Empire Building No.2

I was off yesterday having what turned out to be quite a painful filling. Just what you need the morning after the Empire Awards. It wasn't so much the procedure itself - in fact I didn't feel a thing - it was the four injections around the tooth. And it was the back tooth so I had to open my mouth so wide i worried my eyes might roll back into my head.

Anyhoo, it's not that you want to hear about but the Empire Awards.

Well, they're an enjoyable sit down do. We were just behind Tim Burton and Helena Bonham Carter (the only woman in the room in a hat). They're a couple of eccentrics. He was flanked for most of the eveing by two youngish girls, who must be PAs or assistants or even maybe just friend, but they were very attentive - to the point that they were irritating me. The bizarre entourage also included a big biker type with a huge white beard and a Buster Bloodvessel lookalike who's probably a driver called Tony or something. HB-C came very late, just in time for her Best Actress gong, fortuitously. Odd that she won that, as I'd not seen her nominated for that prize anywhere else.

They're an odd awards, as you can't help wondering if they see who's in town then shoehorn them in. Russell Crowe was the big draw of the night, but really, what a wanker. He was receiving the Best Actor of Our Generation or some such made up toss - he's in town promoting State of Play; how convenient. Although I saw his name on the table list he wasn't seated, and came in out of the wings to collect, read a Kipling poem, and left. Billy Bragg presented and I've gone right off him now as he recalled nights jamming on the guitar and introduced Crowe as a 'fellow musician'. He left at once too. That's not really getting in the spirit of things is it. Consequently, every person came up to present or receive an award took the piss. James McAvoy, who looks about 12, was particularly good at this. There was also much Christian Bale pastiching, too.

It's packed with stars, mostly minor ones, the odd biggie. We had fags with Sean Bean, Viggo Mortenson (dreadful lank long grey hair), saw lots of up and comings like Joseph Mawle, Gemma Arterton, Hayley Attwell, Jim Sturgess, Gerard Butler, Jodie Whittaker, Luke Treadaway, Olga Kurylenka, Danny Mays, Dominic West, all the In The Loop crowd, etc., but what it's best for is directors. It's director heaven: Tim Burton, Guy Ritchie, Paul Greengrass, Danny Boyle and Shane Meadows were all in attendance. It's much more of film buffs do rather than a celebrity one, though they TV contingent turnout was good. Mark Strong went right down in my estimation when, on seeing the fans camped out the front of the hotel, asked if there was another, private smoking area for VIPs. They made you what you are, Mark, never forget it.

The aftershow party was as usual way too loud so we didn't stay long. Just enough time to cram into the smoking area where, as usual, the interesting people are. Nice goody bag, no hangover and disappointingly no Emma Watson being groped by her frankly much older boyfriend.

In next week's Five-Centres...

We'll be looking at:

1. My trip to the Empire Awards this Sunday. Hopefully with more about Emma Watson and her boyfriend to enrage readers in Argentina.

2. The F-C childhood sideboard - the sights, the smells, etc.

3. Train travel

4. Koo Stark

5. Something else yet to be decided, possibly the filling I'm having on Monday.


On sale Tuesday

From Beyond Five-Centres

We're going to a 50th birthday party this weekend. They're cropping up a lot at the moment. Once it was fortieths, now it seems to be fiftieths. Not my own I might add. That's quite a way off. It's fancy dress of course, 1950s. You know how I'm not keen, so I'm not doing it. Mrs F-C is going as a gin & it.

Anyhoo, I wonder if anyone can help me track down the Amicus-like film Tales That Witness Madness. It's a portmanteau number in the classic tradition of From Beyond The Grave, The House That Dripped Blood, Asylum and Tales From The Crypt. In one of the stories, Joan Collins' husband Michael Jayston turns into a tree. I'm sure I've seen years ago, but it's not on DVD. Anyone have a copy I can buy off them?

I love these films. You usually get two out of five good stories. For example in Dr Terror's House of Horrors I like the one about the plant that takes over the house, and in Vault of Horror the one where the man finds he's in a cannibal restaurant is quite good. Tales From the Crypt has the classic Planet Mondo endorsed Joan Collins terrorised by a maniac Santa on Christmas Eve just after she's bludgeoned her husband to death, in the most 1970s living room known to mankind.

These films are always choc-a-block with stars: Jack Hawkins, Roy Castle, Diana Dors, Peter Cushing, Charlotte Rampling, Kim Novak, etc., etc. Why don't they make this kind of film anymore, and why don't they show this kind of film anymore. When I was a kid, these were on about every week. I was terrified but I still love them.

So, if anyone can help me, I'd be most grateful.

Andy beat goes on

I'm assuming you saw The Apprentice last night. I enjoyed it. They're all awful, of course, wise to what's expected of them with no practical business experience, and instantly setting out the battle lines.

I've got my initial hate figures sorted: that Geordie who moaned constantly called Phil, and the project manager of the girls' team. Not keen on the hatchet-faced bitch she called into the boardroom with her either, but there's always one of those per series, so she should be good value. They're all dim bulbs, though Sirallan seems a bit nice than last time. Has the credit crunch made him lighten up? It's possible, though I'm not sure why that would be. So far so good. The right thing happened in firing that funny-looking girl, and I'll definitely be tuning in next week.

