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Despite not winning Best Original Screenplay at last night’s Oscars – it’s a Fix favourite, so knowing our luck, why would it? - Armando Iannucci’s In The Loop was last year’s freshest big screen comedy, and British to boot. So let’s re-celebrate with this reprint of our meeting with Iannucci.
 In a scene that could be straight out of Armando Iannucci’s award-winning TV show The Thick Of It, I arrive at BBC TV centre to interview the man himself. A flustered PA greets me at reception to tell me that we have to walk 15 minutes to another building, where he is waiting for us. We are running late: as usual, we have had to sell an organ to get the magazine to print. The Fix is now down to one kidney and half a liver, and this was the only time Armando was available for interview. We get to the eerily modern BBC media centre and go all the way to the top floor in the lift. When we get to the room, he is not there. He’s at TV centre, where we just came from. I wonder if his old friend Chris Morris is organising the interviews today. Anyway, half an hour later, after two brisk walks, I sit in Armando’s BBC nerve centre, deep in the bowels of BBC towers.
One of the most influential people in comedy is sitting opposite me here, and as I start the tape rolling, I am trying not to throw up on his shoes from exhaustion. “I’m going to have a Bounty, would you like half?” Born in Glasgow, Ianucci got into comedy aged 12, where he would MC school charity gigs and thieve all his material off the radio.
“I really got into comedy through listening to it on the radio – Hitchhiker’s Guide… and a host of other shows that I imagine you have never heard of”. After years of gigs on the school charity gig circuit, Armando did what he describes as the only careerist thing he has ever done, and went to Oxford University. “Although I was very pleased to be going to university for academic reasons, in the back of my mind I did think they do comedy there as well.”
After leaving university, he got his formal training in radio production at Radio Scotland where, due to the wealth of production talent available, he was able to hone the talent for accurate pastiches that he later became synonymous with on The Day Today. “You had really talented people from different elements of broadcasting, sports, news … at Radio Scotland”.
The Movie
If anyone is in a position to rectify the list of abominations that is British comedy films, it’s Armando Iannucci. With his list of directing, producing, and writing credits on shows like The Day Today, Alan Partridge, and The Armando Iannucci Show, there probably isn’t anyone better equipped to make this thing work; but why is it that we make such great comedy on British TV, but when it comes to film we have The Parole Officer?
“In America, people gravitate to film, and no one cares two hoots we’re here. I’ve always detected a rival camps mentality in this country. Add that there is also very much an attitude of ‘we like what you do, but can you not come and do what we do?’ and the comedy just evaporates. I just want to make the thing. I’m more interested in stories.
“With In the Loop I very consciously wanted to structure this film as a screwball comedy, but I was also aware that the films I like in terms of comedy are This Is Spinal Tap, Airplane!, Annie Hall, and Monty Python’s Life of Brian - they are not filmic masterpieces, they are just funny films. The priority is the script and the performance, getting the laughs. In the same way as on The Day Today we would say, “This is too comedy”, I found myself on In the Loop at certain bits saying, “This is too filmy”.
Like any screwball comedy, the plot - or the MacGuffin, as it is sometimes known - of In the Loop is unessential. What the film is about is the characters that inhabit it, and the research that Iannucci has done on the American side of politics turned out some pretty interesting characters. “We met some pretty interesting people over in Washington, including some ex-CIA operatives. I managed to get into the state department and take some pictures just with my BBC pass. You hear a lot of faux wisdom like, ‘The first rule of holes is stop digging’, and, ‘The bigger the meeting, the less substance is discussed.”
“One guy we met in the senate told us that they didn’t have much time for ‘members’ - the elected officials. They all walk around in a daze in Washington because they are so tired. Which is a bit of a concern with someone like John Bolton (who the character Linton is based on), as he keeps a live hand grenade on his desk.”
Part of Armando’s comic talent is his ability to shine a very bright light on his subject matter through the depth of his research, and with politics he has stumbled upon an oil well of material. “I never think in comedy that I want to tell people how to vote, or how to think. I enjoy watching the drama of politics, and the more I’ve watched it, the more I want to unpick its bad argument and bad logic. How, irrespective of whether you are on the left or the right, you just misuse information and distort information, and before you know it, terrible things happen. And the whole Iraq thing was a sort of summing up of that, the absurdity of saying we are going in there because they have weapons of mass destruction. He hasn’t got them and none of us are going to resign over this because at the time I thought it was the right thing to do.”
