Going, Going, Gone Girl - Here's Hoping

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.

   

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.

   

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.

  

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.

   

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. 

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).

   

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.

   

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.

   

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.

   

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).

   

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.

   

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). 

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!”

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.

   

It is, alas, 149 minutes I will never get back. Gone Girl? 

Going, going, gone girl - forever, I hope.

    

Keeping the Wolf from the Door

Law and Order: SVU. 

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?

   

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.

   

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.

   

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.

   

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.

   

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!

   

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.

   

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.

   

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.

   

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.

   

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. 

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.

   

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. 

My real life is over unless I find a means to keep Dick Wolf out of my living room.

  

   

Mistresses - Season Finale or Burial?

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.

   

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.

   

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.

   

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.

   

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.

   

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).

   

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.

   

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.

   

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.

   

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.

   

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.

   

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.

   

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.

   

And, of course, that Daniel keeps getting his kit off for the girls.

    

   

   

A Labor of Loving Burgers - and Mistresses

So, it’s Labor Day in New York and, as in LA, I have been invited to nothing. 

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.

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.

   

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.

   

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.

   

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.

   

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?).

   

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.

   

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).

   

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.

Happy holidays, everyone. 

And it’s not too late to invite me to your barbecue.

    

Will Gardner is Not Dead . . . In My Dreams

The Good Wife returns to CBS on 21^st 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.

   

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.

   

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.

   

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.

   

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.

   

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.

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.

   

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).

   

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.

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.

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.

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.

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 
his mortality.

   

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.

   

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.

   

Which brings me back to that shower theme . . . Come on, Will. Get yer kit off. 

Even if all turns out to be a dream.

   

Loving Jaci's Box

What a great week. 

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.

   

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).

   

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.

   

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?”

   

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?

   

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.

   

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?

   

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.

   

While there is Suits on the telly, there is hope.

   

A Globe in the Hand is Worth Two in the Basket

An hour is a long time in a laundry basket.  

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.

   

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.

   

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.’

   

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.’ 

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.’

Then there was Leonardo di Caprio - "I really love your work." My friend had persuaded me not to say "Phew! You survived the ship!" which had been my first choice of introduction.

   

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.’

   

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.

   

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.

   

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?

   

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?

   

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). 

I had just flown from Miami, where I had interviewed the divine Judge Alex, whose name fronts the best reality courtroom series on TV.

   

There is only so much hanging on a girl can do, and well into my Fifties now, I realise that dignity must come first. 

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. 

Trust me. I’m a gate-crasher.  

Eva Longoria, Me and the C Word

Cock.

   

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”).

   

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.”

   

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.

   

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.

   

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.

    

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”).

   

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.

  

“I only ever do interviews of 15 minutes,” she sweetly explained, as I spluttered disbelief. Really? Fifteen minutes, for 2000 words?

  

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.

   

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.

   

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.

   

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.

   

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.

   

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?”

   

It all comes flooding back. 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.

   

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.

   

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.

   

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.

   

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.

   

“Oh, no,” she said. “I eat. I eat a lot. I really love my food.”

   

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.

  

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.”

   

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.”

   

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.

   

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.

   

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.

  

    

Courting Judge Alex

Not since I met David Essex 25 years ago have I been this excited.

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.

  

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! 

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^th 2005 and in September 2013 begins series nine.

  

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 get to the sexual nitty-gritty in which the other judges showed relatively little interest.

Let’s say you stole a vase from your ex-boyfriend’s mother’s house. Within seconds, Judge Alex would manage to extract from you exactly how many times mom and pop had had sex before they bought the vase (and in which positions), where said vase was on the dresser the last time they had sex before it was stolen, and even whether the vase was used for any improper purposes before it took up residence in the new (illegal) home.

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.

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.

  

Clearly, he hadn’t bargained on my expert use of Air Miles, and that’s why I’m in Miami. But don't worry; it’s a very thick line between a stalker and a de-robing fetishist.

  

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.

  

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.

  

“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.”

  

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.

  

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.”

  

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.

  

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?

  

“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.”

  

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!).

  

“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.”

  

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.

  

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.

  

“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.”

  

When the opportunity came around again, it was a “fork in the road” moment.  

   

“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.”

  

While awaiting an interview with the Governor, TV came knocking again, and therein lay the dilemma.

   

“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.”

  

He decided to take the plunge after talking with his good friend Marilyn Milian, host of another daytime court show, The People’s Court.

  

“I knew she enjoyed it and so when an approach was made two years after the first by 20^th 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.”

  

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.

  

“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.”

  

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…

  

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.”

  

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.

  

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).

  

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.

  

“So, what else do you want to ask?” he says, when he returns an hour later.

  

“Will you marry me?”

Damn. And I had been doing so well.

Blame it on the DUI.

                                                                                        ***

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