*I didn't see a single shot of the gherkin - or did I blink at the wrong time?

Anyhoo, on to today's topic, which is whatever happened to former international playboy, Prince Andrew?

He's the forgotten Royal. The black sheep of the family. Once never out of the papers in his naval uniform, grinning for Britain and now nowhere to be seen. I realise I don't know anything about his life. He's so in the background as to be practically invisible. You never see him doing any public engagements. And since he split up with Yorkie there doesn't appear to have been anyone else in his life. He's never linked with anyone, whereas pre-Yorkie he always had some exotic popsy hanging off him, and was often pictured larking about in the surf with women in orange string bikinis. But not anymore. I want to know why not.

Newspapers couldn't less about him. This is strange. I don't think I've even seen a recent picture of him. Is he dead? I've heard various scurrilous rumours about him, like him being found in bed with ________ or that he's ____, but of course I can't repeat them there.

Are you as intrigued as me or, perhaps like the rest of the world you've forgotten he actually existed.

Hoff with his head!

There's a TV show, hopefully a one-off, coming soon in which oldest teenager in town/bitch DJ Scott Mills gets to live with "The Hoff" for a week.

I say: big deal.

For those who have no idea what I'm talking about, The Hoff is former Baywatch bellend David Hasselhof, who these days is the go-to guy for confirming that the Noughties really have been a cultural dustbin.

He's wheeled out at every studenty/ironic/Comic Relief/E4 voiceover/hideously out of touch-type affair, usually in a scarlet windcheater and mid-thigh shorts, being drunk, acting the fool, failing to recognise other celebrities or singing (yes, yes, we know he was big in Germany - how hilarious! Yawn). The man's a washed up old soak with big hair. A buffoon.

I really don't get this ironic bigging up of him, but it's been years now since it stopped being even remotely amusing. Was it actually ever funny that this man ran along a beach in slow motion or was a hit on the continent? But still the bandwagon rolls on. People don't know when to leave a joke alone do they? They can rumble on for years. See "computer says no" or any Little Britain catchphrase to prove that point.

This kind of reinvention has happened for various people over the years. Tom Jones, David Dickinson, Rolf Harris, etc, in the main leathery, pompadoured old windbags who should have been put out to grass long ago. But for some reason they're still there, plying their trade to a whole new audience. Thing is, that audience has moved on. It's only they and their employers who don't realise this. They're not laughing with you, etc...

So lets lay "The Hoff" (I hate that) to rest. For all our sakes. It's actually quite cruel to keep it going.

Now, let's reinvent Don Partridge.

Instinction says it's not a good idea (or a real word)

What's your view on Spandau Ballet? You've probably heard they're to reform and do a series of gigs. But does anyone actually want this? Who's crying out for the Spands to get back together?

Not me.

I think To Cut A Long Story Short is ace, and when I first saw them do that on TOTP I thought they were so avant garde as to be from another planet. I still think it's a great song, a great slice of turn of the 80s electronica. I've even sung it at karaoke. But that's kind of where it ends. Through The Barricades is nice in a niaeve pop star way, but I've always thought Tony Hadley was a bit of an old ham really, and his vocal histrionics not really my cup of tea.

I met him once at the launch for that awfully misguided Reborn In The USA show. I thought though tall, he was rather stand-offish. Martin Kemp on the other hand is a lovely man - he once bought me a bingo card - so it's sad to see his TV career has well and truly hit the skids. Probably because he's not the world's greatest actor, though I thought that Family series he was in a few years back didn't get the praise it deserved.

So it's got to be all about the money. But while people were panting for The Police or Pink Floyd to get back together, does anyone truly feel the same way about Spandau Ballet?

The crunch bunch

Hereford roast beef and caramelised onion, it said on the packet. And they were nice, too. But it doesn't matter how much you dress them up, they're still beef and onion crisps. The same goes for Cumberland sausage and red onion marmalade - pure and simply sausage and onion. Or what about cheddar cheese and white onion, sea salt and cider vinegar, Arctic prawn & Marie-Rose sauce? Just cheese n' onion, salt 'n' vinegar and prawn cocktail. There's nothing natural or more interesting about them. They just have a more glamorous name.

You can over-describe all you like, but the fact is - and correct me if I'm wrong - is that the actual base flavours of crisps haven't changed at all in years. The basic flavours are still there. They may be stronger or with less E numbers, but salt and vinegar is salt and vinegar, no matter how much you gentrify it.

Where did all this fancy descriptive stuff spring from? Was it to capture a market that demanded things to be more exciting, or was it a manufacturer who decided his product was a cut above? Even those really nice Burt's crisps that actually use real bacon in their smokey bacon still taste like your bog standard Golden Wonder version.

My favourite used to be Smith's Savoury Vinegar. No one seems to remember them but me. They were 2 1/2p from the school shop. This is 1972, though. They seemed to vanish as quicky as they appeared, but there were tasty. Salt & Vinegar without the salt.

