We're not in the business of having people hate our films

[alexsarll]

I may have spent Friday night walking with gods and monsters, and yesterday on the psychoactive lemonade with the chattering classes, but it's still 'Time Crash' for which I'll remember the weekend so far. Hell, even remembering it's getting me all misty-eyed. 'You were my Doctor.' Sniff.

I've had a great idea for a film, except because I watched it in a dream, now I'm vaguely concerned it might already have been done: Father Christmas invades the USA. I don't know what happens with Canada - non-aggression pact, presumably - but he sweeps down from the North Pole and soon subjugates the majority of the US (I didn't see this bit, but presume that with his manufactories on a war footing, and the FTL superstealth sleigh, it wouldn't be too hard). And I have no idea why he was doing it - was the film a 'real meaning of christmas' story, a political satire, or just crazy for the sake of it? I don't know, I didn't see the whole film. I just remember him in a khaki camouflage version of his outfit, in a Patton stance.

Why I shall not be going to the Tutankhamun exhibition.

Much-hailed talk of a 17% fall in heart attacks in Scotland since the smoking ban revealed as at best exaggeration, at worst another outright lie by the neo-puritans:
"It is conceivable, although perhaps unlikely, that the smoking ban had no effect at all...what appeared to be hard medical evidence now looks more like over-hasty and over-confident research, coupled with wishful political thinking and uncritical journalism."

Comments

[the-roofdog.livejournal.com]

Closest thing I can think of is this masterpiece http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0058548/

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

Yes, I am aware of that one, though I've never seen it - fearing that, like Troma films, it could never live up to its title.

[augstone.livejournal.com]

you need to write this film.

perhaps, if he is ever pictured with his red suit (and with rudolph's red nose), the americans could think "the commies" are finally attacking.

or 'red dawn II' (red christmas morning). i'm going to have to stop, having too many ideas about this.

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

When I mentioned the film idea to Pippa, she immediately said "Aug should do this film".

[augstone.livejournal.com]

awesome.

it immediately brought back growing up in the 80s when everyone was convinced there would be this surprise communist attack (my middle school was designed, with basically no windows, in case of such an event). having santa claus be the one to sweep through the u.s. really plays on how ridiculous it all was. (not that 'the cold war' wasn't a real threat but the way i remember ordinary citizens reacting...)

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

To listen to the way Fox News et al. talk about the Clintons and the liberal media elite, you'd think the reds really had swept across the US...

Thinking about it - Father Christmas gives stuff away, doesn't he? So he is clearly a redistributionist red!

[augstone.livejournal.com]

i think we're really onto something here.

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

Funnily, I've still not had any calls from the studios yet - you'd think with the strike they'd be desperate for UK scabs!

[juggzy.livejournal.com]

If you write it, oor bazza, you have to have Santa making an alliance with the Canadans that allows his reindeers to cross canadan air space, and perhaps stop for a refreshing nibble or two of lichen.

[beingjdc.livejournal.com]

Yeah, it's probably solar flares. Or Mossad. Apparently passive smoking actually cures warts. My gran smoked for 108 years and etc.

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

It looked to me like a fairly good Ben Goldacre-style demolition job on some really sh1tty stats work that had been undertaken in pursuit of a pre-ordained desired result.

[beingjdc.livejournal.com]

Not really. The main contention is that 'heart attack rates had fallen by around 5% in several previous years, so an 8% fall this year is only really a 3% fall'.

The question this fails to address is, what was causing the 5% fall. If it was magic heartmending pixies who are still at work, then yes, it's only a 3% real fall.

If on the other hand it's caused by, y'know, public health measures such as this one and healthy eating advice and so on, then it's entirely possible to hypothesise that the marginal return of these other measures falls over time, whereas the contribution of a new one is greater.

Once you have a hypothesised correlation, you need to look for whether there's a transmission mechanism, otherwise it could indeed be a coincidence. In this case, we know that smokers are twice as likely to have a heart attack as non-smokers, and smokers under 40 four times more likely than non-smokers under 40.

Since we know that around 50,000 smokers in Scotland gave up for at least some period of time in the year following the ban, it would be remarkable indeed if this didn't make some contribution to falling rates of heart attacks. The rates due to passive smoking will of course be harder to measure given greater numbers and more 'noise'.

[perfectlyvague.livejournal.com]

I had some cigarettes on Friday and I'm not dead. Therefore....ah - it's your birthday - I'll let you have this one.

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

Again, though - how many people were already giving up year on year? How many of those 50,000 lasted the distance? Was the figure worse than for people giving up in response to other, less draconian initiatives? Without that information it's an eye-catching but basically useless figure.

[juggzy.livejournal.com]

Smoking certaingly seems to protect against breast cancer. Just saying. Ex smoker here.

[beingjdc.livejournal.com]

Women who smoke for many years may increase their risk of developing breast cancer. New research shows that for women who had smoked for 40 years or longer, the risk of breast cancer was 60% higher than that of women who had never smoked.

Among those who smoked 20 cigarettes or more a day for 40 years, the increased risk rose to 83%.

That's the BMJ in 2002.

[perfectlyvague.livejournal.com]

It was when they said it would be at the O2 that I knew I would not be going - I am more likely to find myself in Cairo than North Greenwich. Actually it was the fact that the death mask is all over the fucking publicity when it's NOT EVEN THERE was what got me initially riled. Oh - and the 'Tut' this and 'Tut' that of the press - reducing the man god to cheery Vegas spectacle.

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

To be fair, I think the 'King Tut' bit dates back at least to the seventies exhibition. I don't like it either, but what can you do? It's one of the few foreign names the tabs can still contract as they like without anyone calling racism.

I hear that the Dome is a pretty good gig venue, but yes, the idea of an exhibition of ancient mysteries there...not so much.

[stu-n.livejournal.com]

It is a pretty good gig venue, surprisingly. Much better than Wembley Arena, better sound than Earl's Court. It's tackier than a Liberace fashion show, but that's fine for a gig.

[stu-n.livejournal.com]

They do say on the posters that the image isn't of the death mask.

But they say it in very, very, very small letters.

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

That's one of the things I think the article has dead right - that by making another item essentially a substitute death mask, you at once devalue it, and swindle the public.

[amuchmoreexotic.livejournal.com]

Isn't it a bit soon for the undoubted public health benefits of the smoking ban to be trickling through? I bet you anything that the 17% figure was produced by the press somehow misinterpreting or exaggerating the study.

Those health do-gooders - taking our pump handles! Damn them.

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

I wouldn't be surprised if the press had lacked rigour in dealing with the figures, but it also seems entirely characteristic for the unholy union of politicians and PRs to have spun them at source.

[davegodfrey.livejournal.com]

Its always been a source of shame that I was at UCL for four years, have lived in London for another six after that, and I still haven't been to the Petrie Museum.

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

Nor I, it pains me to say. Or Sir John Soane's since I've actually lived here.

[davegodfrey.livejournal.com]

I have been to Sir John Soane's and it is excellent.

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

Oh, I know. Or at least, it was when I went in c2000, and it doesn't seem the sort of place to fall for any damn fool nonsense about 'accessibility' and wreck itself.