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Died of TV Guide – Leveson, Hackgate, and Press Reform in ‘Adventures in Paradise’ London Hackgate Film … by Elan Durham

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Hello all … @europabridge1 here, author of the original Hackgate screenplay ‘Adventures in Paradise‘ and other film projects … MFA, novelist, ex-academic, world traveler, and consummate Anglophile.

A few thoughts relating to my own Hackgate-inspired ‘Adventures in Paradise’ romantic comedy-revenge caper.

Rather than imagine a world where all inequalities or absurdities are erased, which is impossible – I like to imagine a world that functions with an overall sense of fairness and reason, as opposed to being guided by an ethos of all the spoils going to the rottenest. Of course, my imagination only works in the fictional world, which is why I write screenplays.

In this context,  I am reminded of Dan Hodges original response to Hackgate in The New Stateman. Yes, Hackgate happened, and it will happen again because the people want it. They want to hear Hugh Grant‘s conversations, they want to capture those tunnel death photos of Princess Di, and they want to know who’s shagging whom, in the ever-shifting power plays from London, New York, Paris, Hollywood, and DC … because, don’t you know … ‘Nobody rides for free … Pay up or play!’NOTW cover

Information is knowledge. And misinformation is also a kind of power that can be used against whomever we want to harm or control for political purposes or financial gain, or just for malicious sport, as I have learned watching this and other media debacles unfold in print and online.

‘Reputation, reputation, reputation! O, I have lost my reputation. I have lost the immortal part of myself, and what remains is bestial.‘ What remains is bestial after privacy, family, career, and humanity have all but been erased by the tabloids aided by their right to know. But writing ‘Adventures in Paradise’ has resulted in a much more entertaining, witty, and enduring experience than this blog rant. Perhaps it is also my tribute to a women who dared to forge ahead in Aurora Blunton, as she is my own Leveson Inquiry.

Aurora c’est moi! Sorry, Flaubert.

Aurora is a celebration of the kinds of female characters I grew up looking at in films starring Audrey Hepburn, Katharine Hepburn, Carole Lombard, Greta Garbo, Irene Dunne, and Myrna Loy. Aurora is light as a feather, has the gravitas and intelligence of a British barrister, and the appeal of a major movie star. Clive Reade is my old world Hollywood hero, the Cary Grant we all still crave for in our leper-skinned, anti-hero comic book age. And he is most definitely NOT the schmuck foisted upon us by Hollywood executives, because his twitter following exceeds the 3.5 million mark.

Adventures is a statement about the life of the community, the tabloid press and its standards; celebrity, the pursuit of a story no matter how absurd or ludicrous, and the glare of the limelight … no matter how lurid.

Hacking, expressions of online hate, stalking, revenge porn, and tabloid gossip go much deeper than casting aspersions upon a person’s life, political views, or status in the community. They represent an effort to change the course of human history by creating a social corrosive or acid so powerful it etches away and destroys all civilized discourse, such that no human witnesses remain. Just players in the game.

Stalkers and hackers conjure up a thumbs up or thumbs down agenda for whatever hapless dunk-drunk draftees end up in the docket of world doom … Can’t you hear the roar of the crowd? See the down-pointed thumbs? Unholy wieners and stale beer! Talk about fascist populism! And the British public subsidizes this kind of hooliganism with more than half a billion dollars of tax pounds per year.The Insider by Piers Morgan perfectlybeastly.blogspot

‘Adventures in Paradise’ is my response, a fleet-footed film for people with enough brains to think, also a window to escape through for a few hours, to have a laugh, or the last laugh … For the rich, the poor, the press, the hard-pressed … hopefully to live on in the public imagination for decades.

Perhaps we can all agree upon one thing: At the end of the day, people need a break from reality. I do not trivialize the events of Hackgate but rather I want to place them in a context people will enjoy watching, a context that endangers no one, but manages to address all the key issues while entertaining – memorably.

Finally, it is probably more accurate to call ‘Adventures in Paradise’ a dramedy – a mixed genre film sprinkled with romance, revenge, satire, glamour, travel, tabloid intrigue, corruption, and betrayal – one that ends happily for my hero and heroine. I really do love the way the story ends – every moment of happiness hard earned and believable. Is love still possible between two free, intelligent adults? ‘Adventures in Paradise’ says yes.

