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If only all Oscar acceptance speeches were as good as this

2008-04-19T10:37:00.004+01:00

Tim and I watched Once last night. Its a tale of a Dublin busker who makes sweet music with a young Czeckoslovakian mother who is trying to make her way in a new city. It is possibly the most romantic movie I have ever seen.

It was made on a budget of 100k and the two leads Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova are musicians rather than actors so the whole thing feels very intimate and natural. Hansard and Irglova won the Oscar for the best original song and you would have to have a heart of stone not to be inspired by their acceptance speech. Watch to the very end as Irglova gets cut out by the music and they bring her back on:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qx8yLvb0gZM

Magic Dust

2008-04-14T23:21:00.002+01:00

When my full time job was working as a columnist I found life pretty lonely. Its difficult to be inspired when you work on your own and in my case, in my jim jams. Since I became a Humanist Society of Scotland celebrant, I've become involved in many humanist activities and one of my favourite things I do is edit Humanitie, the society's magazine.

The best thing about editing is commissioning great writers like Mark Fisher who has so far interviewed Turner Prize Nominee Nathan Coley and Tartan Noir novelist Christopher Brookmyre for us. Philosophers A.C. Grayling and Nigel Warburton have also written exclusive pieces for Humanitie, and a nicer pair of fellows you could not meet.

And then there is Derek Green. Design is very important to me as an editor because no matter how original and fascinating the articles are, the reader will enjoy the whole experience of holding, scanning and then becomming immersed in the writing if the magazine looks great. What I love so much about the design Derek does for Humanitie is that you don't pick it up and say, "Woah, getta look at that design job!" You simply accept the magazine as a classy piece of work that just feels 'right'. It doesn't look designed, it appears to be born that way. But making it look easy is the hard part. Here's a shot of Derek and me watching our first issue come off the print run. Derek was checking the colours and I was trying to look as if I knew what checking the colours was all about whilst sportingly wearing a tea cosy on my head:

One of Derek's favourite phrases is, "Email me the images and the text and I'll sprinkle some magic dust over the whole thing."

It took me a long time to learn this: if you want your work to be the very best it can be, you need to work with great people. Obvious? Perhaps, but I've worked with a few people who were more than happy to have colleagues or employees less talented than themselves. Reassuringly, not one of these people has ever achieved greatness.

It is also important to work with people you like. Because I like Derek immensely, I trust him and this allows him to go for a risky idea and not hold back.

Another reason that Derek is fab is that he teaches at the Edinburgh College of Art and got some of his students to create designs for some humanist t-shirts and postcards.

So my quarter year resolution is to work with more people who have magic dust and sprinkle more of the stuff around myself.

You won't find any wind machines round our house

2008-04-12T13:10:00.003+01:00

Last night I was raging at this advert on the telly box:

It features two nymphets who are so turned on by their giant bottle of Gucci perfume that they seem to be blissfully unaware that their luxury NY condo could be doing with a draft excluder. They also do a bit of elegant dancing in very nice frocks. But its the damned wind machine that really gets to me. Women like Beyonce, J-lo and Maria Carey seem to travel with a wind machine forgetting that none of the greats relied on this technology to boost their sex appeal. Did you ever see a wind machine near Bette Davis, Jean Russell or Lucy from Dallas? I think my point is made...

Compare this Gucci ad with the video that inspired it:

This video features a woman who's hair is screaming for a hot oil treatment and dances about like she's a bit pissed. Yet she does sexy with aplomb, looking like she's up for a laugh at the same time. There is no sign of a wind machine because they are in a nightclub and presumably someone remembered to close the door.

One of these films is designed to sell you sexy by suggesting that the key to silken hair and a lovely house lies in a big bottle of smell. The other one makes you want to bleach your hair within an inch of its life and go out for a dance. Guess which one I prefer?

Plaster Caster

2007-03-16T19:17:00.000Z

I am a firm believer that you can never have too many professions on your CV.

My past careers have included: make up artist, restauratrice, writer and PR gal. However my favourite job was to play a miniature Egyptian mummy with the strength of ten thousand men in a Brunton Theatre company production of Aladdin. I can only assume my Olivier Award got lost in the post.

So you can imagine my delight at finding yet another string to my harp, that of casting director for the role of 'plasterer' for the new Yellow Pages People behind the numbers ad. This involved phoning every plasterer listed in Edinburgh and telling them: "No, don't dress up, come in your overalls and look dirty."

20 brave men took up the challenge and in the end Denis Maloney was chosen to star in the advert which features real people who advertise in the directory. I was very pleased as Denis was a true gent and a natural in front of the camera. The advert was made by Mother London and Academy Films, so it was nice to start at the top.

Think Humanist

2007-03-16T19:16:00.000Z

For those of you who need some ethical guidance but find Thought for the Day on the Today programme a bit of a turn off, have a look at my latest project for the Humanist Society of Scotland: Think Humanist. We launched this on February 12th 2007 with none other than professor AC Grayling podcasting his alternative thought for the day. Other contributors include comedian Stewart Lee, Humanist philosophers Nigel Warburton and Julian Baggini and Chair of the CND Kate Hudson.

We got great press coverage for this project in both the Scottish and national press. The Northern Irish Humanists will be the next to run a week of podcasts.

Juliet xx

Blonde News

2007-03-16T14:40:00.000Z

What the world really needs is a new blog. And here at last it is. Inspired by the example of Mike Coulter, I've finally put finger to keyboard.

There's been a lot going on recently in Blondeland, so please check out my other posts for details!

Juliet xxx