AND TO ALL WHO SAIL IN HER...

Got it just about right in my Cannes prediction about Red Road - so well done Andrea Arnold for winning the Prix du Jury. Enjoy it while you can, doll. You're probably wondering why all these people you've never met are suddenly claiming credit for your movie and heaping hyperbole on you. Not least our pals at Scottish Screen.

Now it would be pushing it for me to claim credit for SS's new improved website, but whaddya know? Obviously someone, somewhere has made mention of it's crappiness because now it's beginning to look like a film agency website - at least now they admit they fund stuff like, y'know, films? They've hung up a few pictures on the site to replace the insipid seascape and there's even a list of who does what, even if we don't really know what they get up to. Now, that wasn't so hard, was it?

And the best news I've heard all week? Claire Chapman, Head of 'Talent and Creativity' - since when? - is quitting, along with sidekick Carol Sheridan, Head of Development, her name already struck off the who's who list. Well that's two down, I suppose.

As to why this pair are bailing out we can only speculate but rats and sinking ships come to mind. Maybe we should ask their boss, but I guess you'd only get the standard blah about 'due to the implementation of new strategies and the challenges faced by the organisational yadda yadda...' The kind of obfuscating guff we've come to expect from our Ken. Could it be that he's the reason? Maybe, but what we want to know is the real reason. Because if Scottish Screen is, as we're told, headed in the right direction then why would anybody give up the status let alone a fat salary? Or could it be that when Culture Scumbag or whatever it's called finally kicks in next year, the scrum for new jobs will soon sort the bitches from the dogs.

Whatever the reason for their departure, it's not like the two Cs will give two Fs about goes on in Scotland, what with one Ireland-bound and the other off to the States. So it doesn't matter what the new-look SS site says. Any hope of pitching work any time soon is bound to be an exercise in futility. But what's new?