London & Portobello

I hopped on a train to London yesterday to see Three in the Portobello Film Festival. I don't know if we won; I don't even know what we win if we win. Not the foggiest.

Anyway, I pottered round Oxford Street for an hour and mistook a young bald man for Patrick Stewart - don't worry, I didn't say anything. Though, had I decided to, the exchange would most likely have gone like this:

Me: Greetings, sir. Looking to produce any short films?
Sir Patrick Stewart: I was Professor Charles Xavier. I played every single role in Dicken's A Christmas Carol. I was Captain Ahab. I was Claudius in Hamlet! I was the Captain of the Starship fucking Enterprise for christ's sake! Who the hell are you?!
Me: ........your new best friend.....?
THWAK!
*Mr Stewart walks away, leaving me unconscious in a pile of my own self-hatred*

Anyway, that didn't happen. So on to more interesting matters.

I met up with Mr Ty Jon Knowles (fellow writer and worked as production assistant on Three). One fellow (who will remain nameless) later may or may not have been eyed up by a prostitute in a trenchcoat (if the police ask, I'm a writer, ergo - antisocial, ergo - didn't see a thing).

I then spent the night shaking hands with a bunch of people I'd never met before - and what fine people they were - directors, producers, actors, cinematographers, armourers (they're the dudes with the guns. Note: don't say "Hey, you're the gun guy!" too loud in a bar. Turns heads. Wrong heads!), a few rather hot beautifully talented actresses as well.

I also had a few drinks bought for me, which is always appreciated at London prices. I'm sure the first Jack Daniels I had was half the price of the fourth.....

I was interviewed by a friend of a friend of a friend of a.........hmm.....I was interviewed by a lovely lady called Jo (I certainly hope that is her name - that part of the night is a little fuzzy. I'm almost certain it is. I think). Yes, so I was interviewed for a website - for the life of me I can't remember what website that was, but sure I'll find out.

We then settled down to watch Three on the big screen. I say big, but problem was, the projector wasn't close enough to the screen, so the opening title went from "THREE" to "HRE". But never mind, it just meant we missed off some of Mr Tony C's face in some of the shots. Which isn't the end of anyone's world.

Plenty of people laughed at the right moments (but that was mostly our gang to be fair) and also laughed at the wrong moments (again, us!). But it seemed to go down well and it was amazing to see the final thing on the big (slightly cut-off) screen. We did cheer an awful lot! Which is more than the film before ours got, since no-one turned up to see it. Just as well, since their DVD chocked and died before they could play it.

So after a few more drinks and shaking the hands of a few more people (it's very strange being congratulated on something you wrote over two years ago!), and after declaring that I could easily take Mr Robert Downey Jr in unarmed combat (not everyone shared my confidence), I headed on home. Three and a half hours later, at 2am, I crashed on my bed and now I feel like I've been hit by a truck. So it was a good day!

Thanks everyone, that is all.