One Night in 'Barthelona' - a Junket Diary.

For the last two days, I've been in Barcelona for one of those film junket dealies. As has become customary, here's a weeeeeeeee ramble chronicling events (that being everything and nothing).

Dublin airport at 5.40am. That won't be at all mental. Flight at 6.40am, could do with the extra time in the scratcher... get the taxi at 5am, there for 5.45am, do the automatic check in thingy, straight through, lots of time. Wrong. Arrived in to the almightiest throng of people - all headed to Spain via Aer Lingus. The different "areas" merged into one undulating throng of bulging suitcases, blue flesh and bad shorts. There was one lady in green there to make sense of it all. She was chipper enough considering. "Oh, you've to check in at a desk in Area four if the machine said so.' Unfortunately, after queuing for quite some time, the automatic check in thingy informed me that I'd to check in at a desk. So off to Area 4 I went, to join the longest, most disgruntled conga line imaginable. Only for a matter of moments: "The 6.40am flight to Barcelona is closing, if you are in a queue, please leave it immediately and commence to the desk at the end of Area 4."

I'll spare you the rest of the details. You're all too familiar with them at this stage - although the woman baying "TAKE OFF YOUR BELTS AND SHOES WHILE YOU'RE WAITING (we weren't waiting, we were snaking along at quite the pace) OTHERWISE YOU WILL CAUSE A DELAY. THOSE WHO DO NOT HAVE THEIR BOARDING CARDS OUT OF THEIR PASSPORTS WILL BE SENT TO THE BACK OF THE QUEUE" was a new feature. What I will say though is, if you're buying a sandwich once you go through security, go to Boots. Everywhere else is an unashamed rip off.

An hour later, we were airborne, with an entire male under 18s volley ball convention for company. Excitable. I had the pleasure of being seated beside a middle aged man who seemed intent on not letting himself be comfortable. Seat up. Seat down. Huff. Puff. Mumble. Eye mask on. Eye mask off. Then he admitted defeat, got his laptop out and stroked between each key systematically with a soft shammy he happened to have on his person. It was like staring into the mirror in twenty years time, after the sex change.

Fast fast forward forward three hours to the hotel. Thank yooou, Disney for putting us up in Barcelona's stunning Hotel Arts, if you please. Roof top swimming pool, frighteningly attractive staff, control panels by the bed (Bano Romantico!), and lifts like Caesar's Palace. I had 24 hours in this bliss before I had to interview the cast of The Sorcerer's Apprentice. A dip in the pool was enjoyed - by me; my fluorescently pallid, wibbling limbs blinded the lithe bronzed bodies lounging about. Luckily for them, I didn't stay long; a large Russian man joined me for lengths (AKA negotiating ones way around beached Americans). When he wasn't splashing about like a spooked horse, he was wheezing and heaving into the water, like a waterlogged tyre with a slow puncture. Not conducive to relaxation, so I took to the beach. Near naked men have a relaxing quality - in the right setting, of course. And did I get naked men. Completely naked. Starkers, in fact (I'll spare you the full frontal one). Next stop, a quick trip to Burger King for a Whopper (we were very kindly given a tab, but I didn't want to take the mick - especially given a club sandwich to the room was in the region of 30 knicker. You'll never guess how much it was for this bar of chocolate...)

According to the channels on offer in the room, all English speakers want to watch is the news. BBC News, BBC World News, SKY 'Every fifteen bleedin' minutes' News, and CNBC. OK, so there was Eurosport and MTV. Who'd have thought - after watching rolling news for what seemed like four Groundhog days on the trot - I'd consider MTV a saviour... As it turns out, it wasn't. It said it was in English on the list, but as it turned out, it was German. Badly dubbed German. In saying that, I watched Family Guy in German. In fact, the only thing that wasn't in German was a very old episode of Jack Ass, but, as it turns out, the English was also badly dubbed. In fact, a good 2 seconds behind. Needless to say, an unexpected "Oh, goody!" escaped from me when Tonight With Jay Leno put in an appearance on CNBC (Piers Morgan was on.... with some 11-year-old who's in a film with Selena Gomez... I still watched it). Don't get me wrong, I'm aware Barcelona was outside the window, but there's only so much pigeon Spanish the Catalonians will stand before you start feeling like a complete plebeian.

Speaking of which - to the interviews! We'll have them up next week in order of execution: Alfred Molina, director Jon Turtletaub, Nicolas Cage, Jay Baruchel and the Bruckheimer. Perhaps the Nicolas Cage interivew will get lost in transit... That interview didn't do either of us any favours (although one of us had a film to promote). As for the rest of the talent on display; Molina was a loveable, genial gentleman; Jon Turtletaub was an likeable live wire who was thrilled he was speaking to someone "normal" - i.e. someone who wasn't dressed as a German transvestite witch (more on that in the Baruchel video. But, basically, there's a German journalist who likes to get dressed up as the characters from whatever film he's doing a junket for. I happened to sit beside him at lunch and got a shock when I noticed hairy feet poking out from a pair of silver stilettos); and Jay Baruchel was, and I use this term sparingly, adorable. He even went so far as to offer me a chocolate on my way out. I declined ("my mouth feels like an armpit already, thanks though"), and he laughed. He's nice like that.

Jerry Bruckheimer was, as expected, a highly functioning machine. There was no trace of the 'Hey, it's a free bar, it's a pardeee!' man I met at the King Arthur wrap soiree many moons ago, but I said thanks to him for not bollocking me out of it regardless (for those of you who don't know the story, I give a bastardised recount at the start of the interview - which fell a bit flat. It's fair to say I was gushing - probably because I'd just endured an interview with Nicolas Cage). And Cage, well, he just wasn't into it, which was off putting. So I tried a different route. And then a different one. And then finished on a suitably solemn note... In a word, painful.

With thunder clouds grumbling, the offerings of Barcelona's marina were left in favour of five hours at the airport. Hence this ramble. My case managed to weigh two kilos more on the way back than it did on the way over. I considered chucking the Cage tapes, but grudgingly paid the fee instead. The highpoint was seeing a German man being lead from Departures by 4 police officers who refused to let him know what was going on. The low point was boarding a plane well after midnight which was largely occupied by scalded children and sunburnt babies.

Apart from that, we'd also like to take this opportunity to thank our researcher Caroline Foran for trawling through mountains of information on each of the interviewees.