This is a treatment for a film script I could write (or produce in collaboration with other writers).
The background is very steam train heavy. Lots of steam trains since there are many steam railways run by enthusiasts and it might be possible to get access to their system at a reasonable cost. The project would also need a disused railway station, a sand pit in a park (with a nearby path big enough for an ice cream van) and a hill with a railway line running up it (Snowdonia would be nice but might be expensive).
The kernel is boy meets alien (or dreams alien). Falls in love. Lips quiver. He obsessively starts to build train shaped sculptures (for example a train shaped sandcastle in a sandpit). Meanwhile everywhere he goes he hears a set of five to eight notes and sees people with bent arms moving them backwards and forwards in a co-ordinated way like children playing trains. The ice cream van, for example plays the five to eight note refrain while he is creating the train sandcastle.
The film starts with images of pipes being oiled, clearly overheating. The pipes thrash about in a frenetic way as old fashioned steam piping does but the camera is so close it is impossible to see any context. Eventually as the tension builds the viewpoint shifts to a billowing white cloud, through which a steam engine appears.
It concludes with a meeting as a railway station on top of a hill at which the two star crossed lovers decide that cultural differences are just too great and their love can never be consummated (apart from anything their plumbing works in such radically different ways making such an event quite impossible). It ends with the alien departing on the train.
Along the way there is a psychiatrist who says the leading character (let us call him Trevor Howard) is mad, police officers who chase him to a field where wide eyed locals have gathered to watch the ghost train pass by and a station tea room where Trevor imagines he entertains the alien (let us call it Celia Johnson) and she seems to take embodiment.
Wednesday 23 November 2011
Monday 21 November 2011
House building
In 1980 when Maggie Thatcher was rolling back the public sector and was about to begin selling off council housing at bargain basement prices, the private sector embarked on building 131,990 while the public sector notched up 110,010 housing starts. The balance was roughly 55% to 45%.
The UK housing stock is about 25 million so total starts of 242,000 meant the average new property had to last a shade more than 103 years. Build 242,000 houses every year for 103 years and you get 25 million.
But the design life of much new housing is only 30 years. This is not just a theoretical constraint. Much 1960s housing has already been demolished.
One of the motivations for cutting back public sector housing was to liberate the private sector: to let the free market provide the needs of the country.
In reality house building has been declining.
In 2008 there were only 182,820 housing starts. This is a quite remarkable reduction. A third more housing was built in 1980 than in 2008.
In general the private sector has built more houses than it did in 1980 (in 2008 private starts stood at 150,720) but the additional units were nothing like enough to make up for the decline in public sector building brought about by Thatcherism.
At the same time the population has been climbing quite rapidly, it hit 62,262,000 in mid 2010, compared to 56,330,000 in 1980, an increase of more than ten per cent.
In 2003 the Barker Review of Housing Supply calculated that 39,000 extra houses needed to be built each year just to accommodate population growth and changing patterns of household formation. (http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/+/http://www.hm-treasury.gov.uk/press_barker_03.htm).
A paper published by the Centre for Economic Policy Research (UK Household Formation: Nuclear Fission?) pointed out: "There have been dramatic changes in patterns of marriage and childbearing behaviour in the United Kingdom in the past 15 years. Divorce rates have risen, the propensity of unmarried couples to 'cohabit' has increased, and the proportion of babies born outside marriage has risen, from 8% to 19%."
If the nuclear family really is melting down then there will be a need for extra housing units even if the population stays the same.
The press often talks about a population time bomb caused by baby boomers reaching pensionable age and putting unacceptable pressure on the social fabric of our society. In reality this does not seem to be happening (for various reasons). If the proportion of pensioners was too high you'd expect births to decline. The opposite is happening. In 2010 live births reached 797,000, the highest since 1991.
More births, of course, means more demand for housing both now and in future years.
Government statistics reveal that things are much worse in 2010/11 (April 2010-March 2011) with total housing starts running at 131,040 of which 99,050 are private sector. At a rate of 131,000 houses built each year, the average new property will have to last 190 years.
Well some may, but to return to that Barker report house prices have risen much faster in Britain than elsewhere in Europe, suggesting there is already considerable over demand (or to put it another way, scarcity).
source:e Office for National Statistics (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-13975481)
source: http://www.lloydsbankinggroup.com/media/pdfs/research/2010/50_Years_of_Housing_UK.pdf (Communities and Local Government *Based on Experian forecast for Great Britain)
http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/peo_pop-people-population&date=1980
The UK housing stock is about 25 million so total starts of 242,000 meant the average new property had to last a shade more than 103 years. Build 242,000 houses every year for 103 years and you get 25 million.