Smith's were king of crisps back then. We always had Bovril crisps after swimming (see posts passim). Golden Wonder had some perhaps more exotic flavours (sausage and onion was a post-paper round Cup-a-Soup-dipping favourite) and we'd never even heard of Walkers. When did they appear? Mid-Eighties?

Of course there are some flavours that are actually all new and exciting, like the builders' breakfast ones in the new Walkers competition range. The duck ones are quite authentic too. And some of the Walkers Sensations Thai and chilli ones are okay too. But there's so much choice. Too much choice can be a bad thing. But they can churn out Vietnamese Blu-tac curry or Black Forest chinchilla to their heart's content if they just revive savoury vinegar for one more day.

Loving & Free

Do you think I'm needy? I went out with some friends last night who said having a blog is needy, and therefore, so was I. I started this blog because it was an outlet for writing, something I don't get to do much anymore except on here. So I was stunned when it was pointed out that others thought differently.

I don't think of myself as needy at all. I'm not really a 'let's talk about me' person in the flesh. I'm much more interested in you. I'm definitely not an 'enough about you, back to me' person either. But perhaps blogging is a form of neediness - after all, I'm always checking back for comments. No one wants to be ignored, but does that make one needy?

Your thoughts please, fellow bloggers and lurkers.

Discuss.

Words I never use: No.1 - Tablet

We've been watching Alan Bennett's Talking Heads again recently. I'd forgotten how good they are, but also how irritating some of the words and phrases are. It doesn't matter which walk of life people come from, whether you're uberposh Stephanie Cole or ordinary Patricia Routledge or downmarket Julie Walters, you are all basically the same, adding way too much detail into each sentence, just so we know you're an Alan Bennett creation and thereby working out your backstory with the things you're leaving out as well as putting in. Not that it's not amusing, because it is.

A lot of characters talk of 'tablets'. I never, ever use this word. Pills is much more me. 'Have you taken your tablets, Graham?' asks Mam, or 'Let's find you a tablet, Margaret' says Stephanie Cole. There are a lot of tablets knocking about here.

I'd forgotten just how dark these all are. I watched them on their original transmission about 20 years ago, and just found them funny. But actually they're tragic and the loneliness is bitingly brutal. I think my favourite is the one with Alan himself, A Chip In The Sugar. It's sets the tone nicely.

Alan Bennett lives just down the road from where I work, and I've stopped him before to say how much I like his work. He said I was 'bold'. I might go and ask for a tablet.

The Perfect Blend

I was pleased and surprised today when Mona by Craig McLachlan - and of course, Check 1-2 - popped up on the ipod. I'd forgotten what a summery sound it is, and it really took me back to the summer of 1990 when it was a huge hit and all over the radio. Those jangly guitars, that soaring sound. It's a big production. So good I had to hear it again. Shame Craig himself was a bit of a tit.

This would have come off the back his Neighhbours megastardom, and let's not underestimate just how massive it was back then. Remember when it first started in the autumn of '86? Oh, those salad days...

I was a student and I remember the constant promos for the BBC's new look daytime schedule. Knot's Landing, long since forgotten, was coming back, and we could look forward to Valerie, the Valerie Harper sitcom she left when she fell out with the produces, game show Going For Gold and something new from Australia, Neighbours. As I recall it was an instant hit.

We used to be sitting in the refectory at lunchtime, someone would say 'Neighbours' and we'd all pile back to someone's house to watch it. And then take the rest of the day off. If you missed it at lunchtime, you could always catch the 9am repeat and go in late, if you had to go in at all. It reall was all the rage.

Des, Daph - who could forget her touching death scenes?, Helen, Jim, Paul, Max, Maria, Shane, Lucy, Danny, etc., all introducing us to places of which we'd never seen the like. Coff's Harbour, the Bungle Bungles and Surfers' Paradise were unbelievably exotic. It was colourful, warm, funny, sunny - everything mid-Eighties Britain was not. I fell in love with Plain Jane Superbrain, who you just knew would be unmasked as a beauty eventually. Then along came the next wave with Kylie, Jason, Madge, Harold and it went stratospheric.

When friends went to Australia, they always bought videotapes back. We were about two years behind at one stage so we were desperate to know what was going to happen. I remember watching one spoiler where Paul came home and announced to the family that he and Gail (wardrobe by Kamizole) were married. It came as quite a shock. But the novelty soon wears off, especially when you don't have as much time on your hands as you used to.

So years later and there I am working on a magazine and either getting up really early or staying up really late to interview the stars of the show on a regular basis. Even in the mid-Nineties our appetite for Aussie soaps was still voracious. They were over here all the time. I once went out to lunch with Lou Carpenter and a girl who played Jo Harrison who had a very odd pout, and the people on the next table thought he was Alf from Home & Away. He was not best pleased. Last year I met Harold Bishop when Neighbours moved to five to die. I have a photo of me with him. It's hard to tell which one is which.

So the soft spot remains. But when was the last time you actually tuned in? I have to keep up to date, but I do it through the pages of a magazine, rather than physically watching it. I only know Toadfish.