Incontrovertible Evidence That Nobody Is Boring

 "I am very interested in lifts. I love original old relay logic lifts, especially the very advanced relay systems which can contain hundreds of relays"  – from the introduction to Beno's youtube channel.

 

 Little now remains of Robert Popper's blog post from 2010 which first introduced me to "Benobve" as he was then – "EXCLUSIVE: Sneak preview of Pixar's next movie" – but a process of elimination has led me to conclude that the video above is the one he was talking about: "The premise: a man (I think it’s a man) gets in a lift*. He/she goes up in the lift, then down in the lift, then, well I wouldn’t want to spoil the ending for you… Oh Benobve, I think I love you." It's something of a departure for Beno, whose other output at the time – about which Robert Popper was equally enthusiastic – looks a lot more verité, being, almost exclusively, live-action, often narrationless footage of real lift journeys such as this:

 

 Moved by Popper's enthusiasm for Beno's enthusiasm, I had subscribed to his channel back in 2010, but years would pass before I bothered to check in again, and when I did, I was surprised to see that his videos now came with a disclaimer not to copy what he was doing. This is how I learnt that Beno's undiminished love of lifts, in these intervening years, had grown now to incorporate an enthusiam for their exteriors, and for what lay at their top. Beno wasn't just riding in lifts now, he was hacking them. He was riding their rooves. He was recording something glorious and straight out of Judge Dredd, like the adventure below (referenced in my first zoom quiz). 

 I'd love to know if Robert Popper knows what Beno's up to these days. I hope he wouldn't be disappointed.

 

 

 "All of the activity in my videos is completely legal, I have checked this with my lawyers. I know the law and I do not break laws with my videos" – again, from the introduction to Beno's youtube channel.

 

 There's another fun old Beno blog recommendation here.

Demo

NEW SHOWREEL!

 

 Finished. It's a shame my laptop's literally killing me, because I've remembered how much I love editing. Thanks are due to my agent Marie Findley, for once again being so bracingly ruthless in her suggestions of what to cut – five minutes is too long, she's right – including one clip from Death Meets Lisolette where I electrocuted myself, because it was "a bit of a lull". 

 Thanks also to Joel Morris, for noting how much a showreel is like the demo mode on a Casio keyboard: I only have Revenge, Horny and "Ah, Mister Bond" to go now, then I'll have the full set of timbres, the perfect showreel, and I can finally give up acting. 

 And thanks, finally, to the previous showreel, for helping me get some jobs to make this new one: acidentally killing someone on a sports day followed by four mintues of looking haunted and saying my name's Keith almost definitely got me Ghosts...

 

OLD SHOWREEL!

Barbican Outro: An Eighth of Mozart

 

 This is exactly what it looks like: a tiny, wooden audient. Placed in any architects' model of a concert hall, it predicts the acoustics by listening to sped-up recordings of Mozart's Jupiter Symphony (to ensure the soundwaves are to scale), while you work out what to hang from the ceiling. I'm not making any of this up.

 

 

 Dr. Raphael Orlovsky here might be, however. Perching like this was probably the director's idea; he looks great there, and it makes for a fun pan, but do architects normally clamber over their models, pretending to be giants? Is Orlovsky even the architect? I can't find anything about him online beyond the enchanting experiment performed sixteen minutes into this mixtape...

 

 The visiting musicians are very complimentary about the finished article, but I bristled a bit learning the only way onstage was up some stairs at the front – maybe because I was reminded of the beautiful concert halls we played on the Finnetour, where we had to change trousers in the corridor. That's the difference between real art and showbiz, I suppose: real art doesn't get a backstage. A lot of this footage bristles in fact. I remember very fondly how much Arts Reporting there used to be on television, but forget fifty per cent of it was posh people with microphones asking strangers how much they hated it.

 

  The Barbican's labyrinthine inaccessiblility is actually intentional – a power move – so the pissy reaction is understandable. This wasn't meant to be a place people stumbled upon, and I don't know how I feel about that. It's not a physical inaccessiblity, after all. You can find it if you look for it, and once there, share it with others who found it. So it's a faff, but it's also a pocket. And it's a pocket, but it's also a faff.

 Bringing the week full circle, this is what the Barbican replaced – another City in runes.

I Took Too Many Photos of the Barbican. Monday. 7pm.

 Launderette?

 Launderette?

