Cooper Brown: He's Out There

'I might be going to Morocco with Pete Doherty - now that will be one hell of a trip'

Thursday 20 July 2006 00:00 BST
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I stagger into the office the morning after a particularly good night out with Ben - he took me to the Electric in Notting Hill Gate. Man, what a night!! Among many others, we hung out with the new Sid Vicious - Pete Doherty, the rock singer. That guy is a genius. Not only is he doing Kate Moss, but he's a proper fully paid-up poet. We were in the upstairs room where they only seem to let cool people in, and Pete's constantly scatting and mumbling stuff and I just wanted to write it all down. Seriously, everything the guy says is genius poetry. Even ordering a drink sounds frickin' amazing somehow.

As usual, someone like him doesn't seem to be actually appreciated by his own country. This tends to be the fate of the truly talented: just ask George Bush (only kidding!). One day you guys might just realise what an amazing talent you have in your midst. I might be going to Morocco with him and his gang at the end of August. Now that is going to be one hell of a trip.

Anyway, after a VERY long evening I crawl into the office trying to find a coffee and find Danielle in a state of some excitement. I'd love to pretend that it was at the sight of the Coop but it was to do with an e-mail that she couldn't wait to show me. It was from a television production company who've read this column and wanted yours truly to appear on a major television reality show. It involves me and several other celebrities stuck together in some pretty tough situation and we have to get on with each other and deal with whatever comes our way. Every week the public votes to get rid of one of us. Danielle is beside herself with excitement and is now looking at me through completely different eyes. It's amazing what the power of television can do. I'm in the wrong business.

I ring Victoria to tell her about my good news and she goes totally nuts. There, apparently, is NO WAY that I'm doing any sort of programme like this. She thinks it's incredibly "common" and she will not speak to me again if I even go and meet the producers. I ask Ben why she's so hassled and it turns out that she's really good friends with Lady Victoria Hervey, an aristocrat chick who looks like a depressed whippet and is on a programme called Love Island at the moment. Everybody thinks it's a terrible mistake because her sister got really screwed up on it last year. It's going to take me quite some time to learn all the rules over here.

On the plus side (is there any other?), things have improved with Victoria's father. She was very worried about him telling me that I had to stop seeing her and wanted me to have lunch with him. Personally I really didn't want to get another lecture from this guy about how I'm not good enough for his daughter. In the end I agreed for Victoria's sake and we met up at some Italian place of my choice in Soho.

He was definitely out of his comfort zone and we ended up having quite a fun lunch. He started going on about what he used to get up to before he married Victoria's mom and let's just say that he did his fair share. Actually, the guy was some sort of animal. I have completely revised my opinion of him. He and I are actually quite similar; it's just that it's all hidden behind all that British stiff-upper-lip shit. I think we've moved on to a new platform of our relationship.

We ended up leaving the restaurant at about five in the afternoon and I had to head straight home as I really wasn't in any state to do any work.

Speaking of work - just how hard is it to make a decent movie over here? I had all these meetings this week with various big-name British producers as they gave me their supposed overview as to where the industry is going in this country in the next five years. It was depressing. Every one of them wants to make either a gangster movie or some period costume shit. WAKE UP Britain! You guys need to get into animation, action movies, something vaguely COMMERCIAL. Put some frickin' cash into the things. People want to see proper special effects, sexy locations, not some earnest Cockney tragedy. It's got a lot to do with the government here - they give your movie industry absolutely no support and that's what the Coop is here to change.

One thing you need to know - Gordon Brown gets in and you'll be watching black-and-white poverty documentaries for the next five years. At least Dave Cameron seems to be the kind of guy who actually goes to the movies. I think that there's going to be a big political shift over here very soon. All the people I meet here are right behind Cameron and his guys and they're the influence-maker types. If I was Gordon Brown I'd start trying to think of what I'm going to do as a career when Blair goes.

I have to thank everybody who went for the Cooper T-shirts, apparently they were gone in half an hour and I've offloaded more than 4,000 in the last week, so I guess you can sell any old shit over here!! If I spot any of you crazy cats, then it's a night on the town with the Coop - if you can keep up. I'd also like to thank everyone who's e-mailed me, I've been blown away by your support and it's really nice to think that an ignorant Yank and his opinions can be welcomed by so many of you. I know that there's been a small number of readers maintaining a correspondence in the letters pages that hasn't been entirely favourable. But hey - if you're still writing letters, doesn't that say it all? Welcome to the 21st century, guys! We've got e-mail and electricity and everything! Cooper out.

scoopercooper@gmail.com; www.myspace.com/scoopercooper

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