Ben Fogle, Part One

To Ben Fogle's agent, I wrote-

Dear Hilary

My Fiancee and I are both great fans of Ben Fogle's, and would be delighted and honoured if he'd consider being a guest at our wedding, which is to be held in Oxfordshire this coming August.

We look forward to hearing from you

Best wishes

Mark Lewis and Laura Cox

From Ben Fogle's agent, I recieved-

Thanks so much for the invite.

Ben will have to decline, but wishes you well.

BW

Hilary

Hm. This isn't over.

THE GREATEST BAND OF ALL TIME.

I'm opening up my blog again for one post only, because the greatest and best band in the history of music has emerged from nowhere and you NEED TO HEAR THEM NOW. Tell your mother, tell all your friends, tell them to tell ALL THEIR FRIENDS- 2008 and the future forever belongs to these guys.

The clip is a bit long, but please stick with it- you'll thank me afterwards. In fact, leave your thanks in the comments section below, please.



"There is nothing more powerful than an idea whose time has come".

Barry Twotter and the Deaf Tree Sparrows.

Being a sour, joyless old cunt I have no intention of reading the new Harry Potter book. It's about a school for young wizards, ergo it's for kids. If there was no latent adult embarrassment to be found in reading it then it wouldn't come with the "adult" cover option- the cover could feature a nekkid Hustler model with a magic wand up her fanny, it'd still be a Harry Potter novel and you'd still be an emotional retard for reading one over the age of twelve.

SO. Here's the final novel's epilogue, a week or so before release date. Go on, treat yourself:

One. Two. Three. Four.

While we're at it, all the spoilers you'd need to not have to read the rest of it are here- get yourself a nice bit of adult fiction instead (cough- cough). You'll sleep easier, and there's no hassle with choosing the right cover.

Creepy Eeriness.

Can't believe I haven't posted this yet- the dearth of new material here can be blamed squarely on Facebook, the funnest and most excellent social utility around. Go on, join if you haven't already. It knocks MyTwats into a cocked hat, let me tell you.

Anyway, what it is right is that last Thursday I received a letter all the way from Pasadena, California. A hand-mailed, stamped envelope with a yank postcode, with my full name and address hand-written on the front.

And I have no fucking clue who it's from.

Obviously I've scanned it for your perusal. Check out the lunacy:

Envelope (front). Envelope (back). And, the main event- The Document. I've 'shopped out my name from the top-left corner of the letter, and my address from the front of the envelope, obviously.

It uses the same sort of language as a sham psychic trying to cold-read a punter; vague references to my job, to Christmas, to my love-life and so on, but the back-story... this letter has a plot- the bit about Rick "assisting some of us with the letter writing"... what the fuck is that supposed to mean? I feel like I've been sent the jumping-off point to some weird-ass ARG which I didn't sign up for. Maybe it's some viral marketing campaign, but I never give my real address (or my real name, for that matter) to anyone asking for it, so what the fuck? The return address on the envelope is a PO box, which struck me as weird but I'm told that plenty of Americans use PO boxes for their mail. I don't know what to think... other than that I must reply. I feel like Bill Pullman in Lost Highway, being sent clips of my life by an unknown observer. If I'm honest I'm quite enjoying it, which is another reason why I have to reply- it's fun getting letters from fuck-knows-who and I want another one.

Any ideas, anyone? What might this mean?

Benoit.

Over the weekend the massively talented and well-respected WWE performer Chris Benoit apparently murdered his wife and child of seven years of age, then killed himself on the Monday. Details such as motive or murder weapon haven't been released as yet, but according to Fayette County District Attorney Scott Ballard...
"The details when they come out are going to prove a little bizarre."

Obese Racist Dies.

Expect to see a lot of "Racist? Naaah mate! 'Ee was the salt o' the Earth, loved 'his old muvvah 'e did" bullshit over the next day or so. Don't buy a bit of it. You don't spend fifty years of your life making racist jokes on stage and screen unless you're a total, dyed-in-the-wool cunt. Let's have a look at him being made a twat of- among others- on Brass Eye.


"One young kiddie on Cake... cried all the water out of his body. Just imagine how 'is mother felt. It's a fookin' disgrace".

Last Bit of Sham-Dram Nonsense For a While...

... I promise. The following are from the Gwent Gazette dated 12/06/2007- apologies for the rubbish quality, newsprint doesn't scan too well (click for full-size):

*Slow and Echoing Hand-Clap*

From digitalspy:

"A reality TV show which claimed that it would follow three young patients competing to win a kidney transplant has been revealed as a hoax.

The Big Donor Show - created by Big Brother producers Endemol - sparked outrage when it was announced by Dutch network BNN. The public was led to believe that the show would centre on a dying woman choosing a recipient for her kidneys.

However, Endemol have now announced that the programme was a hoax intended to create awareness of the shortage of donors in the Netherlands. While the show's "terminally-ill patient" was in fact a healthy actress, the three contestants are genuinely in need of transplants. All three were aware of the programme's true nature."

Okay, I got hoaxed. But it backs my point up completely that so many fell for this- in a world this fucked-up it sounds totally acceptable.

Theatre Pics.

