Reel Around The Countryside

Springwatch is the BBC's biggest outside broadcast show with a crew of hundreds and scores of hidden cameras spying on badgers and various other whimsical creatures in their natural habitats.

It's kind of a British countryside version of Big Brother, with animals instead of idiots.

The current host is Chris Packham, who deserves to be recognised for an act of genius in slipping Smiths song titles into the script for each episode.

as this clip demonstrates.

jager bombs

When it comes to drinks I tend to be fairly discerning. Laphroig is my favourite tipple, in a short tumbler with three pieces of ice and a splash of water. I like a G&T, made with Bombay Saphire, Jack daniels with full fat coke or vodka with... anything really.

In terms of grape I'm a big fan of Gavi di Gavi, or anything from Macon. Beer, if it's fizzy, has to come from a country where the men wear leather shorts and have giant moustaches. If it's ale it has to come from an artisan brewery.

So why... oh why did I find myself at 2am stood at a bar in fallowfield dropping shots of Jagermeister into half a glass of redbull, knocking it back and ordering more as if it was the best new discovery since Christopher Colombus dug up an oddly shaped root and said: "I shall call you 'Potato'."

Jager bombs... that's what they were called. I was at a Tuesday night stag do - I know!!! - and it was also a farewell to a dear friend who's buggering off down to London. Next time I see him he'll probably have a Blackberry, an Ipod and an accent.

I felt justified in having a night out as I delivered the first draft of a script on Monday. Now I wait for the notes. It's an odd feeling, it's kind of like waiting for your homework to be marked. Not that I should know because I don't think I did a single piece of homework during my time at school. Actually I did one I can remember. It was for English, it was a story I wrote about being the last man alive after a nuclear war, locked in a bunker going crazy and ended with me leaving the bunker walking out into the radioactive wasteland in the hope of finding another survivor. It got read out in class and, now I think about it, that was probably when I knew I wanted to be a writer.

The script editor will be in touch soon to tell me exactly how wrong I have got it. Just as long as she hasn't written 'see me' in metaphorical red letters all should be fine.

Gigglebiz the CBeebies sketch show airs in September. Scallywagga 2 starts shooting in a week or so. So that should be fun.

right... better do some work.

Dance to the radio

Been meaning to update for AGES... but have been working incredibly hard on three different things - some links for a new Dragons Den show, 40,000 rewrites for Scallywagga and an episode of a sort of Comedy Dr Who for CBBC.

Will update with a proper post soon, but in the meantime, to counter the horrendous cover I posted beloiw of Take That doing Nirvana, here is a steel band doing Transmission.

Enjoy. it's brilliant

Shaddup a yer face.

Possibly the wrongest thing I have ever seen, and quite simply the worst cover version ever done of anything.

Imagine the Osmonds doing Smack My Bitch Up and then multiply it by Joe Dolce.

Anyway here are Take That, doing Smells Like Teen Spirit...

I know!!!

bugger

I had a brilliant idea.

I was reading the other day that when you own your house you own all the sky above it and all the earth below. And that got me thinking... I wonder who lives underneath me. If I was to start digging and carry on through the mantle, the molten core until I popped out the other side... where would I emerge?

Would it be in the garden of some south pacific tribesman or the back yard of a New Zealand sheep farmer. Would I arrive triumphant in a Japanese palace or at an outback barbie.

Who is my neighbour?

I decided to find out. Not only to find out, but once I had found out I decided that thhe neighbourly thing to do would be to go and visit them.

I mean come on, what a great story. I could get an Edinburgh show, a book and probably an hour of telly out of that.

So after lots of scratching of head and fiddling of google earth I made contact with a lady who told me how to calculate my antipode. So I did. And it's slap bang in the middle of the South Pacific.

Bugger.

bar hinge

Yawn... monday. What a start to the week.

The dog is going mad because it's a full moon and my lovely little daughter farted at me while I was changing her nappy.



which was nice.

Bit of a mental week this week. I'm planning to be off next week so I've got to finish a load of Scallywagga rewrites and do about 50 links for a new Dragons Den show on Beeb 2.

And then, possibly, if I get chance, spend a couple of hours making up an amusing commentary for an ITV show called "... Do The Funniest Things" for absolutely no money at all.

The kind people at Granada say that if I can make them laugh then they will give me the chance to go head to head with dozens of other writers all trying to make funnies for the same two-minute clips. The producer then cherry picks the best and the lucky chosen writer gets... £50 for their efforts.

Not sure I'm going to be able to get round to it.

Elsewhere... had some good feedback on my sitcom from the channel controller. Not good enough to give it a pilot, but good in that he liked the characters, the comedy and even the title - sorry Dan not yours. Got some very specific notes and so it's rewrite time again.

Wife has just rung me from John Lewis. We're getting a new toilet seat. One witha bar hinge apparently.

on the stocks

right, well..

Today I found out I have three days to re-write a script I thought I had three weeks to work on.

Which was a bit of a bugger.

But ... thankfully, thanks to some great suggestions from the exec, I did it all tonight. I had to make one part bigger because the head of comedy and the comedy commissioner have a certain person in mind for that role and they want it ... well, bigger. And yesterday.

So i started writing it blind. It's a good way to write. it's the most exciting way to write. But you can only do it if you know your characters.

I certainly know these fookers because I've been writing them for a year.

I love writing blind. You just start off with a pair of characters meeting, or a situation happening and because you know them so well they sort of write it for you. It's a beautiful moment. This is when you know your characters aren't just two-dimensional beings. This is when you find that every aspect of their made-up lives inform every line of dialogue. I know that sounds wanky, but it happens. It takes a lot of time and a lot of crap scripts before you get there but when you get there it is a great feeling.

I have to say that my project has shifted channels and as a result I think the chances of it getting made have been reduced. But I don't care. I honestly don't and that surprises even me.

There are two reasons for this.
1. I know it's a good piece of work, something I'm truly proud of and is a great thing to have on the stocks for the future.
2. read this interview with Simon Beaufoy: http://www.bbc.co.uk/writersroom/insight/simon_beaufoy.shtml
he's been through the mill and offers some sage advice.

Also today - I sent some final sketches over to Scallywagga (bbc3), rewrote a press release for a comms company and went for a meeting about being a writer on a muslim radio soap. I was initially very sceptical about it but... it sounds really, really good. So probably won't get offered it.

oh, and if anyone can think of a good title for a sitcom set in a pub, please post them below. If I use it and it gets made I will pay you whatever the rate is for that sort of thing. promise.