Video

Reviewing one's extensive and astonishingly comprehensive collection of Lindsay Lohan surveillance cassettes last week (The story of how yours truly managed to install a camera in her toilet is indeed one for the grandchildren) prompted the question as to why one has never attempted to make feature presentation before. The necessary skills are evidently in abundance if the footage already captured is anything to go by. Witness how, at time index 18:25:03 of tape #61, the subject appears to reach for the toilet roll only to pause and intensely stare at several cracks in the adjacent wall before darting her head from side to side as if under the impression that what she was doing was being watched, recorded and played back incessantly in a building many miles away, in a darkened room illuminated by a single red light, insulated from external surveillance due to tinfoil covered walls and with a six day-old bowl of Lidl cornflakes nestled between copies of Five Go Mad In Brixton and the Weekly Standard providing atmosphere. Watch how she wipes. Wipes. Wipes. All in utter terror. The moment is positively Spielbergian.

Inspired by the sudden realisation that one is a cinematic genius on par with Renoir, Hitchcock and, indeed, Lucas, one immediately began compiling ideas for a plot. Basic ground rules were first to be established -

• Artistic purity must prevail. This will be a work unsullied by the vulgar commercial concerns of mainstream cinema
• Must feature an autonomous rock

After attempts at a first draft failed due to the incessant interruptions arising as a consequence of keeping the individual sequestered in the adjacent room sedated (Sedative: Sledgehammer - Ran out of morphine after one accidentally amputated one's foot last week. Managed to re-attach it but the gangrene is proving tiresome) decided to film in homage to Fellini by going all Cinema Verité and simply followed random individuals with a camera for a few days. This being Dublin one happened across twelve muggings, at least three instances of mothers selling their children for smack, a burning Ford Fiesta, a tripwire at the top of a flight of stairs (forgot about that one - never gets old) and no less than five separate cases of voluntary incest. School discipline has waned somewhat since 1987.

Soundtrack proved a problem. Experiments with homemade instruments did not turn out as successfully as planned so had to go with the backup plan: Stuck a microphone outside an abbatoir for five hours and interspered the sounds liberally with recordings of Julia Roberts' ample and impressive flatulence (a very gracious and willing volunteer for surveillance - a certain Ms. Lohan could stand to learn a thing or two!).

Posted the results on YouTube and mailed a copy to Joel Silver. Thought nothing more of it until an email was received a couple of days afterwards while watching compilation footage of losing racehorses being shot. Apparently, a group of thoroughly nice young men from the Middle East had seen the work and insisted upon a collaboration being as they were in need of a director. The weather forecast for Khandahar Province was optimistic so set out without delay. After a vigorous and considerate body cavity search, one left the airport chapel and boarded the aircraft which was, as expected, shot down by a well-aimed surface-to-air missile a short distance from Bagram Airbase. Thoughtfully, one had remembered to steal the emergency parachute from the person in the seat in front and was fortunate to land gracefully on a Afghan schoolchild. Normally this would be cause for concern but fortunately she was already dead as a result of the curious local custom of throwing acid in schoolgirl's faces. Made a note and moved on.

One was struck by the abominably poor quality of the roads in this part of Afghanistan. Perhaps it would have been an idea to cut back on the amount of roadside bombs for a start. One is as fond of an improvised explosive hidden on a motorway as the next person but there's a time and a place and outside a sex shop is not one of them. Does nothing for the tourist trade.

A couple of observations about the state of the ongoing military activity in the region:

One - American missile targeting systems are now so sophisticated and accurate that from a distance of three hundred miles they can direct their missiles to the exact centre of a large red cross.

Two - they could very well win the war in a matter of days if only they would devote a few minutes to reprioritising their targets. Unless it's being held in Dundalk, a wedding party is unlikely to prove as significant a strategic target as an ammunition dump. Even if it is funny watching the bride trying to fire an RPG7 for the first time at an unmanned drone.

