting younger. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">The remake
of Dallas has brought us a new breed of Texan magnates who look barely out of
their Lego and I don’t like them one little bit. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">At best, Bobby’s son
Christopher is Thunderbirds’ Scott Tracy after a day at the spa; at worst,
Norman Bates after a week of bad bookings. JR’s son Christopher has a walrus
sitting on his face and is about as sexy as . . . well, a walrus sitting on
your face.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>John Ross’s and
Christopher’s fathers, who were once such magnetic personalities, are no longer
appealing, either. JR’s eyebrows look as if they need their own Visa to enter
the country, and Bobby looks as if he has had the kind of eye-lift that turns
people Chinese overnight; in fact, his eyes appear to have been eaten by his
forehead. Lucy looks as if she has spent 20 years eating all the pies she never
got to consume when the wind swept the food away every morning on the breakfast
terrace, and all the allegedly glamorous women make a Stepford Wife look like
Personality of the Millennium.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">I so, so wanted to
like it; but it is bad. So, so bad. Lame writing, lame acting, and a lame
Bobby, who keeps clutching his leg in pain, as the cancer he is trying to keep
secret takes hold. Sue Ellen appears to be the only character who has survived
the fallout. And Linda Gray still brilliantly plays it for the laugh it always
was.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I first watched
Dallas when it was broadcast in the UK on BBC2 in the afternoon; I think I was
probably its first UK fan. Although I did not know the term soap opera when
growing up, I knew it must be something very, very naughty, because my parents
always sent me to my room when Peyton Place was on. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Never having watched
Coronation Street, I took to Dallas because of the shoulder pads, the pools,
the glamour. It was a world so far removed from my own in South Wales, I could
fantasise about riches, fine clothes, magnificent dinners, and take joy in the
knowledge that for every material wealth these people had, they were still
miserable as hell. That made me happy. Being poor. With no fine clothes. And,
in a bad week, rather hungry.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I specially liked
Dallas’s annual Oil Barons Ball, where the oil magnates would gather to
celebrate the industry but end up fighting and/or murdering each other. WestStar
oil head honcho Jeremy Wendell always featured heavily on these occasions,
though I swear he never washed his shirt from one year to the next.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Dallas lost its
credibility with the “death” of Bobby, quickly resurrected and made the subject
of wife Pam’s dream, when the ratings plummeted following the departure of Patrick
Duffy, who played him.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The biggest problem
was that the sister show, Knot’s Landing, was still in production and had a lot
of episodes in the can; so Bobby’s brother Gary continued to grieve on one
channel, telling everyone how momma had never been the same since Bobby’s
death, and nobody ever bothered to tell him that an entire year had all been in
his head.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">But it was the
ludicrousness – the complete lack of believability – that, strangely, made it
work. The new mob are playing it as if they have landed parts in Henry V, and
they are about as menacing as a dead mouse in a Camembert. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">After two episodes,
I’ve already wiped it from my “series record”; life really is too short. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">And I
really, really don’t want to watch Bobby dying from cancer – well, not unless
he emerges wet and glistening and we discover that it was Christopher’s dream
after all. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4691623879738471216.post-83197510716655127032012-03-25T17:29:00.004-07:002012-03-25T18:02:22.427-07:00Marc's Cherry On The Cake 3/25/12Nicollette Sheridan’s Edie Britt did not stick out like a sore thumb on Desperate Housewives; it was more of a sore torso.<br />
<br />
The final series of what has, for me, been one of the most brilliant TV dramas ever, is ending with more than a touch of controversy (and I don’t just mean Mike’s inability to buy a change of shirt). Nicollette Sheridan has been in court, suing the show’s creator, Marc Cherry. She claims that he got rid of her for reasons other than those he claimed (you will have to read up on this elsewhere; I don’t want to enter the legal minefield), and it’s allegedly all heading back to court.<br />
<br />
Obviously, I know nothing of any of this, other than what I have read about the court proceedings, but as a TV critic, I was always 100% behind Sheridan’s departure – in fact, as passionately as I was against her arrival in the first place. To me, her character never worked; she just sort of landed on Wisteria Lane with about as much at-home-ness as ET arriving to address the Senate.<br />
<br />
It wasn’t just that she was new. The central four – Gabby (Eva Longoria), Bree (Marcia Cross), Susan (Teri Hatcher), Lynette (Felicity Huffman) – have made relationships with several newcomers, including, among my favourites, the character of Katherine, played by the sensational Dana Delaney (now the star of Body of Proof). <br />
<br />
I could just never get to grips with who Edie was supposed to be. She was a vamp, certainly, yet without the charm of vampishness that Vanessa Williams has brought to the part of Renee – who, despite outward appearances, still has layers that often expose her vulnerability. By comparison with both Renee and the foursome, Edie was . . . well, very one-dimensional and predictable.<br />
<br />
I’ve been pondering these matters today as I’ve sat indoors, despite it being a beautiful sunny day outside, catching up with the series – the eighth, which will be its last. If you’re in the UK and watching Channel 4, don’t read on if you don’t want to know what’s coming up (even though some papers have already ruined the surprise).<br />
<br />
I’ve been weeping uncontrollably at Mike’s funeral, as characters’ flashbacks of him steer them in different directions in their lives. If you are still reading, you would be well advised to stock up on Kleenex as you prepare to say goodbye to this wonderful character – and Hatcher delivers her best performance ever. <br />
<br />
Yes, yes, I know that it will be the end for everyone soon, and I have stocked up on tissues for that day, too (anyone on for a DH end-of-life party, by the way?); but Mike’s death took me by surprise.<br />
<br />
I don’t know how I’m going to live without the show. Eva Longoria’s beauty and Gabby’s hilarious selfishness; evil Orson and his determination to destroy Bree, the wife who spurned him; the gorgeous Tom, who has yet to realise that Lynette and he belong together; Susan as grandmother, supporting her daughter as she prepares to become a mother – I have loved every minute (even the daft bits). <br />
<br />
It’s a shame for everyone that it’s ending on such a sour note and in court; but for some of us, Ms Sheridan’s exit really was the Cherry on the cake – literally and metaphorically.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0