Footprints In The Sand

Writer's Block: Green-eyed monster

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 15:49:47 GMT

If your romantic partner told you that, given the chance, he or she would sleep with a celebrity/public figure you disrespect, would you be amused, jealous, or bewildered? How would they react if the situation were reversed?

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Amused. I think he'd have the same reaction...after all, the possibility of it happening is absolutely nil.

Writer's Block: Seeing stars

Wed, 28 Oct 2009 02:57:07 GMT

Which character from any film, television show, or book would you most like to take on a date and why?

Submitted By blue_mariposa88

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Captain Jack Harkness. I think he'd be a lot of fun...and I'd be certain to get lucky:)

Writer's Block: Yes, offense taken

Sun, 25 Oct 2009 17:36:56 GMT

If a friend or relative makes a racist or homophobic remark, do you tend to confront them or let it slide? Are you more likely to confront them if it offends you directly or someone else who seems reluctant to speak up?

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I get confrontational. Not in a rude way, but I play Devil's Advocate, ask them to explain, and proceed to counter their remarks. Sometimes they change their views as a result.

Was away for a while

Sat, 26 Sep 2009 17:29:57 GMT

Now I know why Smudger looks so damnned scruffy this year...

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/football/leagues/championship/newcastleunited/6173162/Newcastles-Alan-Smith-out-to-prove-his-doubters-wrong-at-St-James-Park.html

Smith, 28, was an England regular during the Sven-Goran Eriksson era but then he broke his leg badly during a United game at arch-rivals Liverpool in 2006 that raised question marks about his professional future.
The former Leeds forward was eventually deemed surplus to requirements at Old Trafford and joined Newcastle in a £6-million transfer two years ago when Sam Allardyce was in charge of St James’ Park.

Smith’s ability to help Newcastle avoid relegation was hampered by an ankle injury that required surgery last season but now he is proving his doubters wrong with a series of impressive displays for the Tyneside club.
“I’m not too bothered about my personal form - I know I can play football and I know that injuries over the past two or three seasons have stopped me progressing as a player,” said Smith who gained the last of his England caps two years ago.
“But this season, I think will be perfect for me because there are a lot of games to be played and hopefully this season. I can play more games than I have done in the last two or three put together. That’s all I want.
“It’s nice to get personal praise but I know that we have players here that if I am not playing well or an inspiration to the team, there are others who are natural leaders in our dressing room now which we have not had since I have been at this football club.
“There’s myself, Kevin Nolan, Joey Barton, Nicky Butt, Steve Harper and then there’s younger lads, Steven Taylor’s got experience in the Premier League.”
Newcastle will visit Cardiff on Sunday when they will aim to consolidate their lead at the top of the Championship and Smith is insistent that there will be no complacency despite the unbeaten start to the season.
“We’ve made a good start. there were things we wanted to achieve as a team ahead of the international break and we’ll have a look at what we have done well and what we can improve on,” Smith told his club website.
“The main focus is that this is a long, long season. There are still 41 games left and we have to play every one of them as we have the opening five.
“As a fan, a player or as a manager, you want a team you can be proud of and we have that feeling 100 per cent. That’s the main difference and that’s the only thing that people on the outside looking in will be focusing on, asking is their attitude right.
“think in that first game at West Brom, everyone was just expecting us to just roll over and feel sorry for ourselves but we knew that would never be the case. Everyone can see we’re all working hard for each other and giving 100 per cent all the time.”
Smith, who has captained Newcastle this season due to injuries to Nicky Butt, said the team wanted to put right the disappointment of relegation.
The Yorkshireman continued: “I think what goes on and whatever happens, when you do get relegated, everyone is disappointed, your pride is hurt, the players who said they wanted to stay at this football club did it for a reason because they want to prove they are good enough to get back in the Premier League.
“Only time will tell if we can do that. Squad togetherness is important and I am sure everyone can see it. I think that’s the biggest impact on people who come and watch us play.
“When I speak to people, that is what they have said `You look so together and I have not seen that for a long, long time.’ So that means a lot to us because we are honest lads who want to stay, do well and get this club back in the Premier League.”
It is no wonder Smith is itching to help Newcastle gain promotion because he has also pledged not to shave until the club are beaten again.
“It started off as a bit of a joke to be honest but then a few of the lads told me to keep it going until we get beaten so I hope it’s still there at Christmas,” Smith added. “Mind you, I’ve had a bit of a reprieve. I’m going to trim it because it is starting to get a bit itchy now. I need to sort it out.”

I'm scared to check most of the time...it gets my hopes up

Sat, 26 Sep 2009 17:17:53 GMT

Coca-Cola Football League One
2009-2010 Season Domestic Stats to 25-Sep-09 inclusive
Division Overview Table

TW LW Chg Team Pld W D L F A GD Pts
1 1 Leeds United 8 7 1 0 16 4 12 22
2 2 Charlton Athletic8 6 2 0 18 6 12 20
3 3 Bristol Rovers 8 6 0 2 13 6 7 18

part of the Paul O'Grady show with John Barrowman

Sat, 26 Sep 2009 17:09:15 GMT

RIP Patrick Swayze

Tue, 15 Sep 2009 03:57:39 GMT

http://www.cbc.ca/arts/story/2009/09/14/patrick-swayze-dies.html

You'll be missed.

Sun, 13 Sep 2009 01:08:14 GMT

I feel like the Invisible Woman.

Wow...the legs!!!

Sat, 12 Sep 2009 05:54:45 GMT

Don't think karaoke is his thing, but damn! Wish I could move like that in heels...

Wish I could go...

Thu, 10 Sep 2009 16:17:22 GMT

http://broadwayworld.com/article/BWW_INTERVIEWS_Actor_Singer_TV_Presenter_John_Barrowman_20090909

On the plus side, sounds like he's coming to Canada again (probably Toronto, unfortunately)

Brilliant!!! So glad I'm following Jonathan Ross on Twitter

Sun, 06 Sep 2009 05:01:08 GMT

Writer's Block: Top of the Charts

Sat, 05 Sep 2009 14:29:04 GMT

What's the most-played song in your music library?

