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Friday 4th September 2009, 00:04
Much later than planned, here, for my own posterity, is what else happened on my American holiday...
- Niagara Falls. Alright, alright. My American and Canadian holiday. We weren't in Canada long, but long enough to see Niagara Falls. A mightily impressive spectacle, obviously, though ruined a bit by the incomprehensible need for visitors to wave neon at it. As if the garish casinos weren't enough, at night glowstick sellers appear and encourage people to detract from one of the biggest waterfalls in the world by waving multicoloured lights in the air. Thanks for that. Highlights though were dining 26 floors above the falls, and at that same seat getting a birds-eye view of a couple on the 26th floor of the hotel next door. They were being naughty.
- We then drove along Lake Ontario, through to Rochester in New York state. A charming place with a nice cosmopolitan area. Good meal out, which made a break from the fast food. We'd had a Wendy's burger as soon as we'd landed in Buffalo - even crossing the Canadian burger supping on an extra-large Coke and stuffing fries in our mouths. Just trying to fit in.
- After Rochester we drove down through the Finger Lakes, and thanks to the joys of Twitter, we even knew where to go. I posted a message that day saying we were going through there, and thanks to FLWineLady posting back, she told us of some great wineries. Several tastings later, we zigzagged our way to Olean, New York - a small town on the edge of the Allegheny Forest. The locals were baffled as to why and how we'd end up holidaying there. They were even more baffled as to how we'd spend hundreds of thousands of pounds on a house in the UK that was (new word to them) "semi-detached". "You share a wall with your neighbours? I couldn't live like that!" They had a four-bedroom detached house with a yard in Olean for $40,000. Yeach. Oh, and they wouldn't stop going on about Prince Blinking Charles. "Maybe we'll come stay in the UK one day. Hey! We could stay with Prince Charles! Do you see Prince Charles a lot hanging around where you are? And hey, no offence, but us Americans couldn't quite understand why he left Princess Diana for that Camilla woman. See, to us, Camilla isn't as good-looking as Diana." No shit, Sherlock. Do they think that to us Camilla is a beauty, with the most perfect teeth our country will allow?
To be concluded...
Tuesday 25th August 2009, 01:47
Back in blighty now, and have been micro-blogging, or whatever the tweet it's called, over on www.twitter.com/paulkerensa. If you do twitter, do follow me there. Thanks.
So the story of my trip is told there. But sometimes 140 characters is not enough, so here are bits to expanded on, largely just for my own posterity, but you can read it too if you like.
- United Airlines. Awful. I hear that rather than replace planes, they run them into the ground. It showed. Little movie choice, with sound not actually working on most of them. Kids stumbled upon severely 18-rated scenes in films too, a tad too easily. That is, if they could see the TVs - they were tiny, and had no angle-adjustment, so if the bloke in front leant his seat back, you have to crouch to see the screen at 45 degrees. The food was awful, and half of it was stuck to the tray. No free booze. Boo. The fast-track check-in desk for us forward-planners who checked in online was five times as slow because their computer had crashed and they were short-staffed, and yet they employed one fella whose sole job it was to put pot-plants on the desks of business class check-in. Put the pot-plant down, and get behind a desk. The icing on the cake was that us steerage class (if this had been the Titanic, we'd have drowned with the Irish) were refused access to our nearest toilet, because it was for business class only, despite (a) being only three seats in front, and (b) there being a big light above our seats with a 'Lavatory' sign flashing on and off whenever someone in business class went in or out. If we're not allowed to use it, why in the world do we need to know when a businessman is taking a crap?
I was going to tell you about the rest of the trip, but that will have to wait. I've used up all my blog/venting energy on United Poxy Airlines. Don't fly with them. I hope they google this.
Friday 7th August 2009, 03:34
Not going to Edinburgh Festival this year, so to recreate the fringe, I'll be performing a gig in my own living-room, having no one turn up, and if anyone is foolish enough to appear at my house, I'll be removing from them any paper flyers they have, before deep-frying them (the flyers, not the people. Actually yes, the people as well. That's how fringey I'm going. A mixture between bad cuisine and modern art.)