But the design life of much new housing is only 30 years. This is not just a theoretical constraint. Much 1960s housing has already been demolished.
One of the motivations for cutting back public sector housing was to liberate the private sector: to let the free market provide the needs of the country.
In reality house building has been declining.
In 2008 there were only 182,820 housing starts. This is a quite remarkable reduction. A third more housing was built in 1980 than in 2008.
In general the private sector has built more houses than it did in 1980 (in 2008 private starts stood at 150,720) but the additional units were nothing like enough to make up for the decline in public sector building brought about by Thatcherism.
At the same time the population has been climbing quite rapidly, it hit 62,262,000 in mid 2010, compared to 56,330,000 in 1980, an increase of more than ten per cent.
In 2003 the Barker Review of Housing Supply calculated that 39,000 extra houses needed to be built each year just to accommodate population growth and changing patterns of household formation. (http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/+/http://www.hm-treasury.gov.uk/press_barker_03.htm).
A paper published by the Centre for Economic Policy Research (UK Household Formation: Nuclear Fission?) pointed out: "There have been dramatic changes in patterns of marriage and childbearing behaviour in the United Kingdom in the past 15 years. Divorce rates have risen, the propensity of unmarried couples to 'cohabit' has increased, and the proportion of babies born outside marriage has risen, from 8% to 19%."
If the nuclear family really is melting down then there will be a need for extra housing units even if the population stays the same.
The press often talks about a population time bomb caused by baby boomers reaching pensionable age and putting unacceptable pressure on the social fabric of our society. In reality this does not seem to be happening (for various reasons). If the proportion of pensioners was too high you'd expect births to decline. The opposite is happening. In 2010 live births reached 797,000, the highest since 1991.
More births, of course, means more demand for housing both now and in future years.
Government statistics reveal that things are much worse in 2010/11 (April 2010-March 2011) with total housing starts running at 131,040 of which 99,050 are private sector. At a rate of 131,000 houses built each year, the average new property will have to last 190 years.
Well some may, but to return to that Barker report house prices have risen much faster in Britain than elsewhere in Europe, suggesting there is already considerable over demand (or to put it another way, scarcity).
source:e Office for National Statistics (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-13975481)
source: http://www.lloydsbankinggroup.com/media/pdfs/research/2010/50_Years_of_Housing_UK.pdf (Communities and Local Government *Based on Experian forecast for Great Britain)
http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/peo_pop-people-population&date=1980
Passwordphobia
I hate passwords and so should you. I just signed up to pay my electricity bills online and EDF, the French nuclear power company that runs the old London electricity board, required a password from me. Why?
I can understand that some people might not want their electricity bills widely known but can't those who have a fetish about these things simply get the option of password protecting their account? The rest (the sane people) could simply have an account area that is not available from any kind of search (you can only go to it if you have a link).
Now it may be objected that EDF is storing confidential information about me and doesn't want to divulge this to anyone. Well again why?
Not why should they keep confidential information confidential. Why should they have confidential information online at all!
I probably have dozens of passwords. Sometimes the organisation sends you a password and you have no choice about it. Sometimes I can enter whatever password I want. But usually I get to enter a password but there are strange rules (it has to include a capital as well as lower case letters, there must be at least one number or some such thing). As a result it is quite impossible to have the same password for everything and so you have to be a memory specialist to be able to recall every password.
OK, it's usually (though not invariably) possible to get them to email you a link to a place where you can create a new password. But this is often a very tedious process so by the time it arrives I may have completely forgotten why I wanted it.
No I am not losing my marbles. I have quite a good memory, but I'm also very busy and it's easy for me to get preoccupied with something more important than a bloody password.
OK it's not a mater of life and death but it is just another one of those things that makes the internet slower and less useful than it could be.
I can understand that some people might not want their electricity bills widely known but can't those who have a fetish about these things simply get the option of password protecting their account? The rest (the sane people) could simply have an account area that is not available from any kind of search (you can only go to it if you have a link).
Now it may be objected that EDF is storing confidential information about me and doesn't want to divulge this to anyone. Well again why?
Not why should they keep confidential information confidential. Why should they have confidential information online at all!