Three - the Afghans could win the war in a matter of minutes if they threaten to burn the poppy fields. The population of Carrick-on-Suir alone would be driven to such insurrectionary frenzy that it would start cannibalising the residents of Kilkenny to the extent that the Irish government would threaten to suicide bomb the United States unless the war was called off. Suprised they've not thought of that sooner.

Met delightful young chap not far from the Pakistani border who escorted yours truly to the set. Heart sank. What illumination there was was provided by corpses that had come into unfortunately close contact with white phosphorous. This would prove to be a test. However it was at this point that the machinations of studio interference became most gruellingly apparent. It transpired that one did not have a choice of filming location. One was told that the camera was to remain static and face towards the wall of a room within the basement of a local structure. With no set decorator in evidence, one proceeded to spruce up the wall with a few choice quotes from one's favourite lyricists - Roger Waters, Sting and Mutya Buena. However, this would prove again to be the source of dashed artistic dreams. The wall, it was insisted, was not to be bare but would instead bear a flag of one's host's design. A garish, green thing that, if the indecipherable white streaks slashing across the middle of it were anything to go by, had evidently been pissed on by an albino yak. Why can't these cretins just write in plain, understandable English? What on Earth were they thinking?

Nevertheless, professionalism must triumph so one swallowed one's pride and coralled the cast and crew together to establish the basic structure of the piece. Any good director knows that storyboarding is essential to a convincing visual aesthetic so to establish confidence and calm any nerves one decided to show the cast the storyboards of the most crucial scene in the script - a lightsabre duel where the Prophet Mohammed vanquishes Christ in the city of Sodom. The lovingly illustrated bare thighs of both combatants were a particular source of pride.

This did not go down well. After spending three days in captivity in a room 2x5 wide with nothing but a bipolar rat for company (went by the name of George. Lovely chap when he was on the manic upswing. Ate him before he could enter the depressive phase. Only seemed fair) and after the stitches from one's eyes were removed the cast informed one of a previously unknown caveat. It was difficult to discern from their feral, unintelligible jabbering but apparently there are some problems that some members of their religion have with any attempt to visually depict the Prophet and that indeed any image of said individual is considered forbidden. Which makes no sense whatsoever. What about when he needs to have his photo taken before getting onto a plane or when he's being racially profiled? What's he going to do then? Offer them a virgin and hope the pilot's not a Jew? Ridiculous!

Quickly set back to work. Handed out copies of the screenplay to the assembled cast. Many of them took objection to the fornication scenes on page 12 but one or two were positively overjoyed with what happens on page 14, provided that a vacuum cleaner, two litres of bleach and horse that doesn't have rabies could all be found. Crushingly, one's vision was again compromised as what one assumes was the male lead insisted that one's magnificent, self-penned screenplay was not to be used. Instead, after insisting that one start filming, he stood in the frame reading lines from a piece of paper while his comerades, who for some obscure reason had now concealed their faces in black towels, lined up behind him. Evidently this was some one-act play they had devised themselves. Perhaps with a view to the Best Short Academy Award. The nerve of it all.

It was at that point that a door opened and one or two burly companions of theirs brought in some obscure indivudal wearing a black hood over his face. Rather impolite chap too. Incapable of making anything but indistinct muffling noises whenever pressed on an issue. Evidently a resident of Youghal, accustomed to communicating only in low, guttural grunts and who nudges one's hand when wishing to attract attention. Imagine one's shock when one learned that this individual, this non-entity from the anus of Ireland, was to be the lead. This proved to be the final straw as one announced to one's collaborators that production was shutting down. There then resulted much more jabbering in their impenetrable, deeply irritating bark that passes for language, which one finally, after much effort, understood to mean that they were not happy at this turn of events. One had anticipated difficulties of this sort but was not prepared for conducting negotiations at the business end of an AK-47 Kalashnikov. The situation was only rescued when one produced a video cassette from one's personal collection which featured an image of the excreta on the aforementioned Ms. Lohan's used toilet cleanser that, when viewed from a certain angle, appeared to depict the Prophet in profile. Sufficiently enraged by this turn of events, the cast and crew took off in their vehicles, charging towards the border. Hadn't the heart to tell them that one had paid off the Halo Trust on an earlier visit and that the roads were now bristling with landmines.