View 2051 Answers

I Am What I Am and I Know Him So Well by John Barrowman.

Glad things are looking up for Smudger...never realized the injury was THAT bad

Wed, 02 Sep 2009 16:03:07 GMT

Alan Smith could be a hero for Newcastle Utd

Aug 19 2009 by Mark Douglas, The Journal

ALAN Smith has emerged as an unlikely hero amid the turmoil at Newcastle United. Mark Douglas reports.
Alan Smith

IF Newcastle United are to continue dismantling the theory that their Rolls Royce players won’t fancy it in the Championship’s Demolition Derby, then Alan Smith may prove to be the unlikely driving force.

Unlikely, because in two seasons of service at St James’s Park, United fans are yet to see anything like value for money from their England international midfielder.

On the evidence of a couple of snarling, all-action performances that represented something close to vintage Smith – that may all be about to change.

Deployed in a deep-lying role, after finally having a full summer programme behind him, Smith has been stoking fires in the midfield engine in the way that Sam Allardyce had hoped he might when he sanctioned a £6m move for him.

Two years into his five-year contract – and with no competitive goals to show for his 41 games – Smith finally looks ready to realise his promise in a black and white shirt.

Perhaps we should have known better than to write off a player who, The Journal has learned, was just 30 minutes away from losing his foot after suffering a sickening injury in an FA Cup tie three years ago.

He recovered after weeks of pain-staking fitness work but a succession of niggling injuries has seen him as good as consigned to the scrapheap by Newcastle fans.

Shin splints and Achilles injuries have hardly helped, but there is no doubt that Smith is only just beginning to justify his elevated reputation at St James’s Park. Finally, after working to his own fitness programme over the summer months, he is in decent shape and able to reproduce the attributes of his game which saw him capped for England.

Smith’s leadership on the field has been replicated behind-the-scenes, where he has assumed an increasingly important role in rallying the senior players and bringing the fractured elements of the squad back together again.

It was the former Leeds and Manchester United man whose furious reaction, in the wake of the 6-1 humiliation at Leyton Orient, prompted a crisis meeting in the Brisbane Road dressing room which has been credited with turning things round in pre-season.

Smith’s sentiments were basically that, however badly the club was disintegrating, the players still had a responsibility to themselves and to Newcastle United. And he said that anyone not fully committed to the club was not wanted in a newly-unified dressing room.

Since then Smith – alongside other senior men like Steve Harper and Nicky Butt – has been running an unofficial players’ committee that has been helping caretaker boss Chris Hughton to carry out his duties.

Everything from getting the stereo back into the dressing room to acting as one of the peacemakers after the latest Joey Barton training ground spat has been carried out by the committee, which has helped galvanise a previously dispirited and rudderless dressing room.

Perhaps it should come as little surprise that Smith has confronted the challenge head on rather than actively search for a transfer, as many thought he would do in the wake of Newcastle’s disastrous relegation. After all, he has already come through personal set-backs which put United’s predicament in sharp perspective. In February 2006, as Manchester United took on Liverpool in a fifth round tie at Anfield, Smith rose to block a John Arne Riise free-kick and shattered his left leg, dislocating his ankle in the process.

If it hadn’t been for a quick-thinking Liverpool physio popping the ankle back into its joint, Smith’s livelihood would have been ruined.

“It was a terrible, terrible injury. The first time I spoke to Alan afterwards he said – with a straight face – he was 30 minutes away from losing his foot,” a source close to Smith said. “If you go back and look at the footage on YouTube, you can see from the reaction of the other players that it is a bad injury. Wes Brown looks visibly shocked but knows that he has to stay with Alan because it’s such a bad injury and Ruud van Nistelrooy cannot look.

“It took months and months of lonely, determined work to get back to where he is now but long after the physical scars healed, I think there was a few psychological things to get over.

“There was never a problem going into tackles but I think it took a while to throw his full weight through kicking a football again. There was maybe that element of worry for a while, but he’s fully recovered now and that’s a testament to his strength of character because plenty of players would have packed it in after what happened to him.” That injury came just a couple of seasons after Smith did the unthinkable – in the eyes of the Leeds fans that he considers himself a part of – crossing the Pennines to Old Trafford.

It was those kind of attributes that convinced caretaker boss Hughton to hand him the captain’s armband in the first games of the season.

Indeed Hughton – a man who will never be the tub-thumping leader that United perhaps crave – said he had “no hesitation” plumping for Smith as skipper.

“In the absence of Nicky Butt there were plenty of players in the squad who could step forward and do the job. Steve Harper and Steve Taylor were both in contention but Alan is a leader and I had no hesitation asking him to do it,” he said. “I think he is in very good shape this season and he’s an important player for us. Of course the injuries are going to take their toll on any player and Alan has been particularly unlucky on that front.

“The most important thing is that Alan is a player who has been fit from the first day of pre-season. He’s had his injuries and missed a fair amount of football.”

It is a feeling shared by fellow players, with Danny Guthrie fulsome in praise of the new skipper.

“He’s a top lad and a top player. He’s a leader and has great qualities like his drive and determination, which are ideal characteristics for a captain. Smudger is the kind of player I look up to and can learn from,” he said.

http://www.journallive.co.uk/nufc/newcastle-united-news/2009/08/19/alan-smith-could-be-a-hero-for-newcastle-utd-61634-24474804/

CoE airs tonight!!!!!!!!

Mon, 20 Jul 2009 15:23:50 GMT

Writer's Block: The Best

Sat, 18 Jul 2009 05:48:06 GMT

What's the best thing you've seen or done this month?

