4th Private Eye Piece on Starsuckers...

Nice piece in this weeks Private Eye on our recent dealings with Andrew Marr's producers. See Article here This is now the 4th Piece on Starsuckers in Private Eye - something of a record...

CALL MAX spoof Max Clifford advert now at 11,000 views and climbing...

Max Clifford's involvement in Starsuckers has been pretty
much ignored by the Mainstream Media (with the notable
exception of Roy Greenslade in the Guardian) This is
hardly surprising, given that Max has so much control
over what news we do and don't read. He is able to shut
down stories about his clients getting up to no good, so
he has been more than capable of killing off the story of
how we had caught him on undercover camera. But not
even Max and his friends Carter Ruck (who previously
threatened to injunct the film) can shut down the internet,
so please do pass this spoof advert of Max far and wide
so people can learn what a slimy operator he is - the the
mainstream news won't dare have a bad word said
against him.

Check out our CALL MAX viral video on youtube...

Ricky Gervias & Kev the Pap on Hampstead Heath...

As this was the first weekend for about a year where I haven't either been locked in an edit suite or being shouted at by lawyers, I took a stroll in the direction of Hampstead Heath. I was enjoying the glorious sunshine, and was looking forward to 2 days without any contact with Starsuckers, media law, or anything remotely to do with celebrity culture. I realised this was not to be when I noticed an extremely long camera lens poking out from behind a silver car, pointing suspiciously in my direction. After briefly fantasising that I might now be famous enough to be pap worthy (possibly due to my "Celebrity Squares" interview in The Guardian), I realised it was our old friend Kev The Pap winding me up. He had been trawling the streets of North London with his partner in crime  - "Slippery John" - and they had clocked me walking down the road, pulled over and hopped out. I asked Kev how the pap business was going, and he replied "not bad - got a restraining order from Richard and Judy last week", which made me laugh so much I nearly staggered into oncoming traffic. It seems that Kev had snapped Richard Madeley and Judy Finnigan having a liquid lunch a few days earlier, and the pictures appeared in The Sun the following day with the sensitive headline "RICHARD AND WOOZY!". Rather than moderate their drinking habits, Richard and Judy served Kev with a restraining order preventing him taking pictures of them, enabling them to get pissed in peace. It seems that this is a growing trend among celebrities who are using anti harassment legislation to curb the enthusiastic behaviour of London paps. "Slippery John" nodded in agreement as Kev was telling us this, and then remarked proudly that he now can't go within 20 feet of David Walliams. The lawyers and judges who serve these draconian injunctions to curb the freedom of the press, probably didn't envisage that they would become badges of honour amoung the photographers they are meant to restrict. One may not publicly endorse what Kev and Slippery John get up to in order to fill our newspapers with photos of celebrity mishap (even though we all read the damn things), but there is a very fine line between preventing paps snapping boozy TV presenters, and restricting the press reporting on a politician or a public figure. And as the line between entertainers and politicians gets increasingly blurred, it is a worrying day when people in power can stop anybody taking photos in a public place.

While we were chewing the fat over this, Kev did his usual trick of slipping his card to my companion, saying "Give us a call if you see any celebs... if I get a picture I'll sort you out a bung". My friend took the card, and - looking down the street - replied: "Er, isn't that Ricky Gervais?" We all turned, and sure enough, there Ricky Gervais jogging up the high street, panting and wheezing like he was about to have a heart attack. Kev and John then lost crucial seconds arguing about who's turn it was to get the shot, and by the time Slippery John had got his camera out the back of the car, Gervais had run straight past us. John called out after him, but Gervais - presumably realising that he didn't look at his best - found some untapped source of energy and pegged it off down the street. John - by no means a sprightly figure himself - barreled off after him, and we were treated to the hilarious sight of a portly celebrity being chased by an even more portly pap with an absurdly long lens. Gervais cunningly ran round a bus shelter a couple of times, to the surprise of the members of the public out for a stroll in the sunshine, meaning John was unable to get a decent shot. Gervais managed to escaped into the throng, and Slippery John staggered back, looking like just run a marathon. Once Kev stopped having hysterics they jumped into their mercedes, did a U turn, and gave chase. It seems that by the time that they caught up with him, Gervais had used his lead to take a crucial few moments to sort out his appearance, as their pictures that have appeared in The Daily Mail show him looking pretty trim and composed.


It was great to see an old friend again, and if anyone sees any celebs out and about, do give Kev a call and he'll sort you out with a few quid.

Kev The Pap - 07776 347360
Kev's Showbiz Column

And that's when it all kicked off...

For a nasty minute I thought the More 4 TV broadcast (Tuesday 10pm) was going to slip out without any press at all. Then at the end of last week we received a staggering 58 pages of angry from Bob Geldof, responding to the criticisms that Starsuckers makes of Live Aid and Live 8. The covering letter makes it clear that Bob's main bone of contention is not the allegations that Live Aid money was used to assist in a program of ethnic cleansing, or that Live 8 distracted and undermined the political campaign of Make Poverty History. No, the thing that has most rattled the ex boomtown rat is that I made up a story about his daughter stuffing pick'n'mix sweets down her bra, and sold it to the Daily Mirror as part of our fake news stories hoax.

This was followed by an 11 page letter addressed to me personally, that is a chaotic mixture of legal threats, several lists of Bob's awards and TV appearances, insults, jokes and venomous criticisms of anti-poverty campaigners. Despite the letter being marked "not for publication", there was clearly an overwhelming public interest in Geldof's views on this subject being made known, as he wielded colossal unelected power and influence over world leaders at the G8 Summit in 2005. I made this letter available to the Guardian who ran the story on page of three of Saturdays paper. This has predictably enraged the anti-poverty movement (who Geldof described as "wankers dressed as clowns") and John Hilary (executive director of War on Want) has written a strongly worded response in a Guardian Comment is Free piece. Last time I checked this was on the front of the Guardian website and had attracted over 200 comments in 4 hours.

