Stan & Julie

We're cutting up our films with Stanley Kubrick's old sound editor today. I'm totally impressed. He has loads of stories about what it was like working with him. In a nutshell, the man was a psychotic bastard. Awesome.

In other riveting filmmaking news, my screenplay is coming along nicely. I have nearly all my characters and back-stories sorted out, at least. So at what point can I start telling people that Juliette Lewis is going to play the lead role? Now, just as it's occurred to me? After I've sent her 200 text messages (hi julie pls will u b in my film its gonna b gr8)? Or not until she's actually signed the papers?

Or maybe I should just quit blonking and write the sodding thing first.

Skirts

I haven't always been a girl. When I was little I insisted that I was a boy and only answered to the name of "Tom" (why I chose such a crap name I don't know. I mean, I could have been Jason or Ronaldo or anything). I had all my curls chopped off and would mousse my hair up into a mohican before climbing up a tree with my catapult.

I guess when I hit 25 I grew up a bit or something. I think I'm trying harder to resemble a vagina these days anyhow; I've taken to wearing lip gloss and pink clothes. Maybe I'm just making up for lost time, after all those years in black vest-tops and combats. I even have pointy boots now, and last night I wore a skirt.

Have you ever worn a short skirt? If you're a girl, you're probably going to say yes. If you're a boy, you're probably going to lie and say no. Either way, I'm going to tell you what it's like.

Firstly, don't expect to be able to sit back like you normally do, with your legs wide apart and one foot propped up casually on the chair in front of you. Or is that just me who sits like that? Well anyway, don't do it. Your vadge will be in full view.

Secondly, skirts have minds of their own. It doesn't matter how many times you check your reflection in the pub toilets, by the time you get back to the bar it will have lifted itself up and tucked itself into the back of your knickers, leaving you waddling along like a deformed baboon, with your lumpy, gussety ass poking out from behind you.

I don't really have the pins for skirts, anyway. I have rugby player's legs (except I can't play rugby). But there is something rather nice about having all that fresh air wafting about your bits, so I think I'm going to stick at it until I get back to nice, cool Iceland.

And the award for the best cinematography goes to...

This film stuff is bloody hard work, y'know. Much harder than sitting at a desk in Iceland making adverts and staring dreamily at the mountains.

I've never been much of a technical person, but I've made an awesome Director of Photography, it has to be said. I was doing maths and science, subtracting fractions and other impossible things like that, all the while bossing everybody around effectively.

Brilliant.

Syriana

People who saw the film Syriana can be divided into one of two categories: those who didn't understand it and those who pretended to understand it.

It wasn't complex middle-eastern politics that made this movie an unwatchable, unfathomable waste of film stock. It was the poor direction, inconclusive scripting, and our complete lack of involvement with any of the 230 main characters. Okay, maybe it wasn't the screen-writing that omitted any character development whatsoever, perhaps something went drastically wrong in the editing suite, but really, did you give a flying fuck about any of them? Watching George Clooney getting his fingernails pulled off was the highlight of the two hours for me.

But before you tell me to go and read the book, I saw the guy who wrote it on some kids' TV show and I can tell you, from the ignorant way he treated the interviewer, he didn't understand what he'd written either.

Saturday nights in Croydon, Surrey

Going out drinking missing two pints of blood from your system has its consequences. Being late for our film's casting session the next morning is one. Spending the rest of the weekend recovering and being fed pink wafer biscuits at my grandparents' house in Croydon is another.

It may be 30°C outside, but we closed all the windows and stuck the heating on (just in case we got a bit chilly) before settling down to watch the National Lottery results -- despite not having a ticket between us.

I ain't wearing no anorak again

I've started dropping the word "ain't" into conversation by mistake. I think it's part of my overwhelming longing to fit in; I've had that affliction since I first realised I was a ginger when I was 3 years old.

Back in Reykjavik, I'm always mistaken for a native. Until I open my mouth, that is. Or at least until I walk down the main shopping street in my weather-proof anorak.

Gutted

You know when somebody gets voted off a reality TV show, and they're asked how they feel, and they say they're "gutted", just like that, but without the T's? So it sounds like "guh-ed"? Well that's what I am today: guh-ed.

My film idea got voted for by nearly all my classmates, and was then immediately struck off the list by the visiting producer because it's set on an escalator. Which just ain't feasible, apparantly. Health and safety etc. I wanted to change my mind. Alright then! I nearly shouted out, We'll change locations! I'll set it in a "film school canteen" or in "my bedroom". But I didn't. Seems he's just produced Al Pacino's latest feature, I guess he knows what he's talking about.

Damnit. I'm only in this for the writing side, really. But because of my supposed art background I've been assigned the role of Director of Photography. Urffgh. I'm not that into cinematography. I'm more interested in who the characters are and how they ended up in that horriffic state than what kind of bloody lighting they're standing in.

But y'know, I can either sulk for the rest of the month and carry on being guh-ed, or I can just do a really great job on someone else's idea. So I do what any self-respecting addict would do; I sit down at London Bridge station and take up smoking again.