View 500 Answers

Thoughts on CoE

Tue, 14 Jul 2009 06:25:54 GMT

1) COE was brilliant. We have met the enemy and he is us. Watching the officials decide which children should be given over and referring to them as units to reduce the horror of what they were talking about.

2) people complaining that Jack shouldn't have taken Ianto with him. He was going to TALK. Under normal conventions of war, negotiators are at risk, but usually allowed to live to convey terms. They didn't realize they weren't dealing with an Army, but rather the alien equivalent of the mafia or a Columbian cartel. Besides, Ianto was a grown man...I don't think he would have let jack leave him behind.

3) the ending was in character. We know Jack can be a ruthless pragmatist, and in sacrificing his grandson he saved 32 million others. But it was Hobson's choice- no choice at all. I cried for the last 15 minutes or so. The anguish on his face. I'm also glad that even 6 months later, he still hadn't come to terms with it all. In RL it would take several years to cope with a normal death and Ianto's death was not normal...and Stephen's was even worse. Poor Jack...in such a short time , bereft of home, work, lover/partner, daughter and grandson. He's been completely broken.

4) some are saying that Captain Jack couldn't be in TW4 if commissioned but why not? He's got his Time Agent wrist strap back and it's working. He can go see the Doctor and maybe heal a bit ( and hopefully be in DT's last appearance). (Who knows, maybe he even took a bit of Ianto and Stephen's DNA with him and can get a little alone time in the Tardis and open it up just a bit...)

5) what happened to the Rift? Was it sealed shut? Or is Cardiff being overrun with aliens and their flotsam and jetsam?

6) was Myfanwy blown up? Or was she out hunting at the time?

7) why does it take an alien in a sci-fi show to point out the horrendous child mortality rate on Earth and to emphasize that we don't care about it?

8) it made me actually like Gwen. Loved the bit going over the Severn bridge. There was a bit too much of her, but at least she was likeable and watchable in it.

9) loved Ianto's rescue of Jack from his concrete prison and the scamming and thievery of the Torchwood team

I wish I lived in England...

Tue, 07 Jul 2009 14:56:59 GMT

...so I could be watching Torchwood:Children of Earth NOW, rather than in 13 bloody days!!!!!!!!!!!

Interesting Interview with Daniel Radcliffe

Sat, 04 Jul 2009 04:39:04 GMT

If you are the world's most famous teenager, the speculation that swirls around you is often less interesting than the reality. For instance, Daniel Radcliffe is not gay, but he does have an interest in cross-dressing: "The one piece of advice I would give to any actor is, if you want to go out on the street without being recognised, without even being looked at, go out with a 6ft 8in beautiful transsexual," he says, eyes wide. "No one gives you a second glance. Especially when you're 5ft 5in. I'd love to play a drag queen or transvestite, but not just because of the costumes. Wait, what am I saying? Yes, because of the costumes! If the script was good - I wouldn't just do it because I got to dress up. Although I maintain that I look good with eye make-up. And I'm not going to be an emo kid, so the only other option is drag queen."

To answer another rumour: Radcliffe has not had beer made by monks drafted on to the Harry Potter set. "I don't drink beer as a rule." He prefers whiskey sour or tequila. "I love tequila - it's one of those things, like Jägermeister, where you get a very specific type of drunk off it." He hasn't recruited the SAS to walk his dogs, either, or ever grown eight inches in two months ("I wish!"). "And the best one: I had a nude sculpture made of myself to put in my living room. I don't know how big they think my ego is."

It is no surprise that Radcliffe, now 19, is a target for the tabloids. Last year he reportedly signed a contract worth £25.6m for the final two Harry Potter films, and was ranked as the world's highest-earning tween, alongside Disney star Miley Cyrus. Has he ever had to sue the press for defamation, or threaten to? "We've got involved a couple of times," he says carefully, "but it's never got to court. We've had to be very vigilant." He also has to be alert to entrapment, though it helps that he's not a regular club-goer, preferring "old man's pubs" and the odd gig. (He loves indie music, from Radiohead to the Hold Steady.)

"There have been people who have tried to exploit me. You get chancers out there who just want to make a quick buck, but as long as you tune into them and who they are ... The best thing I've learned is, if you're going out, never go out alone - you leave yourself vulnerable. If you've got someone else there you trust, they can say, be wary of that person. I probably used to be too trusting of people."

A while back (he thinks it was when he was 14, while filming the third Harry Potter film), Radcliffe made a choice that he definitely did want to be an actor when he grew up. "When you're in the position I'm in, you have two options: you can either shut yourself off from everybody, from the world, and not live a full life. Or you welcome everybody into your life and occasionally somebody will try to take advantage. And I'd much rather be that person who lets people in. Because, as an actor, people are your greatest resources."

This is why, on the evening I meet Radcliffe - Dan to everyone he knows - I find him busy people-watching. He's arrived early for our interview, at a private London club (his PR is a member, he's not), and has been taking in the clientele, trying not to gawp at Christopher Biggins. "And there was this wonderful man downstairs who was flirting so overtly with any female waitress that passed him by. It was fantastically funny to watch. And one day, when I'm 40 or 50, I hope to be playing that part. I'll remember this ... "

Despite all the pressure, it seems that Radcliffe is growing up sensibly. Normally, even. He loves cricket, likes a drink and a furtive smoke, and watching bad TV on a Friday night in his underpants. He has a girlfriend he met at work. He's bought a flat near his parents' home in Fulham, and has lived alone for 18 months. Mostly, it's going well: he keeps his flat fairly tidy, although he's still taking washing to his mum. "Is that shameful?" he asks. "Not every time! But occasionally, if it's a big sheet or something." He's not fond of ironing, as his scruffy outfit suggests. "It's when you get to a zip or a button and you think, 'What the fuck do I do now?' The thing is, I think things look good creased. Scruffy is in now," he says hopefully. "Ironing boards are a classic example of something I find horrible about modern society: the excitementation, for want of a better word, of mundane things. Funny ironing board covers - I hate them."

