I think that at this point a boycott of Heinz products is in order.
Three months should be long enough in the first instance to send a message to their accountants and executives. After that, I’ll look at it again.
If you’re doing the same, you may also wish to send them an email to let them know what you’re doing and why.
Just so that they can be crystal fucking clear on why they’re losing your business.
If you, like Jason Arnopp and I, are going to the Cheltenham Screenwriters Festival this year, you may have several things on your mind.
Like “I don’t know any of these high-powered people. How will I get over my shyness and speak to anyone?”
Or “Whose round is it?”
Fortunately both of those questions can be answered at the same time by coming to the inaugural Beckley-Arnopp Cheltenham Scribomeet. Or possibly the Arnopp-Beckley Cheltenham Scribomeet. Whatever floats your boat.
It’s a non-threatening chance to meet other writers the evening before the festival kicks off. That way you’ll have some friendly faces to talk to over the next three days.
It will begin at 6pm blunt on the night of Monday 30th June in the Harvester pub next to the Cheltenham Travelodge.
Which should make it nice and easy to stagger home to your bed either there or in the Thistle.
Come along.
Say hello.
Drink beer.
Or we will destroy you with our giant floating hands.
Well.
If you live in the UK, you may have noticed that MPs in the House of Commons have just voted to extend pre-charge detention to 42 days.
42 days. That’s six weeks.
Six weeks, in which you could be locked up in a cell with no idea what you were being accused of.
Six weeks away from your friends and family.
Six weeks away from your job.
And they don’t even have to charge you with a crime.
But hold on, Piers. These are terrorists, right? They’re bad people who want to kill us. What if they can hold out longer than the current 28 day limit?
Well, in one of the most complex counter-terrorism investigations in British history, the evidence obtained to charge the two suspects charged with terrorism was obtained at four and twelve days respectively.
42 days? Hell, that’s nowhere near the edge of even the 28 days that we currently have. (Which, by the way, is roughly four times longer than that any comparable democracy in the world.)
But it’s not just all political posturing, right? The police and MI5 are asking for this change? Well, actually MI5 don’t, the police are split on the issue, and even the supporters of a longer detention period think that the bill in its current form is unworkable.
The bill will now move to the House of Lords, where we expect it to be defeated.
Good.
This is bad law, drafted by a desperate government.
Those behind it deserve nothing but our derision and contempt.
More than 99% of melancholia fans are now dead.
Christine has the details.
I’ve just spent twenty minutes restoring a script from its backup.
Which is really good, because for an hour or so there I thought I was going to have to type the whole thing in again. Which would not have made me a happy bunny.
If you don’t have a backup system in place, get one now. The moment of sheer heartstopping terror is bad enough when you do have copies somewhere else.
Robin has lots of useful information on this.
I use one of these.
Worth sixty quid of anyone’s money.
John August got 38, while the delightful Helen Smith clocks in at sixty-odd (I can’t remember the exact number) of the 1,001 books you should read before you die.
I was pleasantly surprised to find I come in somewhere between 99 and 103. The extra four being books I remember starting, but can’t recall actually getting to the end of.
So I guess they couldn’t have been all that.
You should go to the cinema tonight, and then pop out to a local bar afterwards.
Seriously.
It’ll be like shooting fish in a barrel.
Well. That was a waste of money.
When you’re watching a film and keep thinking: “Wow. That’s a great bit of production design,” then there’s something seriously wrong.
Go see Iron Man instead. It has an actual honest-to-god story, that makes sense, that shows and doesn’t tell, has a subtext, and just as many things go boom.
Also, Robert Downey Jr and Gwyneth Paltrow. So you’re covered whichever way you incline.
Steven Moffat has just been announced as the next showrunner for Doctor Who.
This is immensely good news.
Celebrate, then go about your business.
