The last few days once again have filled the time with tales of wonder and then more wonder but of a different sort, one of which perhaps leaves a bitter taste in the mouth.

So to Tuesday, a detour was taken to a pub just shy of the London Bridge tube station, to sit down and listen to some scripts written by aspiring comedic writers to be. The cunning name for the writers writing comedy, who were also in London; The London Comedy Writers. How fiendish…

It was actually a rather bizarre thing to do, after all the most I have ever written for, was the blog, the podcast and various crayon scrawlings in phone boxes. Never had I considered writing comedy, in script form and it was a good learning experience. The actors were superb in reading the script, and the material presented by two likely lads who decided University was a waste of time (cough, cough), and the feedback given was slightly hopeful.

It would be unfair to say what it was and also to spoil some of the humour, so for once, I guess the beans shall remain in the tin, as opposed to all over the floor in an erotic display of, err, eroticness.

The idea of the evening was to have your work read out for various people who will have recieved your script beforehand, and have feedback given by whoever was there. Looking back it is the only true way to know if you have what it takes to make it and they all did a very good job in being fair, something very hard to do these days. I suppose that to write so little what what was a great time is a grand injustice to what the LCW actually is, so with that note, I suggest you look up their website and see what it’s all about.

The London Comedy Writers

Now, let us fast forward to the Wednesday of this week, and as you may have guessed by the hastily put-together yet highly superb video piece starring the Lord of Leisure, it was the day that highly paid film stars rolled into town to make sure that they fulfilled their movie contracts in promoting the film they worked on.

Hancock has Will Smuty, Charlize Thermos (which was news to me as nothing had been said about her) and another bloke who up until that point no-one had heard of all playing written characters in the Movie. Hancock is a down on his luck superhero who has had enough but pulls himself together judging by the huge screens showing massive amounts of spoilers. I think so anyway…

By reading the previous paragraph you may be thinking that the impression that has been left is one of the same bitter taste known when making the impossible attempt of seeing which of marmite or Bovril was better.

And in the grand scheme of things, I suppose that is the most accurate feeling I can bring across the digital divide. You see, on television, the events where the A-list Hollywood people are seen on our doorsteps, well only London as it goes, once again reiterating the fact that there is no other place in the UK that anyone actually knows about, are dressed up as grand affairs capturing the human sphere of imagination.

Well…err. It’s not.

Instead, what was presented to open-mouthed people including myself, was a huge corporate event aimed at showing once again the barrier between the people who had money and in the know with the right people, and the general public. All the way around you had never seen so many people in suits outside of Canary Wharf, all there to keep the peace and also a contingent of PR, making sure that no-one would get more than 5 nanoseconds with the megastar of your choice.

But before the main event kicked off, to keep the sort of big-ish crowd at bay from destroying everything in sight, a brief dancing show was put on, with various little people further reinforcing the black culture stereotypes with huge shorts and crap music. However the tiniest midget should be credited with actually pulling off some impressive moves while the women did next to nothing. Dance imitating life methinks.

Now to be fair, credit has to go to Will Smith, who when he arrived on the scene took his time, as he spent the most time signing various implements of the sight-seeing crowd and taking pictures with them, in between going to the media for silly catchphrases and laughing at a jaunty angle (If you were there, you would know) so the wrath of this little self-indulgent article will spare the man.

But as for the other a couple of minutes for the cameras, then a couple for the small portion of crowd towards the front of the carpet area and then the rest of the time for the news media who reports the chaos to the hungry TV fatties. Consider the source of the rant if you will.

The movie going public pay for the actors’ mansions, cars, women, men, light bulbs as well as the jobs of the production company and the studios, so perhaps they should be willing to spend a little more time near…..dare I say….us normos.

Perhaps that is a greatly selfish thing to say, but judging from others around, it was clear that this feeling was there below the surface, below the forced smiles. There were fans who were over the moon to be within 50 metres of their favourite actors, such as the fat girl who sang like a canary to the cops to make a deal for her freedom. I had only seen and heard worse on the Jerry Springer show.

To add insult to injury, you watched countless people who you had no idea who they were, but were all clutching premiere tickets in their hands, hell even the Gladiators currently pretending to hit people on Sky One turned up, in their costumes. How did they get a ticket? The bloke who used to on the show which fixed people’s houses up, Nick someone-whose-name-escapes-me-because-I-don’t-really-care-who-he-is turned up with a tiny sexy woman. Again, how?

I enquired as to how people actually obtain these tickets and somehow I uncovered an underground industry which is growing in the depths of London for the elite to use to make themselves seen at the event of their choice. Lifestyle Management companies.

Yes, you read it, you can’t unread it. Lifestyle Management, as it appears is the way to have things taken care of, for the busy professionals of today’s rough and tumble world, they get you gifts and arrange entertainment on your behalf while you work making 100 million at the stock exchange.

Take a look for yourselves:
http://www.conciergelondon.co.uk/
http://www.sincura.com

These are merely two examples of the growing industry, all catering to your high brow social needs. Unless you know someone in the entertainment industry who can get tickets at will or are very rich, this is the way you have to go.

Perhaps, if you wish to make a name for yourself in any shape of form, this is the new fame academy and maybe everything you see on the news should not be taken as gospel. It appears once again, reality takes on a new meaning here in the capital.