Radcliffe is a thinker. Referring to the Potter films, which have overtaken James Bond as the most successful movie series in film history, he prefers a different comparison. "You know what I take pride in more than anything else about these films? They're the only films since Truffaut's Antoine Doinel series that have featured one character going from about the age of 11 to 20. To be in Truffaut's company, I'm happy with that."

He is also a fan of modern art. For his 18th birthday in July 2007, when his protective parents notionally handed him financial freedom, he thought about treating himself to a car (nothing too flash - a Toyota Prius, say, or a Golf GTI); two years on, he hasn't even had a driving lesson, much less splashed out on some wheels. Instead, he bought a work by New York-based artist Jim Hodges, which is how he was introduced to the world of transvestites. "The dealer said they wanted to sell it to a more prestigious collector, and Jim got word of this. Turns out he's a massive Harry Potter fan and insisted they sell it to me. Ever since then I've been really good friends with Jim and his best mate Tim, a photographer. And they are two gay guys, artists, in New York, and they introduced me to these amazing, crazy, mad, weird, extraordinary people. I was immediately embraced by the New York tranny community!"

The Hodges work, Mona D, Mary And Me, is "basically a drawing of blue ink on white paper. And it's the words, 'Oh for crying out loud' which is something his mum always used to say, as I think probably all our mothers did. And in the midst of it, it's weirdly calligraphic." What was its appeal? "I suppose - without meaning to sound like it's a link to Harry Potter - it's about finding something magical and fantastical in a mundane phrase. That's what's lovely about it."

He's a big reader, too, and talks enthusiastically of a project in his dressing room, a wall-mounted display of "the most important authors from the 1700s, 1800s, 1900s and a few from the 21st century. It was fantastic - Jo [Rowling] walked in, and the first people she picked out were George Eliot and Joseph Conrad. And Nabokov." He is also a keen poet, though admits that his early verses were all about quantity - "Now I'm lucky if I write one thing a month or every two months. But when I do write, it's of a much higher quality. It's more considered, more concise, I've got less time for the ... pretension I had early on."

He's published some poems under a pen name, and although he doesn't tell me what it is, he provides so many clues even Dobby the house-elf could solve it. It seems to be Jacob Gershon: Jacob is his middle name, Gershon the Jewish version of Gresham, his mother's anglicised maiden name. Modern poetry and free verse "irritates me", he says. "I love people like Simon Armitage. He has such an immaculate grasp of metre and rhyme, if he wanted to do poems like that, he could. But sometimes free verse, for me, is for people who can't do structure. And when I don't write in form and metre, I become unbearably self-indulgent. It's what Robert Frost said: free verse is like playing tennis with the net down."

Why does he like writing poetry? "As an actor, there is room for a certain amount of creativity, but you're always ultimately going to be saying somebody else's words. I don't think I'd have the stamina, skill or ability to write a novel, but I'd love to write short stories and poetry, because those are my two passions. There is an art to a short story. I love Raymond Carver, and Chekhov - without making myself sound more highbrow than I am!" he blusters, a reminder of the public schoolboy he was, on and off, until the age of 17. "I watch Britain's Got Talent like the rest of us."

We've met to mark the imminent release of Harry Potter And The Half-Blood Prince, the sixth film in the franchise based on JK Rowling's books. Radcliffe signed up for the series in 2001, when he was 11, and is now four months into the 19-month shoot for films seven and eight (the sprawling final book in the series, Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows, has been split into two parts). In The Half-Blood Prince, the Potter saga suffers its first loss of a major character, with the death of Professor Dumbledore, played by Michael Gambon. Was that difficult to film? "The whole film was quite difficult, but particularly that scene. I'd never been bereaved until the end of last year, when I lost my grandmother - before that, I'd never experienced any kind of sadness. So it was very tricky. It's also a tremendous pressure, because you know that a lot of people watching the film will have felt that. I tried to play it quite quiet, because that's just how Harry is."

The film also marks Harry's second kiss, with Ginny Weasley, sister of best friend Ron. Was that enjoyable? "It was quite weird for me because I've known Bonnie [Wright, who plays Ginny] since she was nine and I was 11. Very strange. But we got through it. It was good. And it'll get a bit of a cheer from the Potter fans. But I have to say, today I saw playback of Ron and Hermione's kiss [from the final book], and it is easily, from what we've filmed so far, the biggest moment in all the films. It is," he says approvingly, "a great kiss."

He pauses when I ask if he's happy with his performance. "Six is a very hard book to film, because it was essentially a lead into seven, but no excuses. I think I came through OK. I know I have a lot more to give than I do in six. And what's great is that I did Equus on Broadway between six and seven. I feel I've developed a lot in that time."

The last time I met Radcliffe, in January 2007, he was about to begin the London run of Equus, Peter Shaffer's classic 70s play. He was cast as Alan Strang, the stableboy who, in a frenzy of sexual and religious ecstasy, blinds six horses. He also had to strip naked every night for four months. In late 2008 he did it all again on Broadway. His performance in London was brilliant. Unlike the talkative, CGI-bolstered performances required of him in Potter, he was an electrifying and very physical onstage presence - despite the slight stature to which he refers repeatedly. The mild scandal about the full-frontal nudity (Harry gets his wand out, etc) and about this children's cinematic hero playing a tortured adolescent was quickly eclipsed by acknowledgment that he could really act. The critics mostly raved. "I was a lot better in New York," Radcliffe says. "New York was a better all-round show. We all raised our game."

Alan Rickman, Severus Snape in the Potter films, was a big help on Broadway. He cut short a holiday in Connecticut to visit Radcliffe and give him some pointers on stage presentation "that absolutely saw me through the last six weeks of the run" - how to be still, exploiting his "quite short and compact frame". Radcliffe says he used to "struggle" with Rickman: "I never used to know when he was joking or not. I think I took a lot of his sarcasm seriously. But recently I've woken up to it and he's actually a great guy."

