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Charity auction results...

Wed, 30 Apr 2008 17:44:21 GMT

The bidding is over. The prizes have gone. And the final total raised is a brilliant £330.02!

Thank you to everyone that bidded, and congratulations to those of you who got hold of our wonderful prizes.

It was of course all for charity, and I'm sure the money will be greatly received by those at CHAS.

So thank you again, from all of us at Put A Kilt On It.

Julie's no Fleeting success

Tue, 29 Apr 2008 21:55:41 GMT

Rory Tevlin:

Julie Fleeting has pretty much done all there is to do in women’s football with a career that has seen trophies, goals and awards. Julie is the current Scotland captain and having bagged a hundred goals for the national side few women in the history of the game can match her strike rate. She took time out to chat to Put A Kilt On it to discuss Scotland, Arsenal and playing football in the USA.

Put A Kilt On It: Was it difficult for you growing up to find a female team in Scotland of a high standard as you got older?

Julie Fleeting: I played for a boys club from the age of 9 till 12 and then had to find a girls team to join. It was easy with the boys club because the furthest you had to travel was 20 min for an away game but when I joined Prestwick girls I had to travel as far as Aberdeen to get a team to play against. Prestwick was a very good girls club at the time and it was also the closest one to me, even though they were 25 min away. I relied heavily on my parents to take me to training and games which was a big commitment from them.

Do you think women's football in Scotland is improving in terms of opportunities for girls and the standard of players being produced?

It is definitely improving. There are far more girl’s teams around and more opportunities at school for girls to play, there are also national development teams for a variety of levels. The SFA are working very hard to improve the opportunities that girls have and I think as a national side we are starting to see the benefits with so many talented young players coming through.

You played football professionally in the United States, what kind of an experience was that and why did that league fail?

It was a fantastic experience, one I was shocked to get. It came at a perfect time in my life, I was just graduating from Uni and hadn't started working yet. To get the opportunity to train every day in the sunshine alongside some of the best players in the world was an experience I will never forget and one I'm very grateful that came my way. The league folded due to funds and I don’t know enough about it to comment but they possibly envisaged more sponsorship than they actually got.

What kind of financial support does Arsenal provide their female players and do you have a career outside of football?

Arsenal Ladies are semi professional but in terms of the running of the club it is extremely professional. The ladies team are very well looked after in terms of kit, hotels, flights to European games, buses etc. These are things that Scottish teams struggle to help their ladies clubs with, I know from national team mates that the things I take for granted at Arsenal can cause Scottish based players to be out of pocket.

You once played in a FA Cup final the day after being injured playing for Scotland, does it annoy you listening to millionaire male footballers moaning about their busy playing schedule?

No it doesn't annoy me. This weekend will be my 4th FA Cup final and every one of them I have played after a national game the day before. It's poor planning but I would never want to miss out on it either. The FA cup final is a big game in women’s football and playing the day before was not going to stop me being a part of it.

Is it hard to keep your hunger and drive going at Arsenal when the team you are in have won absolutely everything going?

No it's not hard. Within the squad there is so much competition that everyone is fighting for their place so if you are not on top of your game every week then you don’t get to make the starting 11, that alone is an incentive. Everyone likes to win trophies and we are no different.

Do you ever get envious seeing so many of your club mates playing in international tournaments with England and do you think Scotland can ever reach those heights?

It would be amazing to get the opportunity to play in a championship with Scotland. It's something we are not too far away from and as a team I think we are ready to compete with the top teams.

Shooglenifty interview - Luke Plumb

Tue, 29 Apr 2008 21:39:25 GMT

Sharon Armstrong:

In a follow-up to her piece on a recent Shooglenifty gig, Sharon Armstrong catches up with the alt. Scottish band's self-confessed "things with strings" player.

Put A Kilt On It: When did you join Shooglenifty?

Luke Plumb: I am from Tasmania and I met them at the Cygnet Folk Festival, the second week of January about six years ago. I did a tour with them and at the end of the tour they kind of hummed and haahed, and shuffled their feet and said. “You know, it would be pretty handy if you were living in the UK, and things kind of went from there.