One soon departed the vicinity although was kind enough to point the, rather confused, lead actor in the direction of the nearest human settlement. Why he insisted on staggering off with his hood still on his head and why he refused to chew his way of out his binds is a question that may never be answered.

Thoughts for the day:

#1 Lucrative business opportunities exist for a vigilante police force that counts Ken Dodd, a football mascot and Jackie Healy-Rae among its members.

#2 Why would Greece and Turkey want to fight over somewhere like Cyprus? It seems like the kind of place a country would stick one's inbreds so nobody would notice what the general population like to do as a pastime.

Match

The thing about alien abductions is that they have a growing tendency to deposit you many, many miles (fuck the metric system - Britain didn't forge an Empire just so some borderline-autistic little continental cretin with a calculator and post on the EU Commission could dictate how one is to measure one's manhood) from your point of departure. This is particularly inconvenient if one has imprisoned an interloper in one's cupboard for research purposes and taken the time and consideration to render their holding cell airtight. Went through five blenders and four bottles of bleach trying to dispose of the last one (Mental Note - do not wear white when conducting disposal operations in future).

Nevertheless there appears to be something indefinably appealing about yours truly that keeps our friendly visitors from Subspace or wherever the fuck these Shivans hail from coming back for more. It may have something to do with recent experiments that have widened one's personal Suez Canal so that its diameter compares favourably with the width of the M25 London Orbital Motorway. Imagine yours truly's surprise, then, at waking up to find oneself naked, malnourished, bothered and quite perturbed in Milan, of all places, on the eve of a local association football match featuring two teams from the city.

Wandering into the stadium proved easy enough. Wandering in with a flaming scooter - that was tricky. Managed it by convincing the guard that an individual in the queue for the gentleman's facilities was Romanian at which point, for some bizarre reason, several dozen of the guard's colleagues arrived seemingly from out of the ether and hastily initiated vigorous physical relations with the young fellow of the kind rarely seen outside of Glasgow. The distraction provided ample opportunity for one to park oneself in the upper stand and, graciously, relinquish one's grasp on the scooter, allowing it to fall, gracefully, over the tier onto the seats below. There was no explosion, unfortunately, but one's nakedness was undoubtedly relieved to be free of the burden of a flaming hunk of metal. There was even the bonus of a boner once the screams from the lower stand became audible. Although, given these were Italians, it was entirely possible that they had failed even to notice the uninvited object that had been lowered onto them from forty feet above and that their screams were merely the result of their sudden realisation that there was a black man within two miles of the stadium. God bless Mario Ballotelli.

Decided to pop downstairs after an announcement indicated that kick-off had been delayed. Apprarently a violent altercation in the supporters tunnel near the gentlemen's facilities earlier had left some unknown individual clinging desperately to life and who urgently needed to be evacuated via helicopter to the nearest hospital. Which was doubly unfortunate seeing as yours truly had, on a previous visit to the city, taken the time to install anti-aircraft artillery with an automated targeting system on the rooftops of the larger buildings. Well, you can never be certain where Islamist militants are going to strike next. One wonders how far he got.

Wandered downstairs smiling and curiously enough found the door to the referee's room ajar. Killing the referee proved easy enough. Killing the referee in such a way that it looked like he had been murdered by members of a dissident Republican group - that was tricky. Managed it by carving "Go d'eirigh an Fhear an Phoist leat" into his buxom chest with the red card (colours - one learns from one's mistakes) which surprisingly turned out to be made from condensed iron filings. With little else to do, thought it best to don the referee's bloodless uniform, rouse the linesmen from their slumber (brought about by swift blows to the back of the heads with a fire extinguisher - always knew that Fire Safety course would come in useful) and take to the field in the absence of any outstandingly qualified personnel to arbitrate what would no doubt prove to be an effervescent encounter.

