plasticbag.org

Ah. Ah well. Nope. No job for me with the BBC.

Last Tuesday morning, before the disaster at the World Trade Center, I had a very different anxiety on my mind. I had a job interview at the BBC for a position as online producer for BBC films. Everyone I knew was going ‘apply for it, Tom – it’s ideal for you’ – and I basically agreed. It seemed like the kind of job that my experience was designed to fill, and in a really good company with lots of opportunities for development. The night before I was shivering with fear – there seemed to be more than normal resting on getting this job. It had been the first major opportunity that I’d had to work somewhere that I was actually excited about for months. On the morning of the interview however I got some slightly startling news. Two other companies, EMAP and Captial Radio, were keen for me to come in and do some freelance work for them. And in only a couple of weeks’ time as well.

Interviews are interviews, and they’ll always be hellish and I’ll never be any good at them. I’m completely incapable of regulating my tone – I prefer discussions rather than Q&A sessions, and so I was immediately wrong-footed when they asked me what my favourite movie was. A question that may seem obvious to people, but has little or no bearing on whether or not you are actually good enough at running a film site. When the interview was over I felt strangely confident, although that confidence faded fairly swiftly. I met an old colleague from TimeOut.com for lunch afterwards – he’d been in the interview before me, and we talked about the job and tried to relax and have fun.

Now it’s a week later and I haven’t heard anything from the BBC at all. Normally this wouldn’t be a worry, but because I have to inform these other potential employers about whether or not I can do their contracts, it’s beginning to alarm me. I asked them when I’d hear at the interview, and they told me the beginnng of this week, but I’m sure that events around the world will have had some impact on their schedules. In the meantime, I’m feeling increasingly nervous about my future prospects once I get past this patch. No one is employing, except for contract work. People are being let go left, right and centre. I really need a break…

Tom’s third Flash movie was built by request of Mo of Mo Morgan.com and is a rather poor representation of the good man himself. The first representation was astonishingly good. But I lost that somehow, and couldn’t find a way to get it back. I wonder what I’ll make tomorrow.

One of the coolest, sickest, sites I’ve seen in a long time, uncelebrity.com lets you say exactly what you’d like to do with your favourite stars. I don’t know whether I’m more alarmed by the sweet ‘I want to walk with him on a beach’ ones or the full on dodgy porno wank fantasy ones. I don’t know which ones are funnier either…

The scariest thing I’ve ever seen.

Via Prol: Buffy Lives.

Tom’s Second Flash Movie:
I only wish I knew how to crop things.

OK – this is exactly why I love Wil Wheaton’s weblog so much: Son of SpongeBob Vega$Pants: “So I get to the hallway where we’re set up for autographs, and, as I am walking up the hallway, I see Dorn, Marina, Renee, Kate Mulgrew, and WILLIAM FUCKING SHATNER. Shatner has always been a dick to me, but I want to say hi, so I approach them, and I say, “Hi! How you guys doin?” Everyone returns my greeting, even Kate, who I don’t know, at all. Never even been introduced. Everyone, that is, except WILLIAM FUCKING SHATNER! Old toupee-head won’t even look at me! I don’t know what this guy’s problem is, really. I think he’s very funny, I think he’s got a great sense of humor about himself, but he is always a dick to me.”

In another article from disinformation, there is discussion about the memetic effects of Hollwood imagery. Although the article strays dangerously close to advocating censorship on the grounds of ‘putting ideas into people’s heads’ it does question the relationship between the Spectacle and political and terrorist action. Perhaps it’s only understandable that a radical politician of a fundamentalist country should try to make a movie in which the ‘bad guys win’.

Disinformation is back, and with a range of perspectives on events in America over the last week.

US terrorist attacks: due to circumstances beyond our control . . .: “The anti-globalist movement has existed at the fringes of American politics for several reasons. Understanding these reasons reveals the hidden complexity and undercurrents of the American political landscape. A more in-depth understanding can also serve as a buffer against the perils of groupthink.”

Terrorism and witch hunts: “‘Inevitable Ring to the Unimaginable’ by Australian journalist John Pilger, argues that “the US and its sidekicks, principally Britain, have exercised, flaunted, and abused their wealth and power ‘for so long they shouldn’t be surprised if those they have victimized fight back.’ Among many examples, he cites the 200,000 Iraqis killed during the Gulf War, and the million others who have since died in Iraq as a result of US/UK sanctions, and concludes that ‘Western terror is part of the recent history of imperialism.’
This perspective is directly contradicted by former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger’s ‘Response Must Destroy the Network that Shelters Terrorism.’ Kissinger writes that countries harboring terrorists ‘must pay an exorbitant price’ (ironic given that the US trained and funded Bin Laden and at least a few of the hijackers) and calls the World Trade Center attacks ‘a threat to our social way of life and to our existence as a free society.'”