"People tend to congregate together irrespective of what kind of traditional music they are playing, simply because it is roots music."

Is there a big folk music scene in Australia?

It’s probably not quite as specific and integrated with mainstream culture as it might be in Scotland. Everybody in Scotland has a vague idea of the country-dances and all that kind of stuff, and they know people within one or two degrees of separation that play a traditional instrument. That is not quite the same in Australia. But the flip side is that people who are involved in traditional music are involved in traditional music from all over the world. I think that is partly to do with the multicultural society that Australia has. It has huge numbers of immigrants wanting to preserve their own cultures. People tend to congregate together irrespective of what kind of traditional music they are playing, simply because it is roots music.

You are self-taught. What instruments do you play?

Things with strings. Mandolin. Guitar. Tenor banjo. I’ve got an Irish and a Greek bouzouki at the moment. I am getting a lot into Greek music, so I have a baglama, which is a tiny little instrument, kind of like a baby bouzouki, and a loweter, which is like a big bouzouki. The first day I took my mandolin outside to go busking the then President of the Irish Association was walking by and invited me out to a session, so as an underage seventeen year old I went to a pub and started learning from the source, as it where.

How would you describe your journey from Tasmania to Edinburgh?

It has been, I don’t know, about coincidences, or however you describe things if you don’t believe in coincidences. I don’t believe in fate either but there are a lot of extreme chance meetings. I reckon I am in the right place. The great advantage is the proximity to the rest of Europe, and as result of that proximity to cultures that are very different. You kind of have to go a long way to get out of Australia if you live in Australia. It’s a continent surrounded by a lot of water. I heard the other day that if you rotate the globe to a certain angle then all you can see is the Pacific Ocean. That is one of our neighbours.

What other bands have you been in?

Shooglenifty is my first professionally functioning band. I was in quite a few bands playing acoustic music back home, but there were all kind of take gigs as they come. Certainly not any band that you would claim fame from.

What do you think makes Shooglenifty so popular?

I think it comes down to the personnel in the band. It’s a really tight bunch of fellas. I think that musically there’s something that happens when you have a group of people who are that tight. There are really not artistic boundaries for any individual member of the band. If Malcolm (Malcolm Crosbie, guitar) wants to bring a straight our Led Zeppelin rift to a tune that Garry (Garry Finlayson) banjo and banjax) is playing straight African whatever on and James (James Mackintosh, drums) is doing unashamed Clash drumming to, then that is fine. The sound is a product of six individual people’ musical tastes. Describing it in music terms really kind of pigeonholes it, and that is against the whole thing.

You guys are just back from playing at the Kremlin. How was that?

I was totally blown away by Moscow, constantly impressed by it. It was a kind of trail cultural exchange thing. A well-known band in Russia invited a bunch of their friends to come and play at a type or gala cabaret event. It had sold out around 6000 people; some very wealthy members of Moscow and most of the Government were there. Kind of odd but I think it went well.

Will Russia be part of your next tour then?

Yeah, absolutely. It would be brilliant. St Petersberg. Bring it on!

You look a bit tired.

It catches up. There is a great Indiana Jones line that is in my head because the new movie is coming out. You know when he said ‘It’s no the years: it’s the mileage.’

What a cracker.

"Here we all are, we don’t have any language in common, but the music was our common language."

Do you think that politics and music mix well?

I think it’s in the nature of every musician to be extremely optimistic. You know, it’ll be all right. I’ll make a living. I’ll pay the bills. It’s going to happen. Someone is going to come to the gig tonight. We are out in Sarawak playing at a festival in the rain forest. All the rest of the band is back at the hotel. I got a tune together with some American old time musicians, real hillbillies. We had this tune and there were Bolivian and Chilean refugees, Afghani refugees, guys from Madagascar and these American hillbillies and Brits and Australians all of whom had troops out there and what have you. There was this real feeling of if only it was this easy. Here we all are, we don’t have any language in common, but the music was our common language. We played the night away. It makes you sad but it also makes you hopeful.