Gary Oldman, who plays Sirius Black in the Potter movies, is one of the many older actors and crew members whom Radcliffe counts as close friends and mentors; Kenneth Branagh, who first floated the idea of his doing Equus, is another. Oldman applauds Radcliffe's "fearlessness" in taking the role. "To - no pun intended - expose himself. Not [just] physically get naked, but be vulnerable like that. To all the guns that could have shot him down. I think that alone is a great achievement. And he's serious about acting."

Equus was good for Radcliffe in many ways. It's how he met his girlfriend, Laura O'Toole, a fellow cast member, although he'd prefer not to talk about her. "She's just a normal person and she's not out for anything else. Which is very, very good. I seem to be a long-term relationship kinda guy. In my head I'm Byron, spreading failed romance ... There's a great line in Thackeray, 'Yes, I am a fatal man. To inspire hopeless passion is my destiny.' That's the image I have of myself [but] it isn't even remotely the case. I am quite a romantic."

It was important to be taken seriously as a stage actor, too. An only child, he was taken to the theatre regularly by his parents - Marcia Gresham, a casting agent, and Alan Radcliffe, a literary agent - and it was an encounter with the film producer David Heyman, a family friend, at a West End production of Stones In His Pockets, that led to him being cast as Harry Potter. "He was endlessly curious, and he was ambitious for his craft," Heyman says. "One of the things I respect most about him is he has pushed himself to get the most out of every moment in his life." This includes "getting everything he can from the directors" on the Potter films, among them Chris Columbus (Home Alone), Alfonso Cuarón (Y Tu Mamá También), Mike Newell (Four Weddings And A Funeral) and David Yates (TV's State Of Play).

Heyman is one of a close-knit group around Radcliffe who have protected, advised and helped keep him balanced. His long-standing PR chaperone no longer sits in on all his interviews but remains a key figure, as do his parents - his father gave up his work to become, in effect, his manager. He also mentions Sue Latimer, an agent and an old friend of his dad's, as one of "the fantastic people around me" who have made sure he doesn't wobble off the rails like so many child actors. "I've known Sue's son, Freddie Highmore - who played Charlie in Charlie And The Chocolate Factory - since we were little. She always looks out for my best interests. And then I've got the people on set. At 11, when I was first on Potter, I remember saying to everyone, if I get cocky, you have to tell me. And they always did."

One of his best friends is Will Steggle, a fortysomething father who works in the series' wardrobe department. "And because Will is a cynical man, he has put me off pretension at every stage. It is totally possible for an actor to be involved with the crew and have a chat with everyone, and be really good friends with them, then go on and do a scene. That should be your job."

He proceeds to tell me the people he "absolutely loves" on set: Rupert Grint, who plays Ron Weasley, and Emma Watson, who plays Hermione Granger. "They are, to all intents and purposes, my brother and sister." Are they all best friends? "Probably not, only because we don't see each other out of filming. But someone like Tom Felton, who plays Malfoy, I'd count among my really good friends. I went to the cricket with him on Sunday."

Big public events can be perilous. At the cricket match a man yelled, "Where's your wand, Harry?" which Radcliffe notes was "not original, not funny. Affectionate, slightly." Then there was his experience at a Red Hot Chili Peppers gig a few years ago. He was standing on the side of the stage when word passed through the crowd. "Hyde Park, 10,000 people chanting, 'There's only one Harry Potter!' It's good to be the king." He grins. "That's the thing, people don't realise that moments like that, while they're embarrassing, are also really cool."

He suspects Watson has a harder time. "Not so much [with] people but with paparazzi. Generally speaking, it's so much harder for girls. Guys are naturally lazy, and we like to lie around at home, so we don't give people many chances. Whereas girls want to get out, socialise and meet people."

But Watson seems to be enjoying all the opportunities for photoshoots and red carpet premieres. "Yeah, totally, but she's much more natural at them than I am. She's more suited to being able to talk to anyone - I get very nervous about those events. She's been photographed at a lot of [fashion] things, and I think that's a world she's very interested in. I've seen some of the clothes she's designed and [they're] very good. She's very clever. Do you know her GCSE results?" His eyes boggle: "I was thrilled with mine - seven Bs, two As and an A*. I think Emma got three As and seven A*s - she's incredibly academic, it's frightening. Me and Rupert to all intents and purposes dropped out of school. And she's going to Brown." He shakes his head in admiration of Watson's place at the US Ivy League college.

After all the untruths about Radcliffe, here are some facts: he won't be going to university, not least because he won't be doing A-levels. He is intent on an acting career, has had some Hollywood meetings, and looks forward to the time, very soon, when he doesn't have to turn down scripts because he's tied up in a converted aircraft hangar in a London suburb, in a world of wizards, Muggles and owls. There are a few projects in the offing, but the only one he wants to talk about is The Journey Is The Destination, about the photographer Dan Eldon, who was killed, aged 22, by a mob in Somalia. Funding permitting, it'll be his second biopic after his well-received turn as Kipling's son in the TV drama My Boy Jack. Radcliffe's passion for the part of Eldon stems from the fact that "everyone around him was steeled and inspired by his adventurous spirit - and it's also a character that's very unlike me. I'm not that adventurous in terms of exploring the world. The freedom that he had as a character, I don't necessarily have."

Radcliffe can't ride a bike or swim, not, as you might imagine, because Harry Potter stole his childhood, but on account of dyspraxia. "Like dyslexia but with coordination. My hand-eye coordination has got a lot better. I did an IQ test when I was about seven, and I was verbally in the gifted range, but my motor skills were rated as well below average. I'm quite proud of that."