I wish you well, fringe-goers. This is my 1st year off doing a solo show in 5 years, and I think my 1st non-Edinburgh-bound year in a decade. I miss it of course, but at the same time I'm delighted not to have the stress of it all. Instead, I head to America on Sunday for 2 weeks, taking in Niagara Falls, driving down to Pittsburgh, then on through Amish country to Washington DC. I did a coast-to-coast road trip last October taking in 13 states - this time we're adding 2 more to that list, with Ohio and Pennsylvania.
You may think it's a bit soon to go back, twice in a year. Well it is. My reason for going: there is a conference for people without bellybuttons. It will be wonderful.
So, maybe no blogging for a bit. No twittering, no facebook updating. So one last quick blogette before I head:
Yesterday, in London, on the tube, in an empty carriage. Train stops, on come a group of about 20 tourists. All wearing face-masks. They sat down next to me and around me, making me feel really quite uncomfortable. It's weird being on a carriage with 20 others and you can't see any of their faces. Weirder still to feel like there's something wrong with you, like you're in quarantine. I assume it was a prevention against swine flu, or London pollution, or something paranoid like that. Whatever it was, I took delight in launching into a coughing fit, turning my head on every wheeze so as to cough a little bit over all of them. They left at the next stop. They were originally heading for Leicester Square or somewhere central, but I feel like I did my bit to support the local tourism of Queensway. Bon chance, tourists.
Sunday 26th July 2009, 09:29
Am on 3 podcasts this week:
1) Comedian Phil Butler's new podcast The Green Room comes from Jongleurs Watford this week, where myself, himself, Paul B Edwards and Addy Van Der Borgh all talk about things and donate snippets of our sets. Tis on itunes.
2) Only my words, rather than voice, but the 'Paul' email read about by Simon Mayo and Mark Kermode on their podcast is me. I didn't include a surname, place of origin, or qualifications (traditionally on their show I should have added 'BTh(Hons) Nott, PGDip Acting GSA'), because I was hoping they may read out I was from Movie Banter instead. They did not. It's the BBC after all, and they'd have to say, "Other movie review podcasts are available, including ours." My email was a quick review of Moon, followed by boasting that I saw it with Tim Roth and Kevin McNally (see previous blog post).
3) And of course my very own Movie Banter, which now celebrates 36 glorious episodes. We're hitting our stride, but running out of episode titles. If you haven't listened, a) what's wrong with you, and b) we give each show a film-inspired title according to its number. So any suggestions welcome for coming ones. Got something in mind for episodes 38-41, but apart from that, it's open season. Any ideas?
Previous examples to get the ball rolling:
13 = Episode Friday 13th
26 = Episode XXVI Warchowski
33 = Episode 33 1/3 The Final Insult
As you can tell, running out of good ones. Do help.
Tuesday 21st July 2009, 12:02
Saw Moon yesterday - a fine, 'little' film (one actor has 99% of the lines, although it's set on a moon station with what looks like an impressive budget on the screen) with Sam Rockwell as the lonely astronaut on the dark side of the moon. Until he finds someone else there, who looks somewhat familiar...
I could go on, but won't, because it's a great watch, and although I felt it nearly lost its way halfway through (there were moments where it seemed it didn't quite know where it was going), it all came together beautifully at the end. It's a rewarding, well-rounded film where you can tell that one guy (who happens to be, in reality, David Bowie's son) has had this idea and put it together with very little studio involvement. And it's fantastic that nowadays technological advances mean that even a small, British, independent movie can convey a space station on the moon with stunning detail, let alone the very tricky visual effects of having Sam Rockwell in scenes with... Well that would ruin it, but you probably get the idea.
The main point of note was that this was a Monday afternoon in the centre of London - I won't say which cinema to preserve anonymity, and so that I can go again for a similar experience - but three seats to my left sat none other than top actor Tim Roth. Wow, I thought. Then I heard a loud voice three seats to my right, complaining to his son that the curtain after the trailers was shut for far too long and made a not-very-slick show of it. And that was Kevin McNally. Wow again.
So there I was, sat in a small little screen, in the same row as Mr Orange and First Mate Joshamee Gibbs. It felt like a premiere. So there's your tip - if want to watch movies with movie stars, Monday afternoons in central London is where you'll find them.
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