Publicist spills pint, fails to spin way out of subsequent fight

Slick West End publicist Sir Max Cliffe was recovering in hospital today after being beaten up in a Mayfair bar last night, following an incident where he spilled a tray of drinks that a fellow customer was carrying.

Celebrating a new business success with colleagues, Cliffe was re-telling the dramatic story of the win when the trouble started. Using increasingly dynamic and unpredictable gestures to punctuate his points, he backed into John Snatch, who was carrying a tray of drinks including Guinness and red wine from the bar to his group of friends. Excitedly wind-milling his arms and dancing back into Snatch, Cliffe sent the 6’4’’ man flying. A soaking, stained and furious Snatch confronted Cliffe who, on instinct, tried to spin the incident with an unsuccessful salvo of flip missives.

Cliffe tried to convince the married, semi-professional rugby player, Snatch that: “You look hot, wet – I could get you a front cover of gay bible, Attitude magazine looking lie that”; and that “red wine stains are all the rage in trendy Hoxton – I know Pete Doherty’s stylist and she’d give you one, particularly if you gave her a half ounce of skag.” However, the legendary spinning skills that usually give Cliffe the victorious 'punch the air' feeling of victory, this time resulted in a punch in the face misery, as Snatch rained down blows.

Horror stricken across their faces as they looked on, Cliffe’s colleagues fled, citing lateness for various vital West End dinner reservations.

The Freshman

Been hunting this video for ages, and finally it's online, for free. Rejoice. It's Harold Lloyd's The Freshman, and is probably my favourite silent movie of all time.

It's the full video, so if you're watching at work, try booking a meeting room for a good hour and 15 minutes.

The movie inspired the funny enough but infinitely inferior (in my, uh, snobby opinion) Waterboy, starring Adam Sandler. If it's more saucy trivia you're after, however, I can tell you that the silent star, Lloyd, was one of the only people who bombshell starlets, including Marilyn Monroe, trusted to take their nude portraits. All totally tasteful of course. Hubba hubba.

IMDB outlines the movie's plot thus: "A nerdy college student will do anything to become popular on campus." However, what excites me most about this movie is the football game scene, which was shot in sequence, an unusual method for Lloyd. Anyway, further geekery aside, here's the movie. Hooray for Harold Lloyd.

Madonna to get another orpan

The PCP has learned that skeleton-on-strings pop psycho, Madonna, is on the hunt for orphan children. The deranged Kabbalah priestess is poised to adopt a new child to add to her growing collection.

And, once again, she is looking to pluck a child from total obscurity, rescue it from third world poverty, and boost its otherwise bleak chances of survival and nurture it back to health – and hope.

She is expected to find an orphan in Liverpool later today.

Watson's Wind-Up

Long time no post but I've been in self-imposed work exile and had no life for a while.

Received an email from my contact at the Comedy Unit (Chewin' the Fat, Still Game, Rab C Nesbitt) at the weekend. As you can imagine, it sent me
into wild throes of excitement.

My contact suggested that I submit some sketches to Watson’s Wind-Up, a BBC Radio Scotland show which "recasts the recent news in a jettison of sharp-tongued, irreverent wise cracks."

According to my contact, the brief is that the jokes or sketches are to be Scottish and topical, between 20 seconds and two minutes and based on the week's news.

As one of painfully few shows that invites unsolicited submissions, Watson’s Wind-Up creates a promising outlet to get vital experience. It will be competitive but I'm rather keen to give it a try. Will mine make the cut? Only one way to find out…

So, for practice, will be doing some more Scottish-leaning posts with a more mass market appeal - as well as the usual twisted take on the news - on the PCP in forthcoming weeks. Fucking hilarious ones, obviously :)