Armando’s done a great job with In the Loop and, although it’s not up there with …Spinal Tap or Annie Hall, he’s brought some respect back to British comedy films that has been lacking for at least the last 20 years. In the Loop works so well because the camera just sits back and lets the chaos ensue, and this very much sums Iannucci up. “I tried not to analyse things too much when we were doing Alan Partridge. Someone sent in a thesis with a diagram about how the show worked and how it obeyed the Aristotelian Unities of Time, Place, and Action. You looked at it and went, ‘It is sort of true, but none of us thought that before we wrote it’, which makes you realise that you can’t really analyse anything.”
If you missed it on TV last night, In The Loop is also out on DVD now.
Tags: Armando, Armando Iannucci, Iannucci, In The Loop | Posted in:
Features, Film, From the Archives, Prose
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Predator
Made in 1987 and starring Arnold Schwarzenegger, Predator is often dismissed as just a lads movie. However, unlike the majority of movies within the sci-fi/action genre, Predator cleverly subverts our preconceived notions of what it is to be a man.
The story couldn’t be simpler: seven testosterone fuelled commandos (representing the seven classical characters in Greek mythology) are abandoned in the deepest, darkest jungle (female pubes), and after an initial barrage of ‘pussy’ jokes, brutality, and male bonding, are systematically picked off one by one by a vagina-faced alien from another world (man’s fear of the vagina personified).
It is important to remember that throughout his career Schwarzenegger has often tackled feminist subjects, whether it be sympathetically looking at the trials of pregnancy (Junior), single motherdom and childcare (Kindergarten Cop), female identity (Terminator), or being a stripper (True Lies), Schwarzenegger has always taken care to represent women’s plight within society.
During the climax of the movie Schwarzenegger beats the Predator in a match to the death with a mixture of cunning, know-how, and brute strength. The Predator, realising it has lost the battle, wins the war by setting off a self-destruct sequence, detonating itself and half the jungle, leaving Schwarzenegger powerless, frustrated, and broken. This is the taking the concept of ‘getting the last word in’ to its logical extreme.
Predator dares us to consider the emerging presence of the female within the then (mid-80s America) largely male-dominated society, and should be considered alongside Working Girl as one of the most important tomes in feminist cinema.
Nick Helm
Tags: Symbollocks | Posted in:
Film, From the Archives
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The Employers’ Guide To ‘Letting People Go’
 With the current economic climate fogging the minds of employers across the globe, the inevitable spectre of unemployment can’t be far away. It’s a grim situation, costs need to be cut, and frankly, if you’re reading The Fix, things can’t be looking too good. With that in mind, we want to help make sackings work for you with our easy to use, 3-step guide to ‘Letting People Go’.
Call A Meeting
The starting point. Well, the starting point after you’ve decided to let people go. It’s always best to get everyone together. And don’t refer to it as a meeting. Try ‘chat’, ‘get together’ or ‘party’ (more on this in Point 2). This makes everyone feel like that they’re getting a big treat. Maybe quad biking or a trip to Lazer Quest. The knock-on effect is that you have a mass of happiness before breaking the bad news. By the time the news has sunk into every single employee you’ll have made a fast, totally unscathed exit. It’s also time-efficient.
Choose Your Words Carefully
Redundancies. It’s not a word we in the business world like to use; unfortunately it can be difficult to avoid, but it’s not impossible - take the title of this guide for instance. A good tip here is to avoid terminology you might usually reserve for livestock.
Try phrases like: Family. Valued employees. Streamlining. Skimming. Trimming. Temporary occupation realignment. I’m not the bad guy here.
Avoid phrases like: Drones. Swine. Morons. Walking meat lumps. Filth. Culling. Butchering. Lambs to the slaughter. I’m the daddy now.
Location. Location. Location
Avoid holding your meeting by any windows. It makes you easy pray for snipers and throwing. Try outside. The fresh air will act as a valuable cooling agent. Once you’ve broken the news, bolt the doors to the building. Staff are notorious plunderers who will now be forced to wonder home without their possessions. These are now your possessions. Why not pawn these items for extra capital, after all what are your ex-staff going to do? Sue you? Not likely without a job. In the words of the tough talking tycoons the Gibb Brothers, You Win Again. Yes you do.