What is next?

Most of this summer is going to be taken up in tours of England and Scotland. We have a couple of trips to Canada this year, and a couple to Spain and Portugal.

Amplifico Interview - See Heart See Muscle: part 2

Tue, 29 Apr 2008 21:19:04 GMT

You seemed to be having a lot of fun at your album launch party at Club Ego the other month, how did it feel finally releasing the album? With so many people there was there added pressure on you to perform? Or was it just a relief to have the album out?
It was an incredible relief releasing the record and we did have a lot of fun at the launch party. I was pretty nervous beforehand. I tend to be with gigs of that nature, where the onus is really on us, until I get on stage then everything just slots in to place and I have a good time. We all desperately just wanted to go out and show everyone in the room a good time too.

Would you rather be with a big label, in an ideal world? Or is it working out better being independent? What can you tell us about MDM Creations?
Continuing independently would be nice in an ideal world - having complete creative control is a sacred thing. But sadly without big financial backing, you are much less likely to be able to enjoy and learn from the kind of expertise a major label and its network of people can bring. To have access to the best producers, best directors, best photographers, best PR, best artists via the independent route is a much more tricky one. I have had a few tasters of that kind of environment and its incredibly motivating.
Also if you want to get big exposure to sustain a livelihood in this business, unless you get that lucky break or win the lottery, you have to have a massive money fund for PR which we just don't have as an independent entity!

MDM Creations is a transient record label of sorts that we set up with my Dad to enable the release of the first album until one day we perhaps find a better alternative to release our music!

"If Dave or Ross decided it wasn't working for them, then I'm pretty sure we'd call it a day."

You don't have an official bass player in the band, are you looking for one, or is there no desire to change the dynamic of the group?
We do actually have a bass player. He's just not advertised as official as we've only been playing live and recording with him for about a year now. Amplifico started out with an official bass player in 2004, but we sadly parted ways with him in 2006. Straight after that we tried our best to take on a new 'official' band member on bass to fill his shoes, but it just wasn't happening - we soon realised that what was so sacred about the dynamic of the core line-up was a 10 year friendship and history playing together in different bands. Ross, Dave & I have a very special matured trust in each other that we will not find with anyone unless we play with them for a long time to establish that same trust.

If any of the members of Amplifico decided it wasn't working for them any more would that be it for the band? Or would you look to keep it going with new members?
Well it would probably depend on the circumstances... but right now, if Dave or Ross decided it wasn't working for them, then I'm pretty sure we'd call it a day.

Finally, what is your favourite thing about Scotland? And what's your least favourite?
Fav thing: got to be its beauty. I think its a sin how many Scottish friends of mine have not yet seen the Highlands & Islands, Glencoe or even made a trip to Loch Lomond. These are places to be proud of as a Scot. All the wee fishing villages on the east coast of fife are beautiful too.

Least favourite: Got to be the weather. It's the only thing that makes me consider living elsewhere in the long term. Blue skies and sunshine are the best medicine ever - we just don't get enough, it's not right!

Thanks for your time

No problemo!

Amplifico Interview - See Heart See Muscle: part 1

Tue, 29 Apr 2008 21:15:33 GMT

Neal Parsons:

Amplifico have just released their first album, See Heart See Muscle, and have been touring the country wildly in an effort to promote it. With classical influences to their musical soundscapes coupled with bittersweet vocals and lyrics they're already making a big splash in an over crowded musical pond. Lead singer Donna Maciocia caught up with us on a momentary break form the crazed touring to tell us how it's been...

Put A Kilt On It: First off, how's things?
Donna Maciocia: Apart from recovering from a nasty flu bug, very well thank you! Pretty busy. Currently on a train to Scotland, we're playing a few gigs over the weekend.