I probably have dozens of passwords. Sometimes the organisation sends you a password and you have no choice about it. Sometimes I can enter whatever password I want. But usually I get to enter a password but there are strange rules (it has to include a capital as well as lower case letters, there must be at least one number or some such thing). As a result it is quite impossible to have the same password for everything and so you have to be a memory specialist to be able to recall every password.
OK, it's usually (though not invariably) possible to get them to email you a link to a place where you can create a new password. But this is often a very tedious process so by the time it arrives I may have completely forgotten why I wanted it.
No I am not losing my marbles. I have quite a good memory, but I'm also very busy and it's easy for me to get preoccupied with something more important than a bloody password.
OK it's not a mater of life and death but it is just another one of those things that makes the internet slower and less useful than it could be.
Saturday 19 November 2011
Interiors
Woody Allen's Interiors (1978) is a strange film compelling in its way, but not perhaps his best work. Dark and brooding it is clearly going to be compared to Ingmar Bergman's work but reminded me more of Ridley Scott's Alien (1979), radio on film for the most part with a few shockingly beautiful shots.
Of course, Allen makes no secret of his admiration for the Swedish director. Was I mistaken or did I see some references to All These Women (or Now about These Women) Bergman's 1964 colour film? But Bergman usually (though not invariably) illuminates his scenes with a crisp, clear light. Just think of his Seventh Seal with its studio quality lighting and iconic images.
In my view Allen is as much influenced by Bob Hope as he is by the Swedish director so it is strange to see a Bob Hope look alike, E G Marshall, playing the father figure in this production.
The story itself is for me quite annoying. It concerns a group of people (revolving around three sisters) suffering profound angst and trauma, yet they seem to have all the money and opportunity in the world. They are rich, powerful and (for the most part anyway) either handsome or beautiful. I kept wanting to say to them, for heaven's sake buck your ideas up! Live a little.
It is almost as if they have to invent problems for themselves because their lives are simply too perfect.
There are few laughs in the film, none perhaps, except possibly the last scene, when the sisters position themselves beside a window in a way that clearly references Woody Allen's comedy about Russian angst, Love and Death.
Yes life is difficult, even if you have money and opportunity, but why make things worse by dwelling in neurosis and claustrophobic passions?
Of course, Allen makes no secret of his admiration for the Swedish director. Was I mistaken or did I see some references to All These Women (or Now about These Women) Bergman's 1964 colour film? But Bergman usually (though not invariably) illuminates his scenes with a crisp, clear light. Just think of his Seventh Seal with its studio quality lighting and iconic images.
In my view Allen is as much influenced by Bob Hope as he is by the Swedish director so it is strange to see a Bob Hope look alike, E G Marshall, playing the father figure in this production.
The story itself is for me quite annoying. It concerns a group of people (revolving around three sisters) suffering profound angst and trauma, yet they seem to have all the money and opportunity in the world. They are rich, powerful and (for the most part anyway) either handsome or beautiful. I kept wanting to say to them, for heaven's sake buck your ideas up! Live a little.
It is almost as if they have to invent problems for themselves because their lives are simply too perfect.
There are few laughs in the film, none perhaps, except possibly the last scene, when the sisters position themselves beside a window in a way that clearly references Woody Allen's comedy about Russian angst, Love and Death.
Yes life is difficult, even if you have money and opportunity, but why make things worse by dwelling in neurosis and claustrophobic passions?
Wednesday 2 November 2011
Autumn leaves
When I was a kid one of the greatest pleasures of autumn was kicking the leaves along the road. The sound of those crisp leaves and the feel of them against your shoes, socks and legs (in those days I wore short trousers more often) was quite unique.
But today we try our best to deny the children this pleasure. The council hires an extremely expensive contractor to collect the leaves (I think they use a mechanical blower) and bag them. They are then expensively collected and taken for disposal, presumably in landfill.
Strangely when it comes to dealing with more offensive substances (like the stuff dogs leave) the council is less assiduous, though my old friend Denise Liunberg did devise a poop scoop scheme for dog owners in Waltham Forest that still works, up to a point.
You'd have thought with the huge cuts in local government expenditure (the council where I live, the London borough of Waltham Forest, has to save more than £50m) the collection of autumn leaves could be abandoned this year, or at least delayed until there is some rain and the leaves become unpleasantly saturated.
A shame but that appears to be the world we live in today.
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