Kenneth Griffith films a wedding

I saw a wedding in the village church yesterday, I almost blubbed.

What is it about weddings that turn us into creampuffs? (Or is it just me?).

Probably because they all look so happy and we wonder will we ever be that happy? Or able to commit? To take that leap of faith?

In the graveyard of the church of the wedding, that I walk past most days, lies the actor, filmmaker etc Kenneth Griffith.

When I first moved to London, I lived in the part of Hoxton that is in Islington. About three hundred yards away, Kenneth Griffith had the office of his film company.

Now that I currently live where I do, Kenneth Griffith has his film office about three hundred years away from me, down the hill, in the graveyard, still no doubt planning his next film, his next performance and his next piece of agit-prop.

I was going to go in and ask him for some advice, but the last time I tried that was in Montmartre cemetery, Paris in Nov 2003, when I sought Truffaut's grave, touched the black marble slab that is over his grave and asked him for some advice regarding my filmmaking.

He replied in a cod-french accent, 'You just have to keep going, mon ami'.

Thanks a bunch Francois. But in his simplisticness, he was right. You just have to keep going, mon ami.

Love in a Gluten-Free World

This week I have mostly been achieving...

I want it so much that that crazy glint in my eye is not Dr. Draze and his new consumer eye test. I want it so much that I feel the very fundament of my soul resonating at the speed of the universe. In short, it shall be mine.

But what are these riches, baubles and trinkets I talk of?

Success.

But what is success? Surely success is everything to everybody.

Example, I used to go out with a girl and the the only thing she ever wanted in life was a Jaguar XJS. That's pretty much it, a Jaguar XJS, oh and never having to take the bus, ever again.

Now they were nice cars, they guzzled a bit, but as far as something that handled like a boat on a sea of slimy cheese, hey why not?

She went on and on about getting a Jaguar XJS, every time we would see one, she'd say, 'i'm going to have one of those'. Preferably a red one.

Now goals are great and important if you are ever going to achieve anything, even if it is to buy what is essentially a toy.

Anyway she probably did get that Jaguar XJS and then mayhap got bored with it or realised that it wasn't really handy around town or that hey sometimes catching the bus is okay, even rewarding and in cities, often a better way of getting around.

But to her getting that Jaguar equalled success, it meant that she had arrived, she had made it, look at me world, I am a success, I don't have to take the bus hahaha (and she used to accuse me of being a snob).

So a couple of weeks after we split up I was walking down the road.

I had a decent amount of cash coming to me and I wanted to invest most of it, but as I passed a car lot, a funny mischievous thought popped into my head and I liked it.

Said ex-girlfriend called me a few days later, mostly as an excuse to see how I was doing.

You know, one of those 'hey I hope that you are doing great'.

But secretly hoping that I was, even just briefly;

'a wasted husk of emotional wreckage doomed to wander the landscape in a state of learned helplessness'.

Anyway I agreed to go over and give her back a couple of books that I had of hers. Yes it's true that the books were a metaphor for 'a damn good seeing to', but I really did have some of her books.

So I pull up in my new car, shiny, polished, waxed and gleaming, it's a nice new car, didn't cost me that much, as you can pick up those things pretty cheaply.

And she is waiting for me on the doorstep and the look on her face says more than I could ever impart to you in a lifetime.

As I glided seamlessly up to the kerb in my beautiful, sleak, powerful, red, Jaguar XJS...

Foreign Correspondent

The contagion spread. Just like 28 Days Later.

It's bechamel sauce trying to be too clever metaphor got out of hand and the next minute we knew, we were two moldy friends left out in the rain.

So there we were, me and my subconscious standing at the bus stop waiting for the mythical X30 service to 'Future Aspirations via Irrelevant Trivia'.