He's Jewish, via his mum. "I'm an atheist, but I'm very proud of being Jewish. It means I have a good work ethic, and you get Jewish humour and you're allowed to tell Jewish jokes. For instance: did you hear how copper wire was invented? Two Jews fighting over a penny. And so on."

BBC Parliament is tagged as one of his favourite channels on Sky: he voted for "the gay policeman" (Brian Paddick) in the London mayoral elections and for Arthur Scargill in the European elections. He could never bring himself to vote Tory, but says, a little forlornly, that "the posh boys" he went to school with will soon be running the country. Without the cronyism and expenses fiddling of the last lot, he hopes: "I have a lot of faith in my generation. I have to. We have to develop our own moral system."

And finally, Radcliffe admits that as a boy actor he's had some "quite sexy mums over the years. Jamie Lee Curtis in [big screen debut] The Tailor Of Panama and Emilia Fox [in David Copperfield]. Both good," he says eagerly. He asks if I've met Rowling. "She is fantastically attractive. Very, very beautiful. And so intelligent, it's frightening."

Now, with the hour ticking on, the boy wizard must disappear. He has a 6am pick-up for a 7am start. It's just another day on the Harry Potter set - the Obamas are visiting.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2009/jul/04/daniel-radcliffe-harry-potter-jk-rowling