 Launderette?

 

 Launderette? 

 

Launderette?

 

 Launderette?

 

 Launderette?

 

 Launderette?

 Launderette? 

 

 Launderette?

 

 Launderette?

 

 Launderette?

 

 Launderette! 

 Launderette?

 

 Launderette? 

 Launderette?

 

 Launderette?

 

 Launderette?

 

 Launderette?

 

 Launderette?

 

 Launderette?

 

 Launderette? 

 Launderette! Thanks to Barbican resident Martha for the tip.

Barbican Placeholder

 

 "Can you give us then an assurance that there will be a launderette built here in a few months' time on the estate itself?"

 

 

 "Yes I can give you that assurance yes."

 

 

"And where will it be?"

 

 "That we don't know. If we knew where it was it would be built by now. That has been the problem. To find the site for it."

 

 

 "But have you actually managed to find a site for it yet?"

 

... Sorry to lag. I'm trying to edit a showreel, and my laptop keeps crashing every time I make a change, but the save gets changed, so on we push, and hopefully I'll have licked my way through this diamond before the weekend. If it wasn't eating so much into my time and eyes right now, I'd be posting pictures of the nightwalk I took round the Barbican. I like the estate, but it's unfortunate the provision of a launderette proved so conditional on there not being a massive arts centre, as this hard-hitting piece on the Barbican not having a launderette exposés:

 

  

 Is this what J. G. Ballard's High-Rise was about? The Barbican not having a launderette? TO BE CONTINUED...

The Wisdom of Patrick Koluuunahmeheheh Tajnaahme

 According to at least one source, Patrick Koluuunahmeheheh Tajnaahme is the fictional novelist referenced by Captain Kirk in the Star Trek episode "The City On The Edge of Forever". The reason for the ruins you see littering the City here is another interesting – and dumb – piece of trivia...

 

    Apparently, Harlan Ellison's original script stipulated it should be covered in runes...

 

 And the set designer didn't know what runes were.

 Still, it's a hell of an episode, and well worth the quoting... Gemma Brockis has hinted she might, at some point, invite visiting lecturers to her online university to teach something other than the History of the Kiss. In case this happens, I've been considering a Cultural History of Kindness: Bill and Ted's two precepts will go in there, obviously, and maybe Michael Scott's mutant variant, and almost certainly the recommendation of Patrick Koluuunahmeheheh Tajnaahme.

 

 

"Let me help – A hundred years or so from now, I believe, a famous novelist will write a classic using that theme. He'll recommend those three words even over I love you."

"Stath Lets Flats" is the British American Office.

I'd forgotten they'd made this!

 

 It was love at first sight between me and Stath Lets Flats, but it's only after my latest accidental binge of both series (having sat down to watch one episode) that I realise just how highly I rate it, and also possibly why: Quite early on in the American version of The Office, the show reaches a point where it understands its characters well enough to trust them with absurdity; the cast's performative muscle memory is strong enough to ground anything written for them. And Stath Lets Flats operates on that level of confidence from Episode One, possibly because – as he explains in this great interview with Rachael Healy – Jamie Demetriou has known so many of its cast for so long. His show is the opposite of "actor-proof"; it's a clown show composed of details, and every detail makes me laugh out loud.

 

 See above.

 

 The similarities extend beyond tone, however. To quote the interview: "Emotional behaviour juxtaposed with masculine bravado, done well, is a treat." Like The Office's Michael Scott (and unlike David Brent), Stath Charalambos is an idealist possessed by a mutant variant of kindness – an incapacitating, all-or-nothing desire not just to be loved, but to be allowed to love, which manifests itself most commonly in acts of unchecked selfishness. Also like The Office's Pam, Sophie Charalambos is a healthier, self-checking, but similarly yearning heart, the show's secret focus, and the real reason we care as much about these people as we do. Originally, I had thought that the last episode broadcast – not counting this bonus lockdown cracker posted above – was the perfect ending, but having rewatched it all, I now want two hundred more, and I'm very glad there's going to be a Series 3. 

 Here's Natasha Demetriou providing excellent company on Adam Buxton's podcast...

 Here's a brilliant interview with Kiell Smith-Bynoe... "I'd like to work in America, not crazy about living there. Tricky, because it seems like a great shout for black actors, not so much for black people. Tricky, mainly because I am both..."

 And here's more Katy Wix...