Independent on Sunday has run a really nice diary piece on the battles we've been through to get the film released, and the "Call Max!" spoof advert for Max Clifford using our undercover camera footage is now at nearly 9,000 hits in just a few days. Still zero news coverage of this, which is unsurprising given that all the newspapers and TV news outlets are so terrified of Clifford that they dare not offend him. Everyone from The Sunday Times to BBC News rely on him not only for stories but as a pundit for all their celebrity and media stories. I wonder how many hits it will need to get before someone breaks cover...

TV reviews coming out all weekend and they are all extremely strong. Guardian calls it "Superb" and the Times describes it as "Brilliant". Also glowing pieces in the Sunday Times, Observer and Independent on Sunday. I've been too rushed to get any Tabloids but would be extremely interested to see what the papers that we've turned over have to say.

Fingers crossed the TV Broadcast goes ahead... I doubt that anything can stop it now, but anything can happen in 24 hours.

Don't like saturdays...

Story about Bob Geldof now on Guardian website. If anyone needs to contact us for comment best email starsuckers3@gmail.com.

CALL MAX! Viral unleashed...

We were worried that by catching Max Clifford on undercover camera, boasting about the things he does to protect his clients, we might have lost him some business. When Starsuckers was released back in October, we wrote to Max explaining that we had done to him what he has spent his career doing to other people. His immediate response was to call the infamous law firm Carter Ruck and threaten us with an injunction. Private eye story here. Max and Carter Ruck backed down, and the film was released uncut. But what if his clients (like, say, Simon Cowell) found out that their their publicist was mouthing off about them in this way? Might these indiscretions hit Max's bottom line? So we made a little advert for Max to help him drum up some more business.

Call Max advert. 6700 views in less than 2 days!

Please do pass on far and wide - we want as many people to see in case Max unleashes the lawyers on us again.

The Starsuckers DVD is out on the 12th April, you can pre-order on Amazon here. There are over 2 hours of special features, including some very silly interviews with the likes of Kiera Knightly, Al Pacino, Eddie Izzard, 50 Cent, Clint Eastwood, the Brats from Narnia and some other random famous people.

Big in Lithuania

When we were first invited to the Vilnius international film festival, we did wonder if I would be arrested immediately on leaving the plane. The penultimate scene in Starsuckers is a quick tour of Lithuanian politics, as they recently elected a party to their government comprised mainly of celebrities. When we discovered this a year ago I got the next plane out, and spent a memorable couple of days running round the parliament of a former soviet country with a camera. We interviewed several of their MP’s who were extremely frank with us, including Valinskas the Speaker of the Parliament, best described as the simon Cowell of Lithuania. Sitting in their cabinet office he explained to me that where he was once known as the best politician in Lithuania, but now he is known as the worst politician. As if to prove this point, he forced to stand down shortly after the interview, after allegations emerged linking him to the mafia.

As it happened we needn’t have worried about the reception, as we were given excellent hospitality from the second we landed. The opening night party was livened up when a gang of completely pissed brits gate crashed the party. They did an excellent job as upstanding ambassadors for our country: one of them staggered up to the doorman, flashed a credit card, and declared “we’re all from BBC3”. This somewhow gained them entrance, and they quickly dived into the copious brandy. The festival director’s son, who was utterly delightful but built like a brick shithouse, was alerted and turfed them out into the street. We heard that several of the celebrity politicians featured in the film were planning to attend our screening the following evening, including Linas (the ex member of thrash metal band ZAZ). WE learned that he is also in trouble with his political colleagues, as he had missed the official opening of the government as he had stayed on his Thai holiday for an extra week.

The morning journey to breakfast I was reminded that the most popular elevator manufacturer in this part or the world is a company called Schindler, so you are able to travel between floors in Schindlers Lifts. Boom tsh… We were taken on a lovely guided tour of the city, including several stunning churches and cathedrals. Lithuania has been in the news recently for a man attacking a policeman with his penis, so I worked in my “golly what a big organ” gag as often as I could.

The screening seated over 600 people, making it the largest auditorium we have played to date. It appeared that Linas hadn’t actually turned up to the screening as he was having too much fun at a nearby party. We crept back in to the screening towards the end to see the reaction to the Lithuanian scene, with the plan that if it sounded bad we could do a runner to the airport with a healthy head start. Fortunately they laughed in all the right places, so we decided we were safe to stay for the Q&A. They had decided to experiment with a new mechanism for the audiences participation - rather than have the hassle of running a microphone around what was a colossal auditorium, they decided to ask the audience to text their questions anonymously. Once received the host host would then pose the questions to me. This worked extremely well, as it meant that people could be more challenging in their questions, which always makes for a much more interesting debate than if you just get quizzed by people who completely agree with you.

While the audience was generally very positive, I was asked if I felt guilty for mocking the Lithuanian people in the film. I responded that I thought we were pretty fair, given that I spent a lot of time interviewing ordinary Lithuanians about the political situation, and the majority were unhappy with the performance of the celebrity party. These interviews are not in the film, so I'm going to cut together a little montage of this and youtube it (when our feet touch the ground) as it does give the argument extra credibility.

We then went out onto the town, and bumped into the same pissed brits who were again stinking drunk, and then sadly had to catch the morning flight home.

DVD is out on the 12th April available to pre-order on Amazon