Speaking of not being able to take a piss in London without hitting something artistic, I was out for a walk at lunch the other day and I stumbled upon a film being shot at Marble Arch.

At first I had no idea what was going on but I saw a huge crowd gathered around the square watching something so like any good voyeur I popped over the road with my sandwich in hand. To my pleasant surprise the whole area was tapped off and there was film being shot. The crowd was kept quite a distance away from the shoot but I could see a couple of actors stuffed in a bright red English phone box while the special effects crew simulated a rainy English day with a modified garden hose.

I whipped out my smart phone and started taking photos of the shoot and it was at this point some crowd control guys from the film shoot started yelling at me about taking photos. I kindly pointed out that to the best of my knowledge England was still a free country and they are filming in a public place.

They didn’t like my smart-ass answer much so they called over a police officer from the MET to tell me to put away my camera. “Put away your camera, you cannot film this” he barked.

“Isn’t this a free country and isn’t this a public place?”

“Well yes, but you still can’t film here,” sounding a little less threating. “You see the movie doesn’t yet have a title and if you were to put your film on line you could have problems.”

“Problems?” I asked.

“Yes, you could open yourself up to the full force of Indian copyright laws…yeah Indian copyright laws.”

“Indian copy right laws? What is it, a Bollywood Film?”

“Oh yeah, It’s a Bollywood film but I’m not sure who the actors are but they have been filming here all day…” then a much better excuse to stop me from filming dawned on him “besides this is a crime scene.”

“What? Is the movie that bad?”

“No, a homeless man was killed here last night” he said while point over his shoulder. Sure enough there in white jumpsuits was the crime scene investing team gathering evidence of the murder that took place the night before.

I can’t believe that filming takes precedence over a murder investigation but after all this is London and they take their art serious.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-18660711