Tell us a little about the life that has led you to this point.
Born and grew up in Kirkcaldy, Fife. Started piano lessons aged 8 and hated them! (my 1st piano teacher used to smoke fags and fall asleep in my lessons!) but persisted teaching myself by ear. Met Dave and Ross at high school and joined their band on keyboards when I was 15. Went to Art School at 17 to study animation for 4 years.... Left art school, decided I didn't have patience for the whole animation process... so got a 'proper' job, then packed it all in to move to Edinburgh and start Amplifico! Spent 4 years developing Amplifico, playing hundreds of gigs, meeting lots of amazing people. We've eventually just released our first album.

What things inspire you musically?
Well my tastes and inspirations are so varied I could not list them all here. I like to take a little something from everything. right now I am listening loads to the new MGMT album (isn't everyone!), the new Black Keys album, an Edith Piaf greatest hits and a friend just introduced me to The Shins who I cannot believe I didn't know about till now. They are amazing. I am also enjoying listening to the birds that wake me up in the tree outside my window every morning in my new London home - I haven't had that experience since I was a kid. It's so beautiful.

"I was a pretty die hard Michael Jackson fan. I once camped out on the steps of Wembley for 27 hours to get into the pit right in front of the stage on his History tour."

In my early years, my musical diet for a long, long time consisted of nothing more than the soundtracks to my favourite movies, Disney classics, Motown & Michael Jackson. I was a pretty die hard Michael Jackson fan. I once camped out on the steps of Wembley for 27 hours to get into the pit right in front of the stage on his History tour. Don't know if I should really be admitting that though...

How big a part did your classical interests play in the writing of the music?
My classical interests so far are pretty naive and unexplored, I am no classical music expert - I enjoy what I stumble across and catches my attention. For me, one of the amazing things about classical music as a source of inspiration, is how many rich melodies, hooks and chord progressions can be fitted into one composition. Modern music has a tendency to focus on the repetitiveness of 2 or 3 riffs/hooks. Classical music is such a rich resource for hundreds of these little melodies and hooks that can be homed in on, highlighted and essentially turned into pop tunes! I find that if I can write a 'classical sounding' song entirely on piano that is engaging enough without vocals - there is a confidence that when you add words and a voice it will be even more powerful.

With yourselves, KT Tunstall, and Aberfeldy amongst others, is there a renaissance in Scottish music at the moment? Less derivative, and more personable?
It certainly doesn't feel like there has been a mass emergence of successful acts from Scotland that all sound like each other or the Arctic Monkeys, Babyshambles or Fall Out Boy or the like which is a great thing. Franz Ferdinand, Biffy Clyro, KT Tunstall, The Fratellis, Paolo Nutini etc. all have their own distinct sounds going on. I don't know if I'd call it a renaissance, but certainly Scotland's profile has been elevated in the eyes of the industry over recent years because of the likes of Franz Ferdinand and KT Tunstall breaking through to the mainstream. Since I moved down to London a few months ago, there is a definite feeling down here that music industry eyes are still firmly on Scotland.

What inspired the artwork on the album, I understand you did all of the artwork yourself? Is it specifically related to the music, or is it a separate entity?
The artwork and the music are absolutely intertwined! It was important to me that every single pencil mark in the booklet and on the sleeve actually meant something in relation to the music and the journey we had been on writing, recording & releasing the songs. I like a degree of mystery to artwork too, i felt there was no need to spell a message out and so I went with a very instinctive approach. It's good to leave some things to the imagination. I designed and arranged all the artwork, but due to time constraints, enlisted the help of another illustrator to draw up some of the little drawings on the booklet; his name is Adam Smith. His drawing style was lovely, very cohesive with my own and I admired his sensitive artistic spirit. It fitted in well with the sentiment of the whole project.

Alot of your lyrics would appear to be very personal to you, have you ever written a song that you felt you couldn't let other people see? Or any songs that you have released which you felt said too much, was too confessional?
There is often a degree of vulnerability when first singing certain songs. There are some songs in particular I have found myself performing for the first time, and I am actually shaking on stage singing them, or even in the practice room when singing the words for the first time in front of the rest of the band. It's a strange kind of naked exposure, baring your soul like that. But after a few times playing a song you break a boundary, it's a bit like therapy I guess!