Stonewall Anniversary

Mon, 29 Jun 2009 06:47:14 GMT

Stonewall anniversary: writers and TV presenters discuss the progress of gay rights "Stonewall was both a blessing and a curse. It showed that gay men and women could change things through direct action" (Times Online) Paul O’Grady, TV presenter I remember being in a huge fight with the people who used to run the Lesbian and Gay Centre in London when it was open. Back then I was doing Lily (Savage) at the Royal Vauxhall Tavern. They told me they wouldn’t allow drag queens on the main stage at Pride. They probably thought it was anti-women or something. Anyway, I said, “I beg your pardon. If it wasn’t for drag queens you wouldn’t be knee deep in mud at this bloody festuval. It was the drag queens that fought bakc against the police during the Stonewall Riots. It was always the drag queens on the frontline, kicking off their heels and fighting back in those days. The great thing today is civil ceremonies. Too many gay couples had been treated unequally. I lost count of the number of times, one would die, then a family who you’d never seen would decsned out of nowhere, scoop up his possessions and kick his partner out of their home. Thank God the law is on our side now. But we should be able to get married in the full, proper sense. If you want to sail down the aisle in a big white dress you should be able to. We’ve come a long way: John Barrowman and Graham Norton are on primetime and you’ve got me — an ex-drag queen with a daughter and a grand-daughter with another on the way — on at teatimes. There is still a lot of homophobia around. The tabloids still use words like “bender”. Don’t get me started on those crazy Christians who know notjing about tolerance and respect. How could any self-respecting gay Catholic listen to the Pope’s nonsense about saving gay humanity from homosexuality as saving the rainforests. The Mormons that come round look like porn stars though, and the Sally Army sat through the night with the early guys who got AUIDS. They didn’t judge. They’re lovely. I get described in the press as “camp comic Paul O’Grady”. Last week, on the street, someone shouted at me, “Shut that door!” (the old Larry Grayson catchphrase) and I marched over there and said to him, “I’ll shut your fucking windpipe”. If anyone is ever homophobic to me, I confront them. I know from some of the letters I get from younger people they still regard “gay” as a stigma, which is sad. There needs to be more gay solidarity too. It used to be that you’d go down to your gay local and there would be a sense of community of some kind there. Now people are getting twatted on crystal meth and dancing in big clubs or ordering sex online. There’s no friendly queen leaning acros the bar and advising the new boy in town: “Oh I wouldn’t go near him, dear.” One of my friends Reg, who was the drag queen Regina Fong, despiared of one younger gay man who hadn’t heard of Lana Turner. “There’s no camp anymore,” he said. I hate being described as “openly gay”. I just am gay. I’m not some delicate flower. I own my fucking business. I’ve got my own production company. I’m fucking Mussolini. “Don’t fuck with me fellas!” That’s what Joan Crawford says in Mommie Dearest and that’s my catchphrase. Get rid of the nicey-nicey rainbow flag for gay rights and have that written on a deep purple background. That should be our catchphrase. You have to stand up, say your piece and be counted. As Gypsy Rose Lee’s mother said: God will protect us, but just to make sure, carry a big stick”. It’ll never happen but I hope for a day of total acceptance. Mark Ravenhill, playwright “Stonewall was both a blessing and a curse. It showed that gay men and women could change things through direct action. But it meant that gay rights became tied in with an American identity — an emphasis on the individual, on YMCA Village People iconography. "Coming out is almost a mirror-image of born-again Christianity. I much prefer Brian Sewell’s attitude: 'I never came out, I just slowly emerged.' “At Edinburgh this year I’m doing a show with the performer Bette Bourne, exploring the early years of the gay liberation movement in the UK and his experiences living in a drag commune in London. Gay people were risking their jobs, family, relationships; they were laying everything on the line to fight for something. You do think: 'God, how much could I do? How brave would I be?' " Jeanette Winterson, author Gay rights are civil rights, and any movement for political change needs an organisation that can lobby, inform, educate, protest. Think how far we’ve come since the Wolfenden Report. Now, most people know someone who is gay, just as most people know someone who is a single parent, in a mixed marriage, divorced, all the unthinkable things, even as late as the 60’s. The shape of family life, the shape of individual sexual choice has really changed, but that hasn’t happened by accident. Tolerance never happens by accident; it is a slow process of visibility, understanding, and of course, legislation. The law must be fair to all and equally applied to all’ discrimination on the grounds of gender or sexual orientation is wrong. We have learnt a lot over the last 50 years, and Stonewall has been a huge force for good. We’re not finished yet. I long for a time when we won’t even have to talk about this anymore. I don’t care whether people are gay, straight, bi-sexual, whatever. I want to know what kind of people they are, not the gender of their sexual partner. It isn’t interesting. One day the tabloids will realise that, and stop using ‘gay’ and ‘lesbian’ as pejorative adjectives. I would like to have a real fight with the press council over the use of the words ‘gay’ and ‘lesbian’. We need to stop saying ‘lesbian lover’, ‘gay couple’, ‘gay policeman,’ ‘lesbian social worker’, etc, which immediately subsumes whatever is the story into a gawp about bed. For myself, I am not a lesbian writer, whatever that is; I am a writer. Nobody calls Paul Auster or David Mitchell ‘heterosexual writers.’ As an adjective it is still used to reduce the scope of someone’s reach – assuming that heterosexual, like male, includes everyone, whereas ‘gay’, like ‘female’ is specific and limited. That will change, but there is work to do, just as there is work to do on gay marriage and gay parenting. Stonewall will be doing the work, and really, anybody who cares about equality, regardless of their sexuality, should support Stonewall. Ruth Rendell, who is a good friend of mine, is not gay, but she has supported Stonewall from the start – just as she voted in the Lords for the repeal of Section 28, and for gay partnerships. She is a great example of how we should work together, and how little it should matter whom we choose to love or desire. John Barrowman, actor I didn’t know anything about the Stonewall Riots growing up in the Midwest. It was only when I came to London that I heard the story of how a bunch of drag queens changed the course of history for gay people. Revolutions start withn ordinary people saying “No”. I remember watching Ian McKellen camping outside the House of Commons campaignging for an equal age of consent and being so proud and respectful of him. He not only helped found Stonewall, the campiagning group, twnety years ago, he’s my third party connection to the original Stonewall — he is one of those people who has consistently stood up and spoken out for what he believes in and that’s inspiring. I’m proud that now, being in the public eye, that I can speak out too. I get loads of letters from young people about being gay and coming out. I say, “Believe in yourself” and “Be as good as you can be”. If there’s one thing that annoys me it’s the media that calls me “gay” as a prefix to everything, or “flamboyant” or refers to my “lover” Scott. He’s not my lover — he’s my partner and we have a civil partnership. We should remain watchful. I sometimes think younger lesbians and gay men don’t realise how quickly we could lose the rights we have won. It’s lovely to have them but we need to make sure we keep them. And we should also campaign for gays in more repressive places or countries too. Ben Summerskill, Chief Executive, Stonewall The brave men and women who fought back against hate inspired people the world over. Twenty years later, they inspired those in Britain who fought back against homophobic hate too in the form of Section 28. Their British admirers borrowed the name Stonewall, not just because they were doggedly determined to secure equality but also in honour of their campaigning cousins across the Atlantic. The legacy of the Stonewall riots has been to spread the message of equality on an international scale That’s why Stonewall still works tirelessly towards this in Britain today. Edmund White, author For me Stonewall was a public occasion that also marked a crucial turning point in my personal life. I suppose there have been other dates like that (Martin Luther King's assassination or Watergate) but the other ones I can think of were negative in their impact, whereas for me at least Stonewall was entirely positive. Before Stonewall gays considered themselves to be criminals or sinners or mentally ill; after Stonewall they thought of themselves as members of a minority group. It doesn't sound like much but in fact this redefinition gave gays political clout and , more important, the feeling they had the right to that sort of power. We fought back. We asserted ourselves. We took charge of defining ourselves. The original leaders of the lesbian and gay movement in the 1970s were all political radicals. Aids in the 1980s saw a transfer of leadership to more middle-class and conventional people, who often were outed by the disease itself. As the LGBT movement became less radical, it became much more assimilationist. The international effort to legalize gay marriage is the final outgrowth of assimilationism. I'm all for it since gays should have the same rights as everyone else, though i personally counsel straight and gay friends not to get married--it's clearly an institution that rarely works. The goal of leveling all differences seems obtainable--except in the religious parts of America and the religious parts of the Middle East. In California the successful fight against marriage equality was led by the Mormons. In Iran teenage male lovers are hanged. Koranic capital punishment for homosexuality is still in full force, just as in Christian America hate crimes against gays and lesbians are still flourishing, And the human cost cannot be counted just in deaths; it must also be reckoned in the numbers of young church- or mosque-goers whose kind of affection and sexuality is scorned and punished and subjected to scare tactics. The fight against monotheistic bigotry is still the biggest struggle in the world that the LGBT community must wage. Third World AIDS, whether it affects gays or (more usually) straights, must also elicit LGBT sympathies and concrete help, since we've been acquainted with the epidemic longer than anyone else. Peter Tatchell, activist, founder of Outrage "Those of us who were part of the early gay liberation never called for equality. Our demand was liberation. We wanted to change society, not conform to it. The Gay Liberation Front wanted a political and cultural revolution. We supported the struggles of women, black people and workers, and the global movements against apartheid, war, dictatorship and colonialism. "Our radical, idealistic vision involved creating a new sexual democracy, without homophobia and misogyny. Erotic shame and guilt would be banished, together with compulsory monogamy, gender roles and the nuclear family. There would be sexual freedom and human rights for everyone - gay and straight. Our message was 'innovate, don't assimilate.' "We had a beautiful dream, but it is fading fast. In the 40 years since Stonewall, there has been a massive retreat from the ideals and vision of the early gay liberation pioneers. Most gay people no longer question the values, laws and institutions of mainstream society. They are content to settle for equal rights within the status quo. Conservatism and respectability have taken over the gay movement. "In the late 1960s, we saw the family as a patriarchal prison that enslaves women, gays and children. Four decades later, the focus of most gay campaigners is on safe, cuddly issues like civil partnerships and adoption. Gay people are increasingly reluctant to rock the boat and more than happy to embrace traditional heterosexual aspirations. "This political retreat signifies a huge loss of confidence and optimism. It also signals that the gay movement has finally succumbed to the mainstream politics of conformism and moderation. Forty years after Stonewall, the gay community needs to rediscover the vision thing. That means daring to imagine what society could be, rather than accepting society as it is.” Paul Burston, author and Gay pages editor, Time Out For me, Stonewall has attained an almost mythic quality. If everyone who claimed to have been there on the night the riots broke out was really there, the bar would have been the size of the 02 and the police wouldn't have stood a chance! Truth and reality have become so entwined that it's hard to separate fact from fiction. Allen Ginsberg famously said that after Stonewall, gay men lost that victim expression they had before. Maybe that was true. Or maybe it was just wishful thinking. Even before Stonewall, there were groups like the Mattachine Society who campaigned for gay rights. Maybe they weren't as exciting as the Stonewall rioters, but they laid a lot of the ground work for the activists who came afterwards. Here in the UK, the impact of the Stonewall riots is more difficult to measure. We've had our own direct action groups, for the Gay Liberation Front in the 60s to OutRage in the 90s. In 1994, after the age of consent vote, a small group of gay men and women stormed the House of Commons. I was among them. Afterwards, some gay commentators described it as 'our Stonewall'. It wasn't, but it's a fair indicator of the power of the myth that people should have made that comparison. Remy Blumenfeld, director, Global Formats, ITV There is no question that the Stonewall activists did much of the heavy lifting for gay activists in the UK who later equalised the age of consent, lifted the ban on gays serving in the military, allowed same-sex couples to adopt, repealed section 28 and secured civil partnerships. Even growing up in the ‘70s of Quentin Crisp, Larry Grayson and John Inman, I felt reasonably free and self-expressed – if not so much as to actually say I was gay, then at least enough to swish around school in a Viennese opera cape. Because, if nothing else I knew that being gay wasn’t illegal. Salvatore Romano, the closeted Art Director on Mad Men which is set in the early ‘60s is a peripheral character who communicates in a language of signals, paralysed by fear into living a lie. It is thanks to the men and women of Stonewall forcefully asserting their rights to equality under the law, that TV is now inhabited by men such as Kevin Walker, the 35 year old lawyer who’s a central cast member on Brothers and Sisters, living a life he loves where being gay is in most ways incidental. While it’s easy to take the gay rights and freedoms we have for granted, there are still 80 countries in the world where homosexuality is illegal and several countries where gay acts are punishable by death and it is hard to imagine what kind of an act of love and courage it would take to make freedom and self expression possible there. Sean Matthias, theatre director I’m just celebrating the first anniversary of my civil partnership which is probably one of the most powerful symbols of the progress we’ve seen in the last 40 years. I was 16 in 1973 when I first went to Greenwich Village. I saw men holding hands: it was one of the most overwhelming and confusing things I have ever seen. I didn’t know about the Stonewall Riots then, I don’t even think that they had entered “history” at that point. But by the time I directed Bent, in one of the first fundraisers for the founding of Stonewall the organisation in 1989, so much had informed the movement: Section 28, an unequal age of consent and — most profoundly — the impact of AIDS.In the next 40 years, I’d hope it would be normalised further: the next big battle will be gay eople and children; the idea that we can have them and be just as capable of caring for them whether as natural, adoptive or foster parents — and the ultimate challenge of being part of the afbric of society and not set apart. It’s still hard being gay outside big cities, in smaller towns and villages. There are still queerbashings and murders and our Government should be doing more to help gays lving in more repressive parts of the world. And we should have full marriage: partnership rights are fine, but what is the point of two thirds equality. It’s hypocrisy, we’re either equal or we’re not. I think coming out is powerful: if we tell the truth we have nothing to fear http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/specials/article6582826.ece