You now know how to make the toughest job in the world as easy as filing for corporate bankruptcy. So what are you still doing here? Go shatter some dreams, you winner!
Tags: letting people go | Posted in:
From the Archives, Prose
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Toilets of Japan
The Fix has a policy to avoid toilet humour wherever possible, but that hasn’t stopped Dave Hill dipping his balls in one of Asia ’s finest varieties and writing about it for us.
 Showbiz might be my day job, but - not unlike Hollywood ’s David Hassellhoff - I am considered a musical genius in countries where people generally don’t speak English. As a result, I recently toured Japan with my unstoppable rock band Valley Lodge. There’s no shortage of things I love about my new favorite non-English speaking country (you’re still tops me with, UK !). In the interest of brevity, however, I will use this magazine to focus on what blew my mind most about Japan : the toilets.
As with almost everything else over there, the toilets of Japan are vastly superior to the ones here in the states. For starters, in America we have basically one kind of toilet: the kind where you stand or sit down as gender or necessity dictates and do your business, before strolling out of the bathroom, hoping no one is wondering why you’ve been gone so long. In Japan , however, they have - by my count - four different toilets, each completely mesmerising in its own way.
Toilet number one was in my hotel room in Osaka . At first glance, it appeared to be just like the ones I have pretty much already mastered - oval-shaped, porcelain, and just sort of toilet-y in general. The difference with their version, though, is that the bowl is either really shallow or the water is really high. Because of jetlag and prescriptions, I couldn’t figure out which, but about halfway through a seated performance on this one, I realised my goods had dropped below sea level (I say this not to suggest that I have anything more than standard equipment, but feel free to ask around). As a result, I then had to rinse my privates in the sink (the secret is to get one knee up on the counter and press your forehead against the mirror). And it’s just occurring to me now that having your junk submerged in toilet water is not a toilet improvement, but at the time it was quite a thrill. And given the other Japanese toilets I will be describing in these pages over the next several issues (I imagine I will be invited to speak publicly on the matter at some point also), I am just assuming junk submersion is a really good thing.
Until next time, keep your feet on the ground, and keep reaching for the stars!
Dave Hill
Posted in:
Degeneracy
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 We’d have to put out a thousand page, hard-bound almanac to cover them all, so The Fix has decided to just cover one classic Stallone movie moment every month.
#1 – The Specialist (1994): Busted!
Stallone plays ex-CIA explosives specialist Ray Quick, a bomb maker for hire who travels everywhere by bus. Whilst helping Sharon Stone get revenge against evil henchman Ned, Quick boards the No. 5.
A gang of ponytailed hoodlums sit at the back listening to loud Rumba music on their boom box. An elderly, pregnant Latino lady makes her way down the aisle, but there are no seats.
“Here, take mine” offers Quick, but before she can sit down the seat gets stolen by a thug.
Shocked, Quick explains through gritted teeth, “That seat’s taken”.
“Fuck you”, the thug responds.
“Excuse me?”
“Fuck you”, he repeats.
Handing his sunglasses to the old pregnant lady, Quick somersaults the ruffian onto the floor, kicking him in the groin and thorax. A second brute attacks. Quick elbows him twice in the throat, slamming his knee in his face. A third rascal attacks with a knife. Quick breaks his hand, slaps him five times, finishing with an uppercut.
“I’ll kill you, you…you…sonofa…”, the first yobbo shouts.
But Quick swings on the handrail, smashing him through the bus window and on to the hot, unforgiving tarmac of the street. The pregnant gran steps forward and hands Quick his sunglasses. “I believe there’s a vacancy”, Quick quips wryly, gesturing to the empty seat.
Justice is done.