Amplifico's website

The band's Myspace

"Open for Business"? Only if you can get past the traffic cones...

Tue, 29 Apr 2008 19:59:54 GMT

Jenni Cruickshank

Poor Mr Businessman. He can't drive his shiny new Lexus down Shandwick Place, cutting precious minutes off the daily rush-hour commute to work.

And isn't it a shame for all those tourists and travellers, struggling to get to the airport in time because diversions have caused city-centre gridlock?

Well, they get absolutely no sympathy from me. For the past nine months - the grand total time I've lived in Edinburgh, in fact - I've been virtually unable to cross my own bloody street due to “tramworks”.

That's because I happen to be a resident of the road formerly known as Leith Walk.

I say 'formerly,' because with all this digging, drilling and dastardly destruction, Leith Walk is hardly recognisable anymore.

The cute metal pigeons perched at the top of Elm Row are the latest victims of the demolition, leaving only sad little rivets in the pavement as testament to their memory, and the centre islands which ran down the length of the Walk are no more - alongside the trademark cannonball-esque sculptures which were once dotted along them. The roundabout that linked the Walk with London Road is now represented by a circle of traffic cones, which act like the chalk outline of a murder victim; the clock which sat in its centre is long gone.

But, nostalgia for the various artistic paraphanelia of the old Walk aside, there’s been real trouble for the small businesses of Leith Walk too. In fact, owners of several shops on the Walk have formed an action committee, scheduled to meet on Tuesday night. The Federation of Small Businesses is supporting the meeting, after Leith traders have claimed they have been suffering great economic troubles during this “nine-month tram nightmare”.

And I can see why – the currently wrecked state of Leith Walk means that it might cost you more than a couple of quid to get your daily loaf...

Having to straddle traffic cones and scale a series of chain-link fences whilst dodging oncoming traffic certainly makes the daily trip to the shops more interesting, but I can’t say that the thrill of an Indiana-Jones-style adventure every time I want a pint of milk is much consolation for the many near-death experiences I’ve had at the hands of disgruntled Lothian Bus drivers.

Maybe that’s what they should call the next movie: Indiana Jones and the Ruins of Leith Walk. But I suppose the keen archeologist might cause a stir when he dug up the remains of a very similar-looking transport system of old...

Scots descendants trace their roots

Tue, 29 Apr 2008 08:08:39 GMT

Priscilla Jiao:

For a nation of five million people, it’s no secret that the Scots do seem to like to get around.

“There are about 40 million people worldwide who share a Scottish ancestry,” wrote Duncan Macniven, Registrar General for Scotland, for Global Friends of Scotland. He manages the General Register Office for Scotland (GROS), a national online database of births, deaths and marriages where people can buy access to the records’ indexes and trace their roots through their website. “People have bought 277,000 accesses to the site over the last year.”

About 16 percent of their regular 120,000 users not surprisingly hail from the USA, 13 percent from Australia and New Zealand and 9 percent from Canada. These remain the top destinations for Scots emigrants.

Craig Cockburn, a blogger, wrote: “The Scots were looked down upon by the English, Dutch and Germans, who saw them as being less civilized, orderly and less interested in bettering themselves materially through hard work. However, the Scots immigrants quickly disproved the stereotypical views of the English and other colonists by becoming enormously successful in the New World.”

For those who like to travel or know their football, there's barely a corner of the globe that doesn't seem to contain some historic Caledonian connection. Now the long lost descendants of those bold travellers appear to be getting more and more curious about their ancestry. What emerges from their search for their roots is a complex picture with Scots acting as both imperialist oppressor and victim: from the merchant adventurers and British military colonisers to the forced depopulation of the Scottish Highlands throughout the late 18th and 19th centuries. It’s clear that the Scots emigrated across the world for a variety of complex reasons, not always of their own volition.