Why is July 20th so far away????

Fri, 26 Jun 2009 18:10:20 GMT

the DVD comes out July 28 (apparently), which is good as I'm losing patience

Thu, 04 Jun 2009 15:18:36 GMT

I cannot wait...

Thu, 04 Jun 2009 15:14:47 GMT

My own Hot 10

Wed, 20 May 2009 02:17:36 GMT

Well, since I couldn't vote for the afterelton top 100 (http://www.afterelton.com/people/2009/hot100), I thought I'd make my own list of hot men:

John Barrowman

and his equally lovely partner, Scott Gill

Tom Welling

Alan Smith (of course)

Gale Harold

Adrian Paul

Russell Crowe

Writer's Block: BFF

Fri, 15 May 2009 15:28:49 GMT

Who was your first friend on LiveJournal? Are they still on your Friends list?

View 501 Answers

cista
Yes, she is:)

I'm ready to scream!

Thu, 14 May 2009 00:49:00 GMT

con⋅science /ˈkɒnʃəns/ [kon-shuhns]
–noun
1. the inner sense of what is right or wrong in one's conduct or motives, impelling one toward right action: to follow the dictates of conscience.
2. the complex of ethical and moral principles that controls or inhibits the actions or thoughts of an individual.
3. an inhibiting sense of what is prudent: I'd eat another piece of pie but my conscience would bother me.

con⋅scious /ˈkɒnʃəs/ [kon-shuhs]
–adjective
1. aware of one's own existence, sensations, thoughts, surroundings, etc.
2. fully aware of or sensitive to something (often fol. by of): conscious of one's own faults; He wasn't conscious of the gossip about his past.
3. having the mental faculties fully active: He was conscious during the operation.
4. known to oneself; felt: conscious guilt.
5. aware of what one is doing: a conscious liar.
6. aware of oneself; self-conscious.
7. deliberate; intentional: a conscious insult; a conscious effort.
8. acutely aware of or concerned about: money-conscious; a diet-conscious society.

*******************************************''

I see these get mixed up all the time in fanfic, which irritates me, but I bite my tongue. Today, however, i saw them mixed up on a Yahoo news article. Doesn't anyone understand English anymore?????

(I know no-one is reading this, but it makes me feel better to vent)