Tags: movie moment, Nick Helm, Stallone | Posted in:
Film
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 ‘My Shit Life So Far’ by Frankie Boyle (HarperCollins)
Ever since being brought up by The Beatles, Frankie Boyle has been a tremendous liar. Join him on his adventures with his chum Clangy The Brass Boy, and laugh as he doesn’t accidentally kill a student nurse when a party gets out of hand. Outspoken, outrageous, and brilliantly inappropriate, Frankie Boyle, the dark heart of Mock the Week, says the unsayable as only he can. From the TV programmes he would like to see made (“Celebrities On Acid On Ice: just like Celebrity Dancing On Ice, but with an opening sequence where Graham Norton hoses the celebrities down with liquid LSD”), to his native Scotland, and the Mayor of London (“voting for Boris Johnson wasn’t that different to voting for a Labrador wearing a Wonder Woman costume”), nothing and no one is safe from Frankie’s fearless, sharp-tongued assault. It is difficult to tell whether he hated writing this book or loved it – it is either an £80,000 suicide note or a plea to be taken seriously. Or not. Either way, it is the most ‘out there’ celeb book of the year. Worth buying just for the picture caption about Hugh Dennis, which I can’t reproduce here.
 ‘My Favourite People and Me, 1978-1988’ by Alan Davies (Michael Joseph)
I was hoping to find myself in this volume, as I spent a very happy four years studying Drama and Theatre Studies alongside Alan Davies at Kent University (1984-1988), but luckily my miscreant past was not deemed worthy of any mention in this brilliant volume. It is a slightly uncomfortable scrapbook of a format, with a series of chapters about different influences, but through the sometimes moving narrative, he paints a really compelling picture of his politicisation, and his real passion for football, family, and music. It is, as Alan says, “an attempt to remember who and what I liked as a boy/youth/idiot and to work out why. There are also some pictures”.
 ‘He Took My Kidney Then Broke My Heart/’ by Dave Spikey (O’Mara Books)
Everyone knows that their local newspaper has its own unique idea of what is newsworthy - and how these fascinating, and sometimes bizarre, happenings should be shared with the community. In ‘He Took My Kidney, Then Broke My Heart’, Dave Spikey lampoons a collection of the most outrageous, amusing, and downright farcical local news stories from the past few years. All the articles are 100% genuine, ranging from Fun with Ferrets at the YMCA (Halifax Courier) to the intriguingly titled Llama Drama Ding Dong (Lancashire Evening Post). Each news story is framed and analysed by Dave’s comic running commentary. From the man who stole a Grim Reaper costume from Morecambe Town Hall, to the Leicester student who opted for suicide bomber fancy dress (and then strolled through his city centre), no story is safe from Dave’s laugh-out-loud mockery, as he pokes fun at the articles and their protagonists with his trademark wit and humour. Brilliant, and a perfect addition to the smallest room in the house.
 ‘Ooh! What a Lovely Pair: Our Story’ by Ant and Dec (Michael Joseph)
If I told you, as the press release does, that “this is the book everyone has been waiting for”, and that it is written by two “national heroes”, you might get rather excited and start wondering whether this was the hitherto undiscovered correspondence between Churchill and FDR, or Boswell and Johnson. But no – it is the autobiography of Ant and Dec. Yup, that’s right, those national heroes Ant and Dec. On every level, this book should be terrible – the appalling Us And Our Celebrity Friends photos, the grimace-in-silence anecdotes about Z-listers, and the never-ending jokey matiness which wears thin before you have even finished chapter one. But after three chapters, I just relaxed and let it all brainwash over me. They are great light entertainers, they have an effortless charm, and I suspect they will be working long beyond the sell-by-date of most of their contemporaries. They are, in fact, the greatest people ever to walk on this planet, and I think they should be canonised and made joint President Of the World. With Vernon Kay as their deputy.
Posted in:
Uncategorized
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Every Wednesday, for at least the next two Wednesdays*, The Fix will dispense expert lifestyle tips, based on the real life experiences of its harried staff.
* including today
How To React To Your Impending Baldness
When you’re twenty-six and find you’re losing your hair, it’ll be wretched. You’ll wonder whether anyone will ever find you attractive again, and whether your girlfriend dumped you because of it (this was a couple of months ago, but she may have given you head rubs and noticed your hairline receding before you did. On the other hand, you’re sure to have noticed first – you’re quite vain and look in the mirror maybe a dozen times a day. This may have been why she left you). You might start thinking about dying, for the first time since you were seven. You’ll think about having children with the next woman who’s prepared to sleep with you, and about poking holes in condoms with pins like a jolly old papist. You’ll certainly start thinking about how you’ll look like a big bald chimp in a couple of years, and about how we’re all monkeys really. You’ll stop using a glass to drink milk, and become less selective about the places you masturbate.
