I watched the news with my morning coffee and fag before taking my daughter into town for a day of mayhem with a bunch of other hyper 8 year olds.  The big news seems to be the writers strike is now over and the Oscars can proceed as someone will now write the script.  That set my devious imagination running - the Oscars are scripted? 

Apparently so!

Instantly I had a picture of all of those blubbing actresses (usually) with gushing tributes to mom, dad and the cat I ran over with my tricycle in kindergarten and turning over and over how someone could possibly script any of that.  Can you imagine the script?

Cake Blanche: “I..”

CB starts shedding a tear

Cake Blanche: “..would…”

CB takes a deep emotional breath, make sure bosom heaves

Cake Blanche: “..like to thank…”

CB starts crying copiously (have crew on standby with tanker fleet as there is a drought in California and we can use the water)

…and so it will perhaps go.

The impact of the writers strike has had virtually no impact on this side of the Pond but in the US it has been a huge deal.  This strike has not simply affected Hollywood, the other major media centre is New York and television production on both coasts has been seriously affected with some 10,000 production staff laid off as projects such as desperate Housewives and Ugly Betty have had to be pulled.  Two of my friends work in Hollywood, one lost her job and the other has been “resting” for a couple of months.  I’m no TV buff myself but if scribblers can take down a show like Desperate Housewives and threaten Tinsel Town’s annual blub bash that does surprise me.

Looking on the dark side of the end of the this strike, it does of course mean that we will be getting a load of new rubbish gracing our TV screens later this year instead of the usual old American trash.  I wonder what it will take to get them back on the picket lines?

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