Teams took to the field. The poor design of their jerseys became immediately apparent - they weren't bullet proof. What one assumes was the goalkeeper found this out to his great dismay after an unknown individual in the crowd opened fire with what, judging by the sound, was an M40 assault rifle. Poor choice. Muzzle flash gave him away. Massimo Moratti has grown increasingly trigger happy in his dotage, it must be said.

After insisting on a swift redesign of both team's jerseys (now augmented by body paint an ammunition belts, inspired by Mad Max), one lined the teams up for inspection. In a pressure situation such as this, it's best to let the players know early on who's in charge. Decided to establish a disciplinary yardstick. Shot Estaban Cambiasso at point-blank range. Little protest was heard though that may have been due to the tinnitis caused by twenty seconds concentrated firing of an M60 machine gun. Having heard previous reports of the tendency of players in the Italian league to rather overstate the case after incurring an injury, one was prepared for a certain degree of theatricality in their approach to the game. What was not anticipated was for Cambiasso to lie prostrate, blood seeping from several orifices and to emit an intermittent, low moaning. Such professionalism is unbecoming. However one's heart truly sank when one noticed that, no doubt egged on by Cambiasso's vile example, two other players, some match officials and even select members of the crowd had taken to mimicing his behaviour by lying flat on their backs or face down, moaning incessantly.

New Inter recruit Thierry Henry began remonstrating. Apparently there exists some form of legislation that prevents players being fired upon by a match official, he claimed. Not in the Serie A, there doesn't. Henry has evidently never heard of UEFA Rule #22536 - "Any player giving dissent over the officials' right to carry a weapon must be injected with smallpox." Produced a sample of said disease and administered it in a civilised manner to the dissenter. Who did not approve, it must be noted.

Game kicked off. Insisted that play be brought back due to an offside. New Inter recruit Craig Bellamy began remonstrating. Apparently one cannot be offside from a kick-off. Bellamy has never heard of UEFA Rule #456787 - "You can be offside from a kick-off." Shot him in the leg for dissent. Appeared not to notice. Bless.

Game progressed without incident until the 37th minute when Theirry Henry collapsed, completely unprompted, bleeding profusely in the penalty area. Clear penalty kick to Inter. New Milan recruit John Terry took exception. A penalty can only be given if an opposition player makes physical contact without connecting fairly with the ball in the penalty area, or so he claimed. John Terry has never heard of UEFA Rule #572380 - "In case of French: award penalty." Insisted Henry take the kick once he came to, but his sudden decomposition rendered this difficult. Ordered Bellamy to take the kick in his place. Lined up to shoot, made contact with ball. And was consequently blown twenty feet in the air. Bellamy was unfortunately unaware of UEFA Ruling #689114 - "All penalty spots must now include a landmine." After laughter had subsided, shot Terry for dissent.

Match finished soon after. Unqualified skill in arbitrating such a contest brought yours truly to the attention of the Afghan Football Association, where the position of National Team Manager is available after a recent NATO mishap. May take it on. Benefits include summary executions in the stadium of adulterous women before each home game. You usually don't get that at most grounds apart from Ibrox.

Thoughts for the day:

#1 Countdown should feature a bomb that will detonate in the event of failure to solve the conundrum. De-duh, de-duh, de-duh-de-dah indeed.

#2 May be able to get off that murder charge as a result of killing that Japanese individual last week if one can classify the killing as "Scientific Research".