Author: unknown
Posted in:
From the Archives
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 Bob Slayer - Fix live nights compere, amongst other things - counts down the most degenerate countries in Scandinavia…
Slayer’s Scandinavia
Scandinavia is a beautiful part of the world that I like to visit as often as possible. However, it is also very expensive, and so I highly recommend that you get someone else to pay for the booze. My way of having booze on tap is to tour with rock bands, but you could take a rich friend along or you could become a bar slut and prostitute yourself that way. Either way, the question you will be asking is which country is top of the Scandinavian debauchery tree?
5th = Denmark
The entry point to Scandinavia is Denmark, a country that is a little like Germany, only with slightly less porn and more bacon. Spend any time in Denmark and you will soon be whispering, “I see lesbians everywhere”, as they enjoy the highest per capita ladies that love ladies of any country in the world. This may go some way to explaining why Sild is not only a type of fish, but is also the Danish word for “kiss”.
4th = SWEDEN
Next stop is Sweden, a country which could move up the rankings if it was not held back by the bible belt towns of Jonkoping, Linkoping, and Shopping, that run down the centre of the country. However, get up into the north and you can find the wild, free Sweden. After one night drinking Brännvin (a schnapps that literally means ‘Burn Wine’), I was invited to play the national drinking game of Kubb in the way the vikings intended: by seeing who can throw the bones of their victims around the best.
3rd = ICELAND
You may have expected Iceland to have ranked higher, but in Scandinavia the debauchery competition is high. Many Icelanders are certainly not wired up right, but in 2007, Iceland was ranked as the most developed country in the world by the United Nations’ Human Development Index, and they could not have achieved that if everyone had been like Björk. That said, her and her wayward son - whose dreadful heavy metal band once supported a band I toured with - do certainly contribute to keeping their country above Sweden. Johanna Sigurdardottir is the world’s first openly gay head of government, which is nice.
2nd = FINLAND
Has got naked saunas, vodka, and Eurovision-winning monster rockers Lordi. But Finland also has my favourite island in the world: Aland is in the Baltic Sea, midway between Stockholm and Helsinki. For some strange reason, the island is duty free and is the only place in Scandinavia that booze is cheap! After one show, I got on the wrong side of a particular local nutter who picked up a shovel and vehemently declared, “Michael Jackson is the King of Pop!” while angrily trying to chase me via the means of a moonwalk.
1st = Norway
Back in the middle ages, in an effort to stop public drunkenness, Norway was the first country in the world to impose taxes on booze, but this hasn’t deterred them: those crazy Norwegians are shit-faced 24/7. At the 2004 Quart Festival I was stood on the side of the main stage clutching a mug of Karsk (moonshine and coffee) when Norwegian band The Cumshots announced a young couple on to the stage in the middle of their gig with the words, “How far are you willing to go to save the planet?” The pair immediately stripped naked and proceeded to have sex on the stage. A large banner declared that they were “Fuck for Forests” - this eco-debauchery is part of what puts Norway top of the tree in my book.
Posted in:
Degeneracy
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On the whole, I hate celebrity books - they smack of smug entitlement and are motivated by nothing more than money and professional jealousy. This Christmas, in a bizarre Room 101-type experiment, I got every celeb/gift book out there, locked myself in, and read them all until my eyes were bleeding real tears. I was pleasantly surprised – in fact, the whole process was a revelation and there are some total gems out there this year. Shop around, though – it should be impossible to find any of these books at full price in the mad scramble for post-Christmas turnover. Here’s a few of the best, with more to follow over the coming weeks…
 ‘Halfway To Hollywood: Diaries 1980 to 1988: The Film Years’ by Michael Palin (Weidenfeld & Nicolson)
This wondrous volume covers the 1980s, a decade in which the ties that bound the Pythons loosened as they forged their separate careers. After a live performance at the Hollywood Bowl, they made their last performance together in 1983 in the hugely successful Monty Python’s Meaning of Life. Writing and acting in films and television then took over much of Michael’s life, culminating in the smash hit A Fish Called Wanda, in which he played the hapless, stuttering Ken (for which he won a BAFTA for Best Supporting Actor), and the first of his seven celebrated television journeys for the BBC. He wrote much of the dialogue and acted in Terry Gilliam’s Time Bandits, and acted in his next film, Brazil. He co-produced, wrote, and played the lead in The Missionary, opposite Dame Maggie Smith - who also appeared with him in A Private Function, written by Alan Bennett. And so it goes on. Quite simply, Palin is a comic genius, a national treasure, and everyone’s favourite uncle. Essential reading for everyone – it should be prescribed on the National Health.