Here we go then, some pics. Nothing of any real worth, sorry, but I do love the atmosphere of a working theatre- I've always been about process rather than product, and I hope these give a flavour of that process. Click 'em for full-size, as always.


The empty stage, there- Peter Brook would be proud.



I don't know- I've been performing now for eighteen-odd years, and I still find the theatre so much more interesting when there's no audience in it.

It's All Coming True.

Presenting The Big Donor Show, a reality-television special airing this Friday night in Holland where a cancer victim will choose which of three kidney-disease sufferers will inherit her kidneys after her inevitable death. The selection process will involve video diaries from the three hopefuls, conversations with their friends and families and, best of all, "viewers will vote by text to urge her who to choose after the videos... have been broadcast" (article here).

A decade ago, this sort of thing was what alternative comedy was made of- We've all seen The Day Today, one can imagine this win-a-kidney gameshow being hosted by Chris Morris in his meth-head Paxman guise, but it's totally real, and produced by (who else?) Endemol, Big Brother fans.

Keep in mind that every "TWAT #2 2 WIN LOL VIKI IN DRBY XXX" text that scrolls across the bottom of the screen during the new series is helping to fund television in which death and disease are boiled and sifted to make a televisual gruel on which CUNTS GROW FATTER AND MORE STUPID, and in which you're not texting to evict some dead-eyed no-mark, but to save an actual disease-ravaged human life.

Whatever next, eh? Anyone for Monkey Tennis?

The Best Day of My Life.

It seems like it takes a lot to get me blogging these days- there are loads of photos from the show I need to put up, as well as lots of news from work and such. I've got tickets to a talk by Armando Iannucci next weekend at the Hay Festival, which I'm ecstatic about, but really I'm here to talk about today.


The best day of my life.

I could give you the full preamble, but the bottom line is that I JUST SAW AND SPOKE TO CJ DE MOOI OFF "EGGHEADS" WHILE WALKING THROUGH ABERGAVENNY.

I Believe in Harvey Dent.

Exactly how fucking cool is that?

EDIT- NOT AS FUCKING COOL AS THIS:

AWESOME RECORD ALERT.

Enter Shikari are currently providing the soundtrack to my life. "Take to the Skies" is the finest album I've heard in a long, long time, even beating the brilliant new release from NIN in the "play it through then start it again" stakes. High-energy synth behind roaring yet melodic and lyrical metal. This band sound like they're channeling Faith No More at their finest- yup, they're that fucking good.

What a Cool Week.

I'm having a good one, I really am. Yes, this isn't the most scintillating website at the mo, but y'know. Fuck off.

Opening Night Tomorrow...

... and that's all I really want to say about that. Terrified, adrenalised, all that madness.

The Internet Reckons I Look Like Spider-Man.

Go on, have a crack at the myheritage.com facial recognition profiler.



It's great for listing celebs who look fuck-all like you.

When Graphic Design Attacks!

The poster for All 4 One, then:


(click for full-size)

So bad that the first time I saw it my eyes literally bled*.

*not literally.

Richard McBeef

I'm sure that this is the ten thousandth blog to mention this today, but being a Drama teacher I couldn't not. The good ol' Smoking Gun has unearthed and published the manuscript of a one-act play by Cho Seung-Hui, the face of evil* and the loner* responsible for Mondays atrocity at Virginia Tech campus.

The play is called Richard McBeef, and it has become my dream to bring it to the stage- I think it's exactly what the Gwent am-dram scene is crying out for.

*copyright ITN news.

There Are No Answers...

... and the sooner you stop looking for them, the sooner you can understand and appreciate the world on it's own terms. I believe that there was a time when there were answers, but back then we didn't know that we'd ever need to ask such difficult questions, so we let things slide. I love to dream of alternate realities splintering from our own, worlds where there is a point and a purpose and the difficult questions didn't have to be asked because way back when it counted, someone somewhere did the right fucking thing. If that other place exists, then it's a comfort to me- but that place is not this place. In this place we've gone too far, and there's simply no way back.

Okay! Hi all! Things are very fucking hectic here indeed- so, right? Last week, with just five weeks to go until curtain up, our lead fucking actor walked out. Upshot? I have to start from scratch learning the lead role for a show which starts now in just under four weeks time. Another actor whom none of the cast has ever even fucking met also has to step in to learn and perform my old role. This is sham-dram at it's finest, folks.

My work situation is worrying me a little, too- there's an interesting offer on the table from the LEA regarding work as a home tutor, but I just don't know where to hedge my bets for the long-term prospects. Gah.

Let's see, the bright side, the bright side... a new series of Peep Show, Xbox Live, Year Zero, a night with Gavo, wedding plans coming together, discovering how easy it is to give up smoking, the interwebs... see, on the small-scale it's a pretty beautiful life, but when the camera pulls back to show the bigger picture then it turns into fucking Babylon. Just spend fifteen minutes at foxnews.com, you'll see what I'm saying.

Oh and by the fucking way, regarding the worst shooting in American history which occurred yesterday- if you really want to bring the loss home to yourself, don't bother with the newspapers and television reports. Look up each victim's myspace and read the tributes being written by friends and loved ones. That's Tragedywang. And Marilyn Manson has a new album coming up- eh? EH? Coincidence?*

*No, it isn't. BLAME MANSON.

A Delightful Easter in Oxford