Israel

Great place. Was a constant source of inspiration through the difficult days of Yom-Kippur a while back. Need a country? Build one from scratch! Have attempted to recreate this scenario with varying degrees of success throughout the years. Most successful was that time yours truly bifurcated the flat complex into two warring territories taking Kashmir as an example. Started shelling the car park in order to better convey the impression of a war-ravaged disputed zone. Didn't go down too well with the patrons of the local creche and Spar who were caught in the blast radius but they've no one to blame but themselves. Shouldn't have built so close to a war zone or decided to use children as human shields (that's never deterred yours truly before, either).

Anyway, Israel. Industrious indigenous population, that much is certain. Seem to build houses at a rate that implies they expect several hundred older dwellings to be destroyed in the time it takes to say "Arab!"*, for some reason. Weren't fond of habit of periodically dropping live hand grenades into manholes but positively loved tendency to indiscriminately lob heavy ordinance over large brick walls. They also seem quite prone to leaving contruction vehicles and heavy plant parked conspicuously in odd places. On that topic, why on Earth would anyone want to build a house or a school somewhere that diggers and excavation trucks are operating? Pure carelessness you realise, after you've stopped laughing. Also very carless to leave the doors of such vehicles open so that if, say, if one were to have a detailed and intimate knowledge of hotwiring machinery one could commandeer such a vehicle, ignore the squealing noises that suddenly arise, daub "I AM THE VOICE OF MY OWN GOD" on one's naked chest in Chanel No. 5 lipstick and proceed in whatever direction the voices compel one to.

This display of undisputed constructional and architectural savvy impressed the natives no end and was quickly rewarded with a contract to build new homes in the vast, uninhabited expanse of land to the west of the river. Couldn't say no. How often do you get a chance to build a conservatory on a three-bed semi while simultaneously tear-gassing local children? Just the five times a year, roughly, that's how often.

Drew up initial plans on the houses quickly enough. Made sure to include large cellars with egress points behind the cupboard in the drawing room. You never know how many Austrians might be interested in purchasing. Handed in the plans to the quantity surveyor, arranged a phalanx of bulldozers and then set them to work. Had to bring proceedings to a halt after just fifteen minutes. Apparently the vast expanse of land wasn't quite so uninhabited as one had been led to believe and that sporadic regions of the terriroty are, in fact, home to some rather strange-looking, swarthy types who opposed the construction process on the ludicrous grounds that, apparently, their people has not only been living in this part of the world for quite some time but had, in fact, been here first. An argument which one, admittedly, found confusing but was also summarily scotched after an Israeli colleague produced a copy of the Bible which contained absolutely no reference to these dark fellows whatsoever and indisputably, irrevocably made clear that the land belonged to Israelis. Worse was soon to follow, however. In addition to the aforementioned ridiculous claims on the land, apparently many of these so-called "Palestinians" (if that is their real name) have taken to living in dwellings composed of wood, fabric and polystyrene surrounded by large, barbed fences. Well, that's a bit stupid, isn't it? Why would you want to live somewhere like that? Why not just emigrate or, heaven forbid, go for a swim? Even after pointing out to them on a map another, nearby country they could fuck off to that one's hosts also kindly assured was uninhabited (Lebabonon, or something) they insisted on remaining and seemed to believe they stood a good chance of winning the argument.

Fools.

Moral resistance doesn't tend to function too well against a Caterpillar D9, it turns out.

Flew home on the Tuesday evening. Enjoyed that little soujourn so go to typing up CV. Opportunities for similar work going in Chechnya, one is told. Sounds enticing.

Thoughts for the day:

#1 There are too many countries in the Balkans. If only there was some way of unifying them under a single flag and singular national and ethnic identity. If only there was someone up to the job. Someone unafraid to make the difficult decisions. One speaks, of course, of Ian Dowie. Cometh the hour...

#2 Strange noises coming from the windowsill indicate possible sniper fire. Further investigation required.


* A common local exclamation which, judging by observing its usage, can either mean -

"Shoot!"
"It was him!"
"What are you wearing under that burqua?!"
"Fuck"
"This establishment and surrounding environs will be reduced to a smouldering hole in the ground following a brief passage of time"