 ‘A Fart In A Colander’ by Roy Hudd (O’Mara Books)
I am a sucker for anything to do with Roy Hudd. His career has spanned the last 60 years, and he has worked with everyone from Sir Cliff Richard to Simon Trewin and Morecambe and Wise. My own experience of him was when I worked on his joyous show, Just A Verse And A Chorus, at the Churchill Theatre, Bromley in the early 1980s – it was truly a month of non-stop fun. This book is not all a barrel of laughs, though – Roy had a turbulent early family life; his father left home and his mother committed suicide during the war, leaving his formidable, but adored, grandmother to raise him. But he brings a lightness of touch to even these challenges. He has a mischievous twinkle in his eyes, and his lust for keeping the flame of the old variety era alive lifts this prose off the page in a celebratory and life-enhancing way. Anyone who likes comedy should read this book – it is unputdownable and glorious. You can also find out why Roy Hudd gave June Whitfield a fart machine for Christmas.
‘It’s Not What You Think’ by Chris Evans (HarperCollins)
Chris said recently: “I see this book as an account of a boy who climbed a glorious mountain and then dug himself a huge black valley for no good reason other than he didn’t know what else to do”. From his early years on Manchester’s Piccadilly radio to Don’t Forget Your Toothbrush, The Big Breakfast, and TFI Friday for Channel 4, Chris changed the TV landscape during the 1990s, and, on BBC Radio 1’s Breakfast show and as owner of Virgin Radio, ushered in the age of the celebrity DJ. As a listener, I well remember those Radio 1 breakfast show days when you never quite knew whether he was going to turn up or not and, to be honest, he actually came across as a bit of a knob. I expected to hate this self-indulgent memoir, but I was gripped – he is a genuinely likeable individual, and the story of how he managed to buy Virgin radio is as good as any John Grisham thriller – real edge-of-the-seat stuff and as page-turning as it comes. As with his life, I can’t wait for Vol. 2. Whatever he does next, he will throw himself into it with total passion. His agent, Michael Foster, is a terrific recurring character here too, and he makes Jerry Maguire look like John Major.
Posted in:
Reviews
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 - Shhhh!
Michael Hutchence, singer and extreme masturbator
Despite being easy to mock the manner in which Michael Hutchence died, it is overlooked what a truly amazing feat it is to die wanking. One of the easiest skills for a human or monkey to master, it is also impossibly hard to die fromp.
Found dead in a hotel with a belt round his neck, a lot is made of what a great lover Michael was; a fact that - for those of us who were unlucky enough not to have been bedded by the pockmarked lothario - is easy to believe. If he paid that level of attention to his own self-abuse, imagine how elaborate the experience would have been for another human being.
Celebrities through the ages are famous for having people on their payroll whose job it is to make sure that - if they should mistakenly die - any evidence of their seedy life is covered up: wiping the porn off their hard drive, paying off their underage lovers, hiding their illegitimate children. It is likely Hutchence employed one of these shadowy servants, but their once-only role would probably have involved wiping clean and tucking his likely-huge pecker away, and breaking his stiff fingers out of their claw-like grip. A job which they quite royally fucked up.
Comedy is always claimed to be the new rock and roll, and the two disciplines rarely merge so seamlessly. His death echoed hauntingly with masturbation metaphors. Bono kindly wrote Stuck In A Moment You Can’t Get Out Of about him, which was played on MOTD and Big Brother best bits, so that we - and his mum - would always be reminded that he wanked himself to death. A film of his life, Slide Away, is in pre-production. Surprisingly, it currently has no major male star attached.
Michael Hutchence, 38, died on November 22, 1997.
Tags: obituary | Posted in:
Degeneracy
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