“Personally, I blame the weather,” said Andrew McEwen, whose great great grandfather joined up as an engineer for British army campaigns in Egypt. McEwen describes himself as British but has been investigating his roots on the site. He grew up in the naval port of Plymouth and now lives in Beijing, China.

The descendants of Scottish emigrants often seem to have got oddly homesick, naming their new homes after ancient Scottish places. And nowadays American couples enjoy donning a kilt at a popular Scottish-themed wedding. The tartan, the kilt and the bagpipes have come to symbolize Scottish culture at Celtic festivals celebrated across the world.

“I wonder what our ancestors would make of it all,” said McEwen.

Lost in translation?

Tue, 29 Apr 2008 07:45:01 GMT

Claire Antao:

I am an Asian. Indian to be precise, and it’s funny how people suddenly change the way they speak when I talk to them.

English is my mother tongue, even though my family is from Goa, the lucky bit of India that was colonized by the Portuguese and not Great Britain - lucky only because our cuisine has Portuguese influence and not British!

This morning, travelling by bus, I wasn’t too sure of my stop, so I asked the driver. He started speaking really slowly, loudly and in broken sentences. However, I’d heard him earlier and he definitely had a strong Scottish accent. The way he spoke to me tickled me so much, besides the fact that I didn’t understand him. I struggled to control myself from laughing in his face. It was hilarious!

I am aware of the distinct accent that many Indians possess. People in any part of the world have an accent and those of non-native English speakers are often very noticeable. The accent of their mother tongue rubs on to their English and you can’t blame these people. Many of those who immigrate here, for various reasons, have to learn this new language, accompanied by a whole new culture and way of life. It really isn’t their fault that English was made the international language. Considering that Great Britain and America, the two dominators of past and recent decades, are English-speaking nations, this is how it is now.

When the British came to India decades ago, the people were forced to accept all things British, as their own. This meant British clothes, British culture and, of course, English.

Indians and many other colonized people have now adopted English as their mother tongue, or at least their second language.

Today in India, it’s tough to get a good job if you can’t speak and write good English. Ironic?

Let bygones be bygones.

The driver this morning probably thought I had no understanding of the language and was just trying to help me. I thought it was funny. But that’s me. To someone else it could have been insulting or hurtful. Stereotyping can lead to cultural friction and misunderstanding between two normal human beings.

Issues like colonisation, racism, inequality and immigration popped into my head much later.

At that moment however, I couldn’t resist. So I replied in the most accented accent ever. The driver was satisfied that he had helped a poor soul. And I enjoyed a spring of laughter on my walk back home.

The global language of music

Mon, 28 Apr 2008 09:08:14 GMT

Jackie Nalubwama:

If Scotland were a musical instrument, it would have been the bagpipe. The longer pipe sticks out like the highlands, whose looming presence humbles Edinburgh.

The bagpipe produces tunes as unique as the very shape of this instrument, which reminds me of a ship.

This music is sometimes mellow and yet melancholic at others. It brings to life the eccentricity of Scotland, a land far away from my home.

With all the beauty of bagpipe music, I still miss the beat of my home drums that possess a tempo like no other.

With drums every part of your body is set in motion; the head bobs to the beat, the hands clap, and the body is seduced by the music into a sway that grows into a dance.

My home, Uganda, can never be Scotland and neither can a bagpipe be a drum. However, in the first week of March, along Princes Street three men attempted to bring the two together, bagpipe and drum.

It was a very auspicious occasion for me, one that would make you believe that Eden, that garden in the creation story in the Bible, actually existed.

The two combined had a smooth touch and a tempo; it was music divine and a feel of home in Scotland.

Interview part two: Neil Marshall

Sat, 26 Apr 2008 12:56:56 GMT

Parker Langley: In the second part of our interview, director Neil Marshall reflects on the horror genre and reveals his plans for a new project in Hollywood.

