On the other hand, I was surprised to learn that you can buy yourself a BAFTA nomination, according to this Telegraph article. This seems to be, according to people who approve of the practice, quoted in the article, because a) the BAFTA tastes are just too far from the mainstream, so they need to pay money to get the stuff that people actually watch on the shortlist (eg "I'm a Celebrity... Get Me Out of Here," and b) because the BAFTA tastes are so boring and middle of the road, if the TV stations didn't pay to have shows on the shortlist, the exciting, edgy stuff wouldn't get a look-in (nothing cited to back this up, unless you think that "I'm a Celebrity..." or "Dr Zhivago" are edgy, dangerous TV. (BAFTAs are the UK equivalent of the Oscars and the Emmys.)
Had a quiet Sunday, mostly spent working on the next draft of The Fermata, a film-script I'm writing for Robert Zemeckis. It's one of the only times I've ever enjoyed the "Hollywood Process", mainly because Bob and I seem to be treating The Fermata as a voyage of discovery. I'll write a draft, give it to him, work with him on it, and his comments will always surprise me, and take the next draft off in another direction, one that I hadn't imagined -- and never what I'd imagine as Hollywood directions, either. Often they'll make it pricklier, stranger, more unlike other things that are out there. I really hope he makes the film, just because it has several of the oddest sequences I've ever written, along with some very funny dialogue and some really weird sex.