How to organise a William Atherton film festival without really trying: part 1

Last spring I was bored, so I decided to half-heartedly organise a film festival to honour William Atherton, the actor who had bit parts in such films as Ghostbusters and Die Hard. It never happened in the end, but as I can’t think about much new to write about this week, I thought I’d recount the saga to you in two epistolary instalments. It started like this:

Date: 25 May 2005

Dear film fan,

You are formally invited to the William Atherton film festival, a day of devotion to the actor who has made a career out of playing scowling bureaucrats. For those unfamiliar with the Atherton template, he is best know as Walter Peck, the fucking idiot who shut down the containment unit in Ghostbusters, thereby unleashing mayhem upon New York City. He also shone in Die Hard as Richard Thornburg, the fucking idiot who did lots of coke then tried to befriend terrorist Hans Gruber. Atherton followed up this role wonderfully in Die Hard 2 by using his phone on the plane and generally annoying Holly McClane.

The festival will take place on Atherton's birthday, the 30th of July. The programme will run as follows:

2pm: Die Hard (Atherton as Richard Thornburg)

4pm: Real Genius (Atherton as Prof Jerry Hathaway)

6pm: Speeches

8pm: Lecture by Dr William Parkhouse:
"Captain, these men are in criminal violation of the Environmental Protection Act!" Atherton and the role of the subconscious in Ghostbusters

9pm: Lecture by Professor Paul Tadich:
"It's true your honour, this man has no dick." A discussion of ambiguity in Atherton's work

10pm: Ghostbusters (Atherton as Walter Peck)

12midnight: Close

I look forward to joining you in celebrating the genius of William Atherton.

Yours,
Dalyell Road film committee

P.S. This is not a hoax.

Who Maimed Roger Rabbit?

It was reported today (Reuters) that China has banned any programmes that combine animation with live actors. Why? Because they'll "jeopardise the broadcasting order of home-made animation and mislead their development".

The best part of the story for me was the fact the film Babe (the one with the talking pig) is banned in China, "on the grounds that animals don't talk".

Read about more film genres banned in China

The Stockwell flats: gloom

Here's one from a couple of weeks back. If you're reading this from somewhere that isn't England, you're a lucky bastard.

Pipettes plaudit

Click here to read my review of The Pipettes new single, Your Kisses Are Wasted On Me.

And listen to it here.

Old jokes retold

Q. Why did the chicken cross the road?
A. Because it was infected with a deadly avian flu virus and WE’RE ALL GOING TO DIE THE CRAZY BIRDS MUST BE STOPPED AT ALL COSTS SEIZE THEM YOU FOOLS.

In the words of The West Wing’s great Donna Moss, "Now I know how Tippi Hedren felt."

Mike's Big Fat Gay Wedding

Saturday was Mike's big day, so at 1.30 I was standing in the lobby of Brixton registry office (next door to The Fridge), feeling quite nervous on his behalf. We’d just seen two young newlyweds coming out, looking very cute, but both as if they were about to be sick with remorse. Their family followed behind them like a crowd of silent mourners.

We were eventually called from the lobby area. We filed passed the bereavement room and all 30 of us crowded into a small and overheated room dominated by a very big table. The Wedding Table. Mike, Nick and their respective best men all sat down at The Table. There were about four chairs for guests, so the rest of us had to stand, crushed together like we were seeing the latest hotly-tipped beat combo in The Shithole and Firkin.

What followed was short, but sweet, the bare bones of the marriage ceremony. It started with the usual "is there any reason why these two may not..." thing. Later I found the official HM Government Civil Partnership handbook; I wished I’d had it earlier so I could have waved it in the air and shouted, "According to section 12A, subsection D7, this wedding is wholly illegal AND MUST BE STOPPED."

Anyway, there were no objections, and everything proceeded smoothly. Something that hadn’t occurred to me about weddings is how much of a public display of affection they are. Aside from the whole dedicating your life to a person stuff (like, yeah, whatever), it’s kinda brave to tell someone you love them in front of a crowd of people all staring at you. Good for them.


Another thing that hadn’t occurred to me about weddings is how much confetti is like tiny shards of broken glass. I hope it actually isn’t, because I chucked that stuff pretty hard in Mike’s face.


The reception was at Mike and Nick's house, and involved lots of champagne and good food. Then there was another reception, in a pub in Kennington, with even more drinking, dancing and general merriment. The speeches were great: best man Loch made amusing reference to Nick’s childhood in Cuba, where a healthy hatred of Americans was instilled in him – now he’s married to one. Maid of honour Ed touchingly quoted Jane Austen, and caused mirth when he accidentally toasted "the bride and groom".

The next morning I woke up feeling fairly rubbish. I got out of bed and watched The Passion of the Christ. At first I felt quite profane watching the film eating sardines on toast with a post-wedding hangover. Then I remembered that not only did Jesus feed the five thousand with fish and bread, he also turned water into wine at a wedding – so I probably had the blessing of the Son of God, and probably even Mel Gibson himself.

Meanwhile, on the rest of the internet...

Mr E Hardy has some interesting things to say about kittens and small cats as well as what Darwin got up to with kittens and small cats.

Darren has broken his spell of non-blogging with a post on a bizarre single-issue party called Mum's Army.

Jeremy, who seems to hail from both Shanghai and Bangkok, has some very funny screenshots of Star Wars Episode III translated from English to Chinese back to English again.

Gemma is apparently "very much feeling the terry toweling vibe".

Hannah J Simpson just had a terrible nightmare about Freddie Krueger.

And Jukka has started writing poetry, God help us all.

The Stockwell flats

Since we moved into the flat, I've become enamoured with the flats that we see from the terrace outside our kitchen. These three whiteish-beige towers dominate the Stockwell skyline and catch the light in a way that's occasionally quite breathtaking. Their appearance seems to change on an unusually frequent basis, despite their collosal immovability. Anyway, my project for 2006 is to continue to photograph the flats from roughly the same position but trying to get in as much variety as possible. You can see a slideshow of my pictures so far by clicking here.

Love is in the air

As my wonderful and beautiful girlfriend currently lives in the wrong city, I spent Valentine's Day alone. What a loser. Here are some of the romantic things I did:

• Restrung my guitar and listened to Green Day
• Talked about Jack Bauer with Kearns on MSN Messenger
• Sat in a beanbag and watched Shameless on TV
  

Crisp response

Good news! I got a reply from United Biscuits, following my letter of complaint. In response to the suggestion that I’d found "a mutant life form" in my packet of Rostyers T-Bone Steak crisps, the consumer services co-ordinator said:

"The material found in the packet appears to be of the same ingredients as the finished product, but showing signs that it had become malformed at a point in the production process where heat is present, causing it to become hard. We would normally expect such conglomerated ingredients to be removed by the system."

As an "indication of goodwill", I was sent £2 worth of KP vouchers, which I can use to buy five packets of Rosters T-Bone Steak crisps. Although I’m seriously considering going for barbeque beef flavoured Hula Hoops next time...