Spoiling for a fight

Now this is interesting.

I haven't seen Frost/Nixon and, to be honest, I probably won't, but I'm sure it's the great film that everybody says it is.

One of my favourite bloggers, Bill Martell, wrote about the film in this blog at the beginning of the year. This is one of his long ones and you need to scroll past all of the main blog (or read it) until you get to the "Important Update" bit, skip the Script Tip promotion and you arrive at the bit marked "Movies".

Bill then discusses the movie explaining how they made an interesting film about an essentially boring (filmicly) interview, essentially they turned it into a boxing movie.

Why is this interesting (apart from the fact it shows how to do this sort of thing)?

Well, I've been reading a book I got as a Christmas present: "Tragically I was an Only Twin" about the comedy of Peter Cook edited by William Cook.

There's a chapter about his column in the Daily Mail, which I must have missed because my father used to be a Daily Mail reader (the shame) and we used to get it every day back in 1977.

The Frost/Nixon interviews were broadcast in May 1977. Peter Cook wrote about them and I quote: "The pre-fight publicity had promised the sight of a beaten, stuttering, humiliated Nixon".

There you go.

Alright it wasn't that interesting, but I just felt I had to tell you. Peter Cook then goes on about Barbara Windsor's bottom.

There're also extracts from the better bits of Derek and Clive as well as lots of other earlier stuff, including the brilliant One Leg Too Few. I have to say this is not a fawning work, not only does it call the rubbish rubbish, but also highlights the best bits (see what I did there).

Having accepted the job I went for on Monday (which, having just been confirmed, I can tell you is with Paramount Comedy) I've decided to head home again for the next week and a bit.

It also gives me a deadline - I really need to finish the first draft of Unit X in that time. Shouldn't be too hard but I can see it coming up short in the same way as Air did. But that's okay, I can then go back and start filling it out with more of the emotional stuff. Seems to work for me.

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What's on the turntable? "The Remembering High the Memory" by Yes from "Tales from Topographic Oceans" (I'm sure it means something.)