Not the usual attire for movie premieres, but this was no ordinary event.
For a start, the Glasgow bash for Shine a Light, Martin Scorsese’s concert movie featuring the Rolling Stones, was taking place 400 miles away from the actual event. This was a “virtual premiere”, where us plebs in the cheap seats in Scotland watched, via a video link, a collection of millionaire pensioners by the names of Mick, Keef, Charlie and Ronnie stroll their bones down a red carpet in London. It was about as thrilling as watching someone wire a plug.
It will be a different showbiz story tomorrow night in Glasgow, when Gerard Butler, local boy made Hollywood good, arrives for the UK premiere of his new picture, Law Abiding Citizen. I am not, alas, privy to Butler’s wardrobe choices but I don’t think he’ll be going down the jeans and jumper route. Not with his mammy there.
Butler’s local connections aside, Glasgow might seem an odd addition to the premiere league, but the city has been quietly building its reputation as a glam locale for several years now. The Glasgow Film Festival, which this year hosted the UK premiere of Armando Iannucci’s In the Loop, has led the way on that front. (There were several celebs’ mums at In the Loop, too. We might not be able
to pull in Streep and Clooney, but on the A-list mammy front Glasgow leads the world.)
There are, undoubtedly, considerations to bear in mind before choosing Glasgow for a premiere. The weather, for one. If it’s raining tomorrow, the dashes down the red carpet could see Usain Bolt’s world records tumble. Rain might keep those all-important crowds away as well. A premiere without bodies straining against barriers would be like Christmas without Santa, or Salmond without a smug grin (even a gubbing in Glasgow North East will not achieve that).
Then there are the lesser spotted neds, those small native creatures with a habit of bobbing up and down, like turbocharged meerkats, behind any camera crew trying to do an interview. So far, their victims have been hapless local news reporters. If given the chance to get in shot behind someone truly famous, Michelle McManus, say, who knows what they might do?
I expect it will all go swimmingly tomorrow. No neds, big crowds and no-one swimming up the red carpet because it’s been tipping down all day. Get this right, people, and the next stop could be the holding of the Academy Awards in Glasgow. Get it in the diary, ’Chelle.
Doctors in Scotland are increasingly coming across a new condition that goes by the name of “993 finger”.
This is the channel number for ITV1 London, now a place of refuge for Scots who would rather watch half-decent dramas on the ITV network than sit through Kilt Making for Beginners, The History of Mince or whatever tartan tosh STV is punting this week.
Last night was the final instalment of Collision, starring the excellent, and thoroughly Scottish, Dougie Henshall as a tragedy-worn detective investigating a road accident.
Some 100,000 households north of the border are now regularly heading south. It’s easy to do, if you don’t mind scrolling through lots of pages (I know there’s probably a quicker way to do it, but there’s a limit to how many technological giant leaps a girl can take in one lifetime. I’ve only just got the hang of texting.)
There is no downside, other than you might stick with ITV1 London and start to take in its local programming, becoming a Londoner by proxy. But, as I thought to myself the other day while doing the Lambeth Walk down Sauchiehall Street after dining on jellied eels, I can’t see this being a problem.
Residents of Chorley, which I discovered this week is a real place and not somewhere Peter Kay made up, are getting into the festive spirit by putting up cards telling carol singers to ding-dong off. According to the borough council, the signs were made to help “vulnerable people who are not comfortable answering the door”. Fantastic idea, which can’t be extended soon enough to canvassing politicians, marauding zealots and posties carrying bills. Anyone, in fact, who is not there to dispense news of a large inheritance. It will be a big card to mount, almost as large as the door, but worth it.
Well done to Britain’s Got Talent star Susan Boyle, who this week apologised to Sharon Osbourne for saying she had a face like a slapped backside. No, hang on, it was the other way round. Easy mistake to make.
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