This is another one of those stories I heard about recently and kept forgetting to blog about. But I love the story so much that I don’t care if it’s a few weeks old (besides, you want breaking news, go to CNN).
Tony Blair, former prime minister of England and generally considered a pretty good dude, wrote his memoirs recently.
It is, of course, said to be a fascinating book, filled with inside stories of his “partnership” with W., a partnership many of us still can’t understand, and other stories of life on 10 Downing Street.
But the best part of the book, or the funniest, comes when Blair recounts his first meeting with Queen Elizabeth. According to the tome, Elizabeth says to Blair, “You are my 10th prime minister. The first was Winston. That was before you were born.”
OK, great. Except that was nearly the exact wording of the scene imagined by screenwriter Peter Morgan, who wrote the Oscar-nominated movie “The Queen.”
So either Morgan just happened to guess exactly what happened (he said he had no insider knowledge), or Blair saw the movie, liked it so much, and convinced himself that that’s what really happened, or would make for a better scene in his book.
I love it. This sets precedent for so many possibilities. Chuck Wepner, the basis for Rocky Balboa, should start telling people he used to run up the stairs of a Philadelphia museum in training. Harrison Ford tells people he has only one real arm and is, in reality, a “Fugitive.”
Hey, I don’t blame Blair. Morgan’s a great screenwriter; might as well have him write the story of your life than actually, you know, tell it from memory.
**I’m as anti-smoking as the next guy, maybe more. But the city of Cincinnati has got to be kidding me with this story.
The Cincinnati Reds clinched their first playoff spot in 15 years the other night, and so champagne and yes, a few cigars were passed out by team owner Bob Castellini in the locker room.
As the celebration was shown on TV, five idiots (I mean, viewers) called the Cincinnati Health Department to complain that the Reds were violating the state’s indoor smoking ban, and asked them to investigate.
And so now the Health Dept. is launching an investigation.
Are you bleeping kidding me? This is what the Health Dept. decides is a reasonable use of their time? There aren’t restaurants with rat droppings in their kitchen that need to be looked at?
What a joke this is. I hope lots of taxpayer money is used to investigate this.
