So received this email from the Script Consultant website that recently ran the Channel 4 open drama competition. Here's a flavour of the winning entries.

So, for instance, among the successful scripts for this year's Channel 4 course -

- a story about asexuality, based around two couples in each of which one of the partners is asexual. This was a fascinating idea - how some people have no sexual instincts at all, and how this deeply and often tragically affects their lives and relationships.

- a play about an aging male working-class Londoner, a lifelong Labour supporter who finds himself seduced by the promises of the BNP.

- a rom-com about a single career woman who decides to invite tenders from her male friends when she decides she wants to have a baby; and once she gets pregnant, falls in love with someone else altogether.

- a screenplay about two kids, aged 5 and 7, left in South East London to fend themselves for two weeks while their mother goes on holiday to Thailand.

- a radio play about a publishing company who discover a brilliant 'misery memoir' by an Afghan woman, decide to publish it to a fanfare of publicity - only to discover that the 'Afghan woman' doesn't exist and the story is a fabrication.

Seriously? This is what was chosen? No wonder Channel 4 makes a load of absolute crap these days.

What's so wrong with them?

All sound interesting to me I must say!

They all sound potentially interesting. Written by one person they could each be dire, and written by another could be brilliant.

I'm furious my screen play was a load of politically, drivel and it didn't get through.

Isn't the fifth one a true story? Maybe the fourth as well.

The third sounds dire, but I suppose it is one chicks might dig.

The second could be okay if not too ham-fisted and simplistic.

The first, about people not having sex, doesn't sound a lot of fun.

Quote: Timbo @ February 3 2012, 1:11 PM GMT

The first, about people not having sex, doesn't sound a lot of fun.

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I could have written that one.

Quote: zooo @ February 3 2012, 1:04 PM GMT

What's so wrong with them?

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Um, they stink.

No cops, aliens, spies, car chases, machine guns, hot chicks, conspiracies, robots, monsters or explosions.

Dull, turgid, small, pedestrian offerings designed to be watched by a handful of people and then instantly forgotten.

An Alf Garnett rip off (without the jokes), a weak rom-com and a Home Alone rip off (without the jokes). The 'Afghan Woman' isn't so much a rip off, it's just a story copied directly from the news.

Oh and I can definitely see the asexual couples show running for seven series and then rushing out to buy the Blu-ray boxset.

But that was only a one sentence description of each. Like I said they could be terrible or brilliant, depending on how they're written/made.

True though, the way those descriptions are written they do all sound a bit depressing. I wouldn't have thought they would have chosen all downbeat winners though. Some of them could actually be black comedies, but you can't tell without a bit more information.

Quote: Renegade Carpark @ February 3 2012, 1:02 PM GMT

- a screenplay about two kids, aged 5 and 7, left in South East London to fend themselves for two weeks while their mother goes on holiday to Thailand.

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The holiday could be interesting. Any of the BCG women holiday in Turkey?

I think there were 12 winners in total but he only cited these examples as being 'great story telling'. I dread to think what the other ones were like.

Unfortunately, the Script-Consultant guy was the only gatekeeper, so it was down to his personal taste what went through and what was excluded.

So, we will have to wait and see. If any of these turn out brilliantly, I will be more then happy to eat my digital words.

Quote: Renegade Carpark @ February 3 2012, 1:02 PM GMT

- a story about asexuality, based around two couples in each of which one of the partners is asexual. This was a fascinating idea - how some people have no sexual instincts at all, and how this deeply and often tragically affects their lives and relationships.

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Must be Japanese.

A startling number of Japanese youths have turned their backs on sex and relationships, a new survey has found.

The survey, conducted by the Japan Family Planning Association, found that 36% of males aged 16 to 19 said that they had "no interest" in or even "despised" sex. That's almost a 19% increase since the survey was last conducted in 2008.

If that's not bad enough, The Wall Street Journal reports that a whopping 59% of female respondents aged 16 to 19 said they were uninterested in or averse to sex, a near 12% increase since 2008.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/01/30/japan-population-decline-youth-no-sex_n_1242014.html

TTPYO: Incompetent editors who insert spelling mistakes and fiction into reports. No excuse for this kind of f**kwittery.

Quote: DaButt @ February 3 2012, 2:20 PM GMT

The survey, conducted by the Japan Family Planning Association, found that 36% of males aged 16 to 19 said that they had "no interest" in or even "despised" sex. That's almost a 19% increase since the survey was last conducted in 2008.

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The lyrics to Turning Japanese have never seemed less apt.

Quote: Timbo @ February 3 2012, 2:39 PM GMT

The lyrics to Turning Japanese have never seemed less apt.

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I think it's just an urban myth that the lyrics of Turning Japanese are about menstruation.