Venice Film Festival: it’s a dirty job but someone has to do it.

Last year I used to sleep four hours per night. I finished writing my reviews at 3am, slept like a baby until 7am when the sun hit my sofa bed and I had no choice but to wake up and get ready for another day of hard work. This time around I don’t even have a sofa bed. But I don’t care, because going to the Venice Film Festival is always great fun and the average quality of the film is always damn good.

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The clock ticks past 11pm (local time) a I write this, sat at my desk in the deserted studios of one of the worlds more controversial news channels, I sit and think of my previous life – that of Bon Vivant, Raconteur, micro philanthropist, club impresario, and question my reason for living in the desert?

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I guess the first and most important question your asking is who am i and why am i guest blogging this: well im a 26 year old Londoner in a strange situation: Im living in the desert: specifically Doha, Qatar - for those of you like me who didn't pass there GCSE Geography its a small peninsular off Saudi Arabia that sticks out into the gulf, that's right, within an hour and a half flight from here are the worlds hotspots, Iraq, Iran, Saudi, Lebanon.

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There's an old cobbled block of flats in Stoke Newington and although no more than 200 people can live there at most, there are 12 cats. Most of whom never leave the area of the flats, so they act as if they own it.

Which they sort of do. There's a complicated society of these cats, complete with social hierarchy and insecurity. They have replicated human society but, being cats, their society is even more neurotic. It's a salutary lesson to us all - if it all goes to the cleaners then, like in Doctor Who this series, we may end up cannibalising ourselves and turn into these cats.

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