Q. Have your last couple of films perhaps signalled a move away from the humour of Dog Soldiers?

"I thought some of the outrageous humour in Doomsday was closer to Dog Soldiers than anything in The Descent. The over the top violence and blood and guts is more akin to Dog Soldiers and it's a little more parochial so it's got specific gags to Scotland and the UK that are only intended for this country, like the Tennent's lager can."

Q. Do you think you'll always want to work in the action and horror genres?

"I suppose Doomsday is a departure in that it's not a horror movie but all my films have a strong action element in them and that's something I want to continue. If anything I'd rather be known as an action director who does horror movies than as a horror director. I like scaring people but I also don't want to repeat myself and so I don't necessarily see myself staying within genres."

Q. What are you working on next and would you consider working in America?

"I've signed up to a project in the States called Drive, and if that goes ahead I'll hopefully shoot it in LA later this year so that will be a bit of a departure, especially as I'm not writing it either. I'm curious to explore and try Hollywood as a filmmaker but I don't want to just do stuff there from now on - I have a number of projects that I've been working on for years that I'm trying to get off the ground, some in Scotland, some elsewhere in the UK."

Q. The budget is at a higher level than for any of your previous films - does the whole project need to raise its game accordingly?

"Everything has to raise its game but the issues and the challenges are exactly the same - you've got this script to do and that much time and that much money, regardless of what that money is. Yes, we had longer to film this but we had more to film. So we're always up against it and that doesn't change - the only thing that actually changes is the number of zeros. But I really enjoyed the challenge of
the scale."

Q. To what extent is Doomsday a British film?

"It's almost all American money but it's an all British cast, a British and South African crew so it's more British than something like The Bourne Ultimatum, which won Best British Film recently – I don't see any British element in that film apart from the director. So I'm confident in saying it's got a very strong British heritage. It's also got a British sense of humour."

Q. The film performed disappointingly at the US box office - how did you feel about that?

"I was gutted. Something didn't click, I think the marketing campaign was badly handled and it should never have been released in the States first. It was internal politics and I think they should have held off until after the UK release. So I was disappointed that audiences just didn't seem to get it. It was pretty much marketed as a straight action movie, which I don't think it is, it's a bit quirkier than that. We needed a bit more specialist treatment and it was slapped with a bog standard action movie campaign and dumped on the market place. It's got a very loyal hardcore fanbase out there now, so people who have seen it really love it. Quite a lot of critics really liked it as well, but it splits people down the middle - you either love it or hate it, there's no middle ground. But at least some people do love it as opposed to everybody hating it. It should have been marketed and
released in the same way as The Descent, where it came out in the UK first and a fanbase grew and word of mouth spread. But it is going to have a life beyond the opening weekend in the US - I'm sure it will find its feet on DVD. There will be a special DVD - I've done an extended director's cut which puts back a lot of interesting stuff."

Q. What do you think of the current horror films coming from the UK, the US and elsewhere?

"There's been such a big surge in horror cinema over the past five years, but the trouble with that is while you get a lot more movies, you get a lot more bad movies and a few good ones. But there are always going to be good and bad horrors regardless and it's never going to go away, it's not going to disappear like the western. There's too big a hardcore fanbase and they're very loyal and they
love their horror. I think making films for a PG-13 audience is a problem for horror movies, and that's part of the reason why so many have to be kept on low budgets, targeting the hardcore audience, rather than doing it the other way which is to make a big-budget PG-13 horror, which works fine if it's something like The Others, which is a ghost story, so it's not gory and they can get away with a PG-13 for that. But most other PG-13 releases are just lightweight, it's diet horror. I'm a huge fan of [Rec]. It's not original, there's nothing new about it - it's like 28 Days Later but in a building, but it's beautifully made and such fun. And of course it's scary. And The Orphanage is also a beautifully made ghost story. There's a ton of great stuff coming from Spain at the moment - they're out to make quality movies, and scare the shit out of people, and they're doing it very, very well.

Doomsday is in cinemas on May 9. Read Parker Langley's review here.