Thanks for stopping by  … And feel free to contact me at europabridge1@gmail.com

RELATED ARTICLES:

  • British Inquiry Is Told Hacking is Worthy Tool
  • The Leveson Inquiry – UK
  • Press Reform Blog Spot – Collection of Web-Related News
  • Alastair Campbell: Threatened By NI Executives Over Phone Hacking
  • Hugh Grant’s Supplemental Testimony Leveson Commission
  • Guardian UK: Leveson Inquiry katharine hepburn 1935 - by ernest bachrach

 

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Tresco, a golden path I'd love to be walking on just now ... Wouldn't you? ☀🌴🌿😊☀🙌🌾 * ... Instead of sitting in front of my computer everyday--rain, snow, or occasional shine--to work on character, plot, arc, irony, comedy, tragedy, anagnorisis, and voila--the final reveal! Which hopefully will not disappoint too many of you lovely people here and out there ... I'd wanted to publish 'Borrowed Light' by Christmas, but what's the point if it's still needing work, eh? But then, most things do ... It almost seems a miracle to have written a novel at all, when screenplays are really my thing. So hoping this particular novel-in-stories will be behind me by Summer 2019, and my SCREENPLAY sold too so I can spend more time in my beloved England and here ... (My apologies!) Actively shopping #AdventuresHackgate now! ✍👋🎬 * 'But to retrace your steps and get back to the upper air, This is the real task and the the real undertaking ... Therefore look up and search deep and when you have found it Take hold of it boldly and duly. If fate has called you The bough will come away easily, of its own sweet accord.' * (Poet of these dark times, Seamus Heaney.) * 'The readiness is all.' * #WritersofInstagram #amwriting #BorrowedLight #womenwriters #anovelinstories #amediting #adventuresinparadise #londonfilms #womennarrators #trescoabbeygardens #myscilly @zonephotography #lookingforsunshine 😊😘🤓 #anywayIcanfindit ☀☀☀ #seamusheaney #poetry #shakespearesunday
Tresco, Isles of Scilly ... * Ask @nicholas.keeble about my last comment on one of his stunning photos. I believe it read, 'Brilliant shit, Nic!' (shot) And because I'm traveling into MIT every day, weather permitting, to finish my novel, I'll offer the thoughts of others today for those of us who may be stumbling, exhausted, and too weary (writing crazy well but depressed, Brexit-broken and isolated?) to extemporize ... A Welshman's thoughts with a dash of boozy Heaney on the word menu today, as I think of you all with deep fondness and respect, and feel so grateful for your support and friendship and many private messages of perserverance and hope ... ✍☀🕯🕊💫 * 'And death shall have no Dominion. Dead man naked they shall be one With the man in the wind and the west moon; When their bones are picked clean and the clean bones gone, They shall have stars at elbow and foot; Though they shall go mad they shall be sane, Though they sink through the sea they shall rise again; Though lovers be lost their love shall not; And Death shall have no Dominion.' --- Dylan Thomas, May 1933, title taken from St Paul's Letters to the Romans ... Holocaust Anniversary worthy surely, and I've a memorial story in my novel 'Borrowed Light' too. * For s(he) drank like a fish Nightly, naturally Swimming towards the lure ... Of warm lit-up places. Seamus Heaney 🍾🍷☀🕯🕊💫💙🌠✨✍ 😄 * Sorry! Such low, low pixels, I tried to repair the photo through many edits. * @trescoisland @islesofscilly #my_tresco @zonephotographer #WritersofInstagram #amwriting #borrowedlight #anovelinstories #screenwritersofinstagram
Tresco Abbey Gardens, Grade I Listed, Isles of Scilly... A scene that struck me as rather Zen, textured, interesting, variegated, rich to the eye, inviting for the Spirit, and 3,038 miles from where I live now! 😩 ☀ Two feet of snow after a major Winter storm swept in with temperatures set for 3-9° tomorrow, and I've gotten to the point where I can no longer work here ... So I've been traveling into MIT in Cambridge to write, and cutting through GREAT SWATHS. I finished 8 chapters in 3 days, but now I'm well and truly screwed. Because the truth is, the particular minds of the parasites that surround me here ... like a black swarm of inky spiritual poison are ruining my focus and muddying my spirit. ☀ The Swans flew away a few days ago for the season, just after I'd fed them a loaf of organic sprouted multi-grain bread, and as I was doing this a woman came by to relate how some children years ago smashed all the Cygnet eggs, and beat the female Swan (Pen) with a baseball bat. And frankly--I apologise for that story, it is not mine--when I'm shut in around these locals in my tiny apartment in such a dark place, I am in agony for all the light I have already lost just by living in close proximity to them ... And I think about how derided and terrorized I've felt for years as a result of feeding the Swans, knowing any civilized nation would look upon them as protected ... And I'm afraid, friends, afraid I will not emerge from this dark place, and yet I must. I simply must succeed and heal and get as far away from this scummy baseball wielding battering lot, and as soon as possible. Drinking far too much gin, btw. 🍸The Swans flew away, oh why oh why can't I? 🕊 ☀ As there are Apartments in our own minds that - we never enter without apology - we should respect the seals of others - ☀ (New England poet, Emily Dickinson 1830-1886) ☀ #WritersofInstagram #amwriting @trescoisland #mytresco #future_expats #myscilly #borrowedlight #anovelinstories #adventuresinparadise #LondonFilm #poetry #emilydickinson #privacy #thesoulcriesoutforlight #freedom #loveengland #screenwritersofinstagram
A purple-hued Cornish church to help you get through 'Dry January' ... or else turn water into wine! 🍾🍷☀💟😊😘 * I've been writing everyday and with no distractions to take me outside the petty horrors of the US, feeling depressed through the holidays into January, especially this last week, when I've had to take to my bed or sofa or my foam mattress on the floor! (God, I miss having a nice bed!) If I do manage to make an epic sale this year--either my novel or London screenplay--there will be such a ruckus emanating from Massacuckoo, tidal waves will hit the Cornish Coast from a joyous noise! * Bleary-eyed but hanging in there, wish me luck, my Iger friends! And listen for the rumble ... and then the quiet. * 'On the grass when I arrive, Filling the stillness with life, But ready to scare off At the very first wrong move. In the ivy when I leave. It is you, black bird, I love. I park, pause, take heed. Breathe.' --Seamus Heaney, (a poet for hard times) * #WritersofInstagram #amwriting #seamusheaney #poetry #stjust #loveengland #lovecornwall @zonephotographer 🇬🇧 #swisbest❤️ @walkingcornwall @swisbest #screenwritersofinstagram #feelingbruisedandpurple 💜
Happy New Year to all my followers and to anyone who happens upon my page!🎉🌈☀ May the light of God, love of Nature, and best people shower your path with Grace ... * You have been an inspiration to me over the past few years and more: teachers and leavening agents, helping me rise to challenges seemingly beyond my abilities. You've provided comic distractions when I sorely needed a laugh, highest artistic standards from the best photographers ... the sharpest social angles, as well as domestic stylings to pour the balm of artful graces upon our souls, healing fractured worlds. I am so grateful to you all, and to England, Cornwall, and Isles of Scilly for giving me a safe community ... Thank you! 🕊💫🌿🌲✨☀ * 'History says, Don't hope On this side of the grave, But then, once in a lifetime The longed-for tidal wave Of justice can rise up And hope and history rhyme . . . Believe that a farther shore Is reachable from here. Believe in miracles And cures and healing wells.' ✍ Seamus Heaney (again) * * #WritersofInstagram #amwriting #SeamusHeaney #poetry #hope #happynewyear #givethanks @islesofscilly @visitislesofscilly #StMary #PeninnisLighthouse #BorrowedLight #anovelinstories #AdventuresinParadise #LondonFilm #hackgatescreenplay #ScreenwritersofInstagram
In the bleak midwinter, remember the coming light! St Just with plenty of light in October ... Forgive me, God, for I have edited out the telephone pole! 😀 ** 'Winter-evening cold. Our backs might never warm up but our faces Burned from the hearth blaze and the hot whiskeys . . . As green sticks hissed and spat into the ashes And whatever rampaged out there couldn't reach us, Firelit, shuttered, slatted and stone-walled.' ** The great Seamus Heaney ** Happiest Merry Christmas all ... May all our troubles be halved in the New Year, then halved again by Spring! May the world awaken to its humanity and tyrants vanish like the roots of dying weeds ... May we meet in kinder places, toast yule tidings throughout the year! May our love build dynasties in heaven and no harm touch our dear friends ... Cheers and Blessings! 🙏💫🍾🍷🔥🎁🍷🎄💖☀😘 ** Hope to see more of you all in 2019 in London or Cornwall-Scilly! I am writing non-stop pretty much and still looking for a London agent ... P.S. My novel and screenplays read better than my holiday toasts! 😋✍📚 ** Have a lovely holiday season, All! ** #WritersofInstagram #amwriting #AdventuresinParadise #London #BorrowedLight #womenwriters #anovelinstories #Cornwall #StJust #churchesofinstagram #Christmas #poetry #Winter #seamusheaney #toasts #wintersolstice #light
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Tresco, a golden path I'd love to be walking on just now ... Wouldn't you? ☀🌴🌿😊☀🙌🌾 * ... Instead of sitting in front of my computer everyday--rain, snow, or occasional shine--to work on character, plot, arc, irony, comedy, tragedy, anagnorisis, and voila--the final reveal! Which hopefully will not disappoint too many of you lovely people here and out there ... I'd wanted to publish 'Borrowed Light' by Christmas, but what's the point if it's still needing work, eh? But then, most things do ... It almost seems a miracle to have written a novel at all, when screenplays are really my thing. So hoping this particular novel-in-stories will be behind me by Summer 2019, and my SCREENPLAY sold too so I can spend more time in my beloved England and here ... (My apologies!) Actively shopping #AdventuresHackgate now! ✍👋🎬 * 'But to retrace your steps and get back to the upper air, This is the real task and the the real undertaking ... Therefore look up and search deep and when you have found it Take hold of it boldly and duly. If fate has called you The bough will come away easily, of its own sweet accord.' * (Poet of these dark times, Seamus Heaney.) * 'The readiness is all.' * #WritersofInstagram #amwriting #BorrowedLight #womenwriters #anovelinstories #amediting #adventuresinparadise #londonfilms #womennarrators #trescoabbeygardens #myscilly @zonephotography #lookingforsunshine 😊😘🤓 #anywayIcanfindit ☀☀☀ #seamusheaney #poetry #shakespearesunday
Tresco, Isles of Scilly ... * Ask @nicholas.keeble about my last comment on one of his stunning photos. I believe it read, 'Brilliant shit, Nic!' (shot) And because I'm traveling into MIT every day, weather permitting, to finish my novel, I'll offer the thoughts of others today for those of us who may be stumbling, exhausted, and too weary (writing crazy well but depressed, Brexit-broken and isolated?) to extemporize ... A Welshman's thoughts with a dash of boozy Heaney on the word menu today, as I think of you all with deep fondness and respect, and feel so grateful for your support and friendship and many private messages of perserverance and hope ... ✍☀🕯🕊💫 * 'And death shall have no Dominion. Dead man naked they shall be one With the man in the wind and the west moon; When their bones are picked clean and the clean bones gone, They shall have stars at elbow and foot; Though they shall go mad they shall be sane, Though they sink through the sea they shall rise again; Though lovers be lost their love shall not; And Death shall have no Dominion.' --- Dylan Thomas, May 1933, title taken from St Paul's Letters to the Romans ... Holocaust Anniversary worthy surely, and I've a memorial story in my novel 'Borrowed Light' too. * For s(he) drank like a fish Nightly, naturally Swimming towards the lure ... Of warm lit-up places. Seamus Heaney 🍾🍷☀🕯🕊💫💙🌠✨✍ 😄 * Sorry! Such low, low pixels, I tried to repair the photo through many edits. * @trescoisland @islesofscilly #my_tresco @zonephotographer #WritersofInstagram #amwriting #borrowedlight #anovelinstories #screenwritersofinstagram
Tresco Abbey Gardens, Grade I Listed, Isles of Scilly... A scene that struck me as rather Zen, textured, interesting, variegated, rich to the eye, inviting for the Spirit, and 3,038 miles from where I live now! 😩 ☀ Two feet of snow after a major Winter storm swept in with temperatures set for 3-9° tomorrow, and I've gotten to the point where I can no longer work here ... So I've been traveling into MIT in Cambridge to write, and cutting through GREAT SWATHS. I finished 8 chapters in 3 days, but now I'm well and truly screwed. Because the truth is, the particular minds of the parasites that surround me here ... like a black swarm of inky spiritual poison are ruining my focus and muddying my spirit. ☀ The Swans flew away a few days ago for the season, just after I'd fed them a loaf of organic sprouted multi-grain bread, and as I was doing this a woman came by to relate how some children years ago smashed all the Cygnet eggs, and beat the female Swan (Pen) with a baseball bat. And frankly--I apologise for that story, it is not mine--when I'm shut in around these locals in my tiny apartment in such a dark place, I am in agony for all the light I have already lost just by living in close proximity to them ... And I think about how derided and terrorized I've felt for years as a result of feeding the Swans, knowing any civilized nation would look upon them as protected ... And I'm afraid, friends, afraid I will not emerge from this dark place, and yet I must. I simply must succeed and heal and get as far away from this scummy baseball wielding battering lot, and as soon as possible. Drinking far too much gin, btw. 🍸The Swans flew away, oh why oh why can't I? 🕊 ☀ As there are Apartments in our own minds that - we never enter without apology - we should respect the seals of others - ☀ (New England poet, Emily Dickinson 1830-1886) ☀ #WritersofInstagram #amwriting @trescoisland #mytresco #future_expats #myscilly #borrowedlight #anovelinstories #adventuresinparadise #LondonFilm #poetry #emilydickinson #privacy #thesoulcriesoutforlight #freedom #loveengland #screenwritersofinstagram
A purple-hued Cornish church to help you get through 'Dry January' ... or else turn water into wine! 🍾🍷☀💟😊😘 * I've been writing everyday and with no distractions to take me outside the petty horrors of the US, feeling depressed through the holidays into January, especially this last week, when I've had to take to my bed or sofa or my foam mattress on the floor! (God, I miss having a nice bed!) If I do manage to make an epic sale this year--either my novel or London screenplay--there will be such a ruckus emanating from Massacuckoo, tidal waves will hit the Cornish Coast from a joyous noise! * Bleary-eyed but hanging in there, wish me luck, my Iger friends! And listen for the rumble ... and then the quiet. * 'On the grass when I arrive, Filling the stillness with life, But ready to scare off At the very first wrong move. In the ivy when I leave. It is you, black bird, I love. I park, pause, take heed. Breathe.' --Seamus Heaney, (a poet for hard times) * #WritersofInstagram #amwriting #seamusheaney #poetry #stjust #loveengland #lovecornwall @zonephotographer 🇬🇧 #swisbest❤️ @walkingcornwall @swisbest #screenwritersofinstagram #feelingbruisedandpurple 💜
Happy New Year to all my followers and to anyone who happens upon my page!🎉🌈☀ May the light of God, love of Nature, and best people shower your path with Grace ... * You have been an inspiration to me over the past few years and more: teachers and leavening agents, helping me rise to challenges seemingly beyond my abilities. You've provided comic distractions when I sorely needed a laugh, highest artistic standards from the best photographers ... the sharpest social angles, as well as domestic stylings to pour the balm of artful graces upon our souls, healing fractured worlds. I am so grateful to you all, and to England, Cornwall, and Isles of Scilly for giving me a safe community ... Thank you! 🕊💫🌿🌲✨☀ * 'History says, Don't hope On this side of the grave, But then, once in a lifetime The longed-for tidal wave Of justice can rise up And hope and history rhyme . . . Believe that a farther shore Is reachable from here. Believe in miracles And cures and healing wells.' ✍ Seamus Heaney (again) * * #WritersofInstagram #amwriting #SeamusHeaney #poetry #hope #happynewyear #givethanks @islesofscilly @visitislesofscilly #StMary #PeninnisLighthouse #BorrowedLight #anovelinstories #AdventuresinParadise #LondonFilm #hackgatescreenplay #ScreenwritersofInstagram
In the bleak midwinter, remember the coming light! St Just with plenty of light in October ... Forgive me, God, for I have edited out the telephone pole! 😀 ** 'Winter-evening cold. Our backs might never warm up but our faces Burned from the hearth blaze and the hot whiskeys . . . As green sticks hissed and spat into the ashes And whatever rampaged out there couldn't reach us, Firelit, shuttered, slatted and stone-walled.' ** The great Seamus Heaney ** Happiest Merry Christmas all ... May all our troubles be halved in the New Year, then halved again by Spring! May the world awaken to its humanity and tyrants vanish like the roots of dying weeds ... May we meet in kinder places, toast yule tidings throughout the year! May our love build dynasties in heaven and no harm touch our dear friends ... Cheers and Blessings! 🙏💫🍾🍷🔥🎁🍷🎄💖☀😘 ** Hope to see more of you all in 2019 in London or Cornwall-Scilly! I am writing non-stop pretty much and still looking for a London agent ... P.S. My novel and screenplays read better than my holiday toasts! 😋✍📚 ** Have a lovely holiday season, All! ** #WritersofInstagram #amwriting #AdventuresinParadise #London #BorrowedLight #womenwriters #anovelinstories #Cornwall #StJust #churchesofinstagram #Christmas #poetry #Winter #seamusheaney